Webapp administration

The rudder-jetty service, usually called the Rudder webapp, is part of the rudder-server package and runs on Rudder servers only. It provides the Web interface of Rudder, its HTTP API, computes the policies to apply and handles reports and inventories from nodes (but does not communicate directly with them, but only through relay services, namely apache2/httpd, rudder-relay and rudder-cf-serverd).

It is implemented in Scala, runs in a JVM and embeds a Jetty application server.

It has three main data stores:

  • A local Git repository (/var/rudder/configuration-repository) containing the policy definitions

  • A PostgreSQL database storing policies and compliance data

  • A local LDAP database (the rudder-slapd service) storing node inventories

Configuration

Webapp base configuration is stored in /opt/rudder/etc/rudder-web.properties, with default values and comments explaining the settings. It uses a key-value structure following the ".properties" format.

This configuration can be edited directly or overridden (starting from 7.2) with files in /opt/rudder/etc/rudder-web.properties.d. Only files with extension .properties, .prop and .config will be taken into account. The overriding is done by sorting files in lexicographical order so that values of properties in the last file are used.

Example

The base default configuration contains:

rudder.auth.provider=file

To override this value can add an /opt/rudder/etc/rudder-web.properties.d/10-ldap-auth.properties file containing:

rudder.auth.provider=ldap,file

Then this value would be used instead of the default.

But if you also have a /opt/rudder/etc/rudder-web.properties.d/60-custom-ldap.properties file containing

rudder.auth.provider=ldap

Then it’s this value that will be used (as it has higher priority due to override file name ordering).

Application server (Jetty) configuration

A part of the application configuration (especially HTTP related items) is configured in a different location, /opt/rudder/etc/rudder-jetty-base/. You can learn more about the usage of the Jetty application server in the dedicated section.

In particular, to set the maximum size of file uploads on the server (used for shared files and technique resources uploads), add these lines at the end of /opt/rudder/etc/rudder-jetty-base/start.ini:

# 100MB
-Dorg.eclipse.jetty.server.Request.maxFormContentSize=1048576

Or for the maximum number of keys in HTTP forms:

-Dorg.eclipse.jetty.server.Request.maxFormKeys=200

Then restart the application with systemctl restart rudder-jetty for these settings to take effect.

Data files

The webapp is loaded from /opt/rudder/share/webapp/rudder.war.

It’s main data directories are:

  • /var/rudder/inventories (on on simple relays): to forward inventories to upstream relay or root server. On root server, the webapp monitors this folder directly.

  • /var/rudder/shared/: policy files for the nodes, generated by the webapp

  • /var/rudder/configuration-repository: git repository containing the policy definitions (groups, directives, techniques, etc.)

HTTP

The webapp exposes its HTTP interface (Web+API) on http://localhost:8080/, and is served by an apache httpd reverse proxy configuration.

See the API documentation for more information about the API.

Logging

The webapp outputs its logs directly into /var/log/rudder/webapp, and handles daily log file rotation itself. The files names have a /var/log/rudder/webapp/YEAR_MONTH_DAY.stderrout.log format.

The log levels are configurable in /opt/rudder/etc/logback.xml.

The logging configuration changes are detected and applied automatically and there is no need to reload or restart the service.

Performance

See the dedicated page for configuration advice to you webapp’s performance.

Monitoring

Status

You can use Rudder’s status HTTP API to check if the Webapp is running correctly:

# Locally on the server, directly calling the service HTTP interface
curl --header @/var/rudder/run/api-token-header http://127.0.0.1:8080/rudder/api/latest/system/status
# Remotely with a dedicated API token, through reverse proxy
curl --header "X-API-Token: MY_TOKEN" https://rudder.example.com/rudder/api/latest/system/status

Gives:

{
  "action": "getStatus",
  "result": "success",
  "data": {
    "global": "OK"
  }
}

See the API documentation for details.

Healthcheck

The health check API can also be used to monitor more possible problem (expired licenses, low disk space, etc.)

curl --header "X-API-Token: yourToken" "https://rudder.example.com/rudder/api/latest/system/healthcheck"
{
  "result": "success",
  "action": "getHealthcheckResult",
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "RAM available",
      "msg": "Only 2GB of RAM left",
      "status": "Critical"
    }
  ]
}

See the API documentation for details.


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