Learn how to set up a Couchbase Server with Vagrant, Docker and Ansible

For last couple of months I have been working on Employee Scheduling application that use lot of latest technologies like ES2015/ES2016, NodeJS, KoaJS, Couchbase, AngularJS and when you been following my blog you my noticed I been writing mainly front-end posts regarding to this project so it's time to start writing some back-end posts and my plan for next couple of months is to write posts about Couchbase Server, NodeJS and ES2015/ES2016.

In this post we look how to setup Couchbase Server with Vagrant, Docker and Ansible which let us reuse this dev environment for similar projects in the future or if you are working in the team and new person join the project it's really easy to setup dev environment for this person.

• Learn how to set up a Couchbase Server with Vagrant, Docker and Ansible
• Learn how to configure a Couchbase Server with NodeJS and ES6/ES7
• Learn how to set up a NodeJS app using Couchbase Server, KoaJS and ES6/ES7
• Learn how to do CRUD operations with Couchbase Server, NodeJS, ES6/ES7 and N1QL
• Learn how to do advanced CRUD operations with Couchbase Server, NodeJS, ES6/ES7 and N1QL
• Learn how to create unique constraints with Couchbase Server and NodeJS

The code for this project can be found on the GitHub (API, UI) and final app should look like this:

Prerequisites

You need to have installed follow tools on your machine for this project:

• Virtualbox 5.0.6+
• Vagrant 1.7.4+
• Ansible 1.9.4+

Create a directory to house this project:

$ mkdir employee-scheduling-api && cd employee-scheduling-api

Create Ansible Playbook

First we need to install some ansible roles from Ansible Galaxy that we gonna use in our playbook:

$ ansible-galaxy install franklinkim.docker \
                       franklinkim.docker-compose \
                       moviedo.nvm \
                       --force

Verify that ansible roles were installed by running the list subcommand that will list the installed roles:

$ ansible-galaxy list
- franklinkim.docker, 1.5.0
- franklinkim.docker-compose, 1.1.0
- moviedo.nvm, v1.1.1

Let's create playbook for this project (run this command from root directory):

$ touch provision.yml

and copy below code:

---
- name: Install Docker, Docker Compose and NVM
  hosts: all
  sudo: yes
  roles:
    - franklinkim.docker
    - franklinkim.docker-compose
    - moviedo.nvm
  tasks:
    - name: add user vagrant to the docker group to avoid type sudo for each docker command
      user: name=vagrant
            groups=docker
            append=yes
  vars:
    nvm_version: v0.29.0
    nvm_node_version: v4.2.2

The above ansible playbook installs following software in Vagrant box:

• nvm
• node.js
• npm
• docker
• docker compose

Create Docker Compose file

We gonna use docker-compose to create Couchbase Server docker container and it also mean we can really easily link other docker containers in the future.

Let's create docker-compose file for this project (run this command from root directory):

$ touch docker-compose.yml

and copy below code:

db:
  image: couchbase/server:enterprise-4.0.0
  ports:
    - "8091:8091"
    - "8093:8093"
    - "11210:11210"

Create Vagrantfile

Download ubuntu/trusty64 virtualbox box:

vagrant box add ubuntu/trusty64

NOTE: This process may take a while, as most Vagrant boxes will be at least 200 MB big.

Verify that box was installed by running the list subcommand that will list the boxes installed within Vagrant along with the provider that backs the box:

$ vagrant box list
ubuntu/trusty64  (virtualbox, 14.04)

Create Vagrantfile in the root directory:

touch Vagrantfile

and copy below code:

VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"
Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|

            <add code here>

end

Add ubuntu/trusty64 virtualbox image:

config.vm.box = "ubuntu/trusty64"

The Node.js app API, Couchbase Server and Couchbase Server web UI will run inside of Vagrant box so we have to forward these ports to access them from host machine.

Forward port 3000 for our Node.js app API:

config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 3000, host: 3000

Forward port 8091 for our Couchbase Web UI:

config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 8091, host: 8091

Tells Vagrant to sync the root directory so we can edit the code with WebStorm or some other IDE:

config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/home/vagrant/api"

Configure virtualbox:

config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|

            <add code here>

end

Add name that will be displayed in the VirtualBox Manager UI:

vb.name = "employee-scheduling-api"

Set the system memory for the virtual machine (this depends on your hardware):

vb.memory = 2048

Set the number of Physical CPUs to allocate (this depends on your hardware):

vb.cpus = 2

Provision the virtualbox with Ansible playbook that we created in section create ansible playbook:

config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
    ansible.playbook = "provision.yml"
    ansible.raw_arguments = ['-v']
end

The final Vagrantfile should look like this:

VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"
Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
    config.vm.box = "ubuntu/trusty64"

    config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 8091, host: 8091
    config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 3000, host: 3000

    config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/home/vagrant/api"

    config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
        ansible.playbook = "provision.yml"
        ansible.raw_arguments = ['-v']
    end

    config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
        vb.name = "employee-scheduling-api"
        vb.memory = 2048
        vb.cpus = 2
    end
end

Create Vagrant Box

Now that we have created ansible playbook, docker-compose and Vagrantfile, run vagrant up that will create and provisioning default VM box.

$ vagrant up

NOTE: Vagrant will provision the virtual machine only once on the first run, any subsequent provisioning must be executed with the --provision flag either vagrant up --provision or vagrant reload --provision or vagrant provision if vagrant box is already running. The provisioning will re-run also if you destroy the VM and rebuild it with vagrant destroy and vagrant up .

If there have been no errors when executing the above commands, the machines default should be created. The following command would outputs status of the vagrant machine:

$ vagrant status
Current machine states:
default                   running (virtualbox)

Now you should be able to ssh into box:

$ vagrant ssh

and run Couchbase Server:

$ cd api
$ docker-compose up db

NOTE: This process may take a while, when you run this command for the first time as it pull couchbase docker image from docker repository.

Now when Couchbase Server is up and running you can access Couchbase Web UI http://localhost:8091 and manually configured your Couchbase Server instance. In the next post I will show you how to configured API instance without any manual steps just with one simple command so stay tuned!

Full project you can be found on the GitHub.