Deploying Servers

The fastest way to deploy Userify is to choose "Instant Deployment", which provides a simple bash one-line script to paste into your console -- and it really is instant, too.

From there, you can just create your image containing that Userify deployment (i.e., create an AMI if you're using EC2), use a popular configuration management tool like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, or CloudFormation, or even build an RPM or DEB package with your own custom version. Wherever you go, the shim can go too.

Userdata, Chef, or Shell?

Advanced UserData at EC2 UserData input screen at EC2

To install Userify onto a server, we've already created recipes for normal bash installation (at the command line via SSH), Chef, and User Data. (CloudInit is the cross-platform agent that kicks off the UserData script. CloudInit was originally developed by Canonical for Ubuntu and has been implemented so far by Ubuntu, Red Hat, Rackspace, AWS, Docker, CoreOS (compatible), and Digital Ocean.)

UserData Installation

Any platform that supports UserData can accept the CloudInit commands, including EC2, Digital Ocean, and Rackspace.

Amazon AWS AMI on EC2

One of the easiest and most durable ways to install the shim is simply to run the installer recipe (shell script) as provided in the console for your server group, just once and then bundle that as an EC2 AMI for your server group.

For example, run the shell script on your baseline AMI for the web server in your web server auto-scaling group and bake it in, and now all of your web servers will have the same configuration and be ready to log into even if you've never logged into them before.

Amazon Autoscaling Group on EC2

As part of the UserData script for EC2 instances in an AWS Auto Scaling Group (ASG), whether created through the AWS EC2 Console, CloudFormation, Elastic Beanstalk, or Opsworks, is just to add either the entire cloud-config section (for new UserData scripts) or just the runcmd: part of the installation script if you have an already existing UserData script. This will make Userify an instant part of your builds from then on. This also works well with Continuous Integration environments, such as Jenkins and Bamboo.

Other methods

  • OS Package
  • PIP Installer
  • Ansible
  • Configuration Management

Contact support@userify.com with questions or implementation ideas.

About the Shim

Userify's shim (extremely lightweight agent) requires almost no resources and is designed to be incredibly reliable, even if Userify itself goes down. You can even modify the source code for the shim or include it in your internal RPM or DEB packages.

Hack on the shim at Github!

Curious as to how the shim code works? It's only about 450 lines of easy-to-read Python code. Review the code in a few minutes at Github and join us in making it better with your pull request.

How the Shim Works

There are two parts of the Userify installation: creating the agent (readable only by root) in /opt/userify, and setting the agent to start at bootup. Setting the agent to start at bootup is a bit trickier, but the installation process attempts to detect the server type and set it up properly.

Once installed, the shim checks back in every so often to see if there are any updates.

Congratulations!

So, that's it -- you've mastered Userify. If you haven't already, go sign up and give it a try!