Building a Docker Image for Deploying NGINX Management Suite Without Helm

Fabrizio FiorucciSolutions Architect

Earlier this year we introduced NGINX Management Suite as our new control plane for NGINX software solutions, enabling you to configure, scale, secure and monitor user applications and REST APIs on the NGINX data plane from a single pane of glass.

NGINX Management Suite has a modular design: at its core is the Instance Manager module, which provides tracking, configuration, and visibility for your entire fleet of NGINX Open Source and NGINX Plus instances. As of this writing, API Connectivity Manager is the other available module, used to manage and orchestrate NGINX Plus running as an API gateway.

NGINX Management Suite can run on bare metal, as a Linux virtual machine, or containerized. The recommended way to deploy it on Kubernetes is using the Helm chart we provide, but for specific purposes you might need to build your own Docker image and manage its lifecycle through a custom CI/CD pipeline that doesn’t necessarily rely on Helm.

[Editor – This post was updated in February 2023 to fully automate the process of building the Docker image.]

Prerequisites

We provide a GitHub repository of the resources you need to create a Docker image for NGINX Management Suite, with support for these versions of Instance Manager and API Connectivity Manager:

• Instance Manager 2.4.0+
• API Connectivity Manager 1.0.0+
• Security Monitoring 1.0.0+

To build the Docker image, you need:

• A Linux host (bare metal or VM)
• Docker 20.10+
• A private registry to which you can push the target Docker image
• A subscription (or 30-day free trial) for NGINX Management Suite

To run the Docker image, you need:

• A running Kubernetes cluster
• kubectl with access to the Kubernetes cluster
• A subscription (or 30-day free trial) for the NGINX Ingress Controller based on NGINX Plus

Building the Docker Image

Follow these instructions to build the Docker image.

Note: We have made every effort to accurately represent the NGINX Management Suite UI at the time of publication, but the UI is subject to change. Use these instructions as a reference and adapt them to the current UI as necessary.

1. Clone the GitHub repository:[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop
2. Change to the build directory:[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop
3. Run docker ps to verify that Docker is running and then run the buildNIM.sh script to build the Docker image. The ‑i option sets the automated build mode, ‑C and ‑K are required options which name the NGINX Management Suite certificate and key respectively, and the ‑t option specifies the location and name of the private registry to which the image is pushed. [@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop

Running NGINX Management Suite on Kubernetes

Follow these instructions to prepare the Deployment manifest and start NGINX Management Suite on Kubernetes.

1. Base64‑encode the NGINX Management Suite license you downloaded in Step 4 of the previous section, and copy the output to the clipboard:[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop
2. Using your favorite editor, open manifests/1.nginx-nim.yaml and make the following changes:
   • In the spec.template.spec.containers section, replace the default image name (your.registry.tld/nginx-nim2:tag) with the Docker image name you specified with the ‑t option in Step 3 of the previous section (in our case, registry.ff.lan:31005/nginx-nms:2.5.1):[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop
   • In the spec.template.spec.containers.env section, configure authentication credentials by making these substitutions in the value field for each indicated name:[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop
     • NIM_USERNAME – (Optional) Replace the default admin with an admin account name.
     • NIM_PASSWORD – (Required) Replace the default nimadmin with a strong password.
     • NIM_LICENSE – (Required) Replace the default <BASE64_ENCODED_LICENSE_FILE> with the base64‑encoded license you generated in Step 1 above.
3. Check and modify files under manifests/certs to customize the TLS certificate and key used for TLS offload by setting the FQDN you want to use. By default, the nimDockerStart.sh startup script publishes the containerized NGINX Management Suite through NGINX Ingress Controller.
4. Optionally, edit manifests/3.vs.yaml and customize the hostnames used to reach NGINX Management Suite.
5. Run nimDockerStart.sh to start NGINX Management Suite in your Kubernetes cluster. As indicated in the trace, it runs as the nginx-nim2 pod. The script also initializes pods for ClickHouse as the backend database and Grafana for analytics visualization. For more information, see the README at the GitHub repo.[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop
6. Verify that three pods are now running:[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "codeBlock", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop

Accessing NGINX Management Suite

To access NGINX Management Suite, navigate in a browser to https://nim2.f5.ff.lan (or the alternate hostname you set in Step 4 of the previous section). Log in using the credentials you set in Step 2 of the previous section.

Stopping NGINX Management Suite

To stop and remove the Docker instance of NGINX Management Suite, run this command:

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Get Started

To try out the NGINX solutions discussed in this post, start a 30-day free trial today or contact us to discuss your use cases:

• NGINX Management Suite
• NGINX Ingress Controller based on NGINX Plus

About the Author

Fabrizio FiorucciSolutions Architect

More blogs by Fabrizio Fiorucci