This document describes how to start the toolkit container and access its command-line tools for configuring and managing the OX App Suite stack.

Prerequisites

• Access to the Kubernetes cluster
• A ready-to-use configured kubectl

Start

App Suite comes with a Kubernetes Deployment for the Toolkit Container, which is scaled down to zero replicas by default when starting. Therefore, no Toolkit Container is running by default. If you want to start a Toolkit Container, scale the Toolkit Container Deployment's replica to 1, and Kubernetes will schedule and start a new Pod for the Toolkit Container.

Deployment:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
[...]
spec:
  # Increase the replica count of the deployment to start a Toolkit Container.
  replicas: 0

Use kubectl to scale the deployment:

kubectl scale --namespace <namespace> deployment <deployment-name> --replicas=1

Access

List the available Toolkit Container pods after the deployment has been scaled:

kubectl get pods --namespace <namespace> -l app.kubernetes.io/name=appsuite-toolkit

Enter a Toolkit Container pod by specifying its pod name:

kubectl exec -it --namespace <namespace> <pod> -- bash

Once you've started a shell in the Toolkit Container, you will find the command-line tools for configuring and debugging the OX App Suite stack. Every tool documents itself, either via its --help flag or via its man page:

mwctl --help
man oxsr

See the Tools section for the full command reference, and Recipes for step-by-step guides.

Stop

The Toolkit Container is not needed while you are not working with it. Scale the deployment back to zero replicas when you are done:

kubectl scale --namespace <namespace> deployment <deployment-name> --replicas=0