Prereqs

You will need a New Relic account. If you’re not already using New Relic, sign up here to get free, forever access.

To get ready to use Pixie to debug an application on a Kubernetes cluster, we will deploy a demo microservices app named TinyHat.me, a simple API that provides virtual hats.

Working with EKS

Lets download and deploy the Tiny Hats Application.

First run the bash command to download the kubefiles

wget -q -O tmp.zip https://tinyhatkubefiles.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tinyhats.zip && unzip tmp.zip && rm tmp.zip

To apply the exported environment variables, run

cd ~/environment/tinyhats/0-setup
for f in *.yaml; do envsubst < $f | kubectl apply -f -; done

Then, run

kubectl get pods --watch

to see when everything is finished spinning up.

You may notice the fetch service on a Crash Loop. This is completely normal because it takes MySQL a few minutes to spin up.

You’re done! 🎉

tinyhats should now be up and running! All your pods are ready to roll once you see this output from the command

kubectl get pods --watch

tinyhats:~/environment/tinyhats $ kubectl get pods --watch
NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
add-service-6b4466569b-w6blg            1/1     Running   0          67s
admin-service-6fcf54cdb5-p7kkf          1/1     Running   0          67s
fetch-service-68bc9fbf64-87wv5          1/1     Running   2          67s
frontend-service-58bcff7ddd-lhdbt       1/1     Running   0          67s
gateway-service-5dcb66f6ff-949nx        1/1     Running   0          67s
manipulation-service-57679fc544-f4tch   1/1     Running   0          67s
moderate-service-7c859f9f5d-k8h7n       1/1     Running   0          67s
mysql-576f9d87d9-xdh2l                  1/1     Running   0          66s
upload-service-7f57868797-4cmr4         1/1     Running   0          66s

Finally, run

kubectl get services

gateway

Export the URLs associated with the Gateway-Service by running. Make sure to replace <YOUR_DATA_GOES_HERE> with your Gateway Service EXTERNAL-IP from above.

export GATEWAYSERVICE=<YOUR_GATEWAY_GOES_HERE>

Try pasting the URL for Frontend-Service in the browser. You should be greeted with the wonderful face of Bob Ross. Keep this URL handy as you will need it later in the workshop.