ArangoDeploymentReplication Custom Resource

Datacenter to datacenter replication is only available in the Enterprise Edition.

The ArangoDB Replication Operator creates and maintains ArangoDB arangosync configurations in a Kubernetes cluster, given a replication specification. This replication specification is a CustomResource following a CustomResourceDefinition created by the operator.

Example of a minimal replication definition for two ArangoDB clusters with sync in the same Kubernetes cluster:

apiVersion: "replication.database.arangodb.com/v1alpha"
kind: "ArangoDeploymentReplication"
metadata:
  name: "replication-from-a-to-b"
spec:
  source:
    deploymentName: cluster-a
    auth:
      keyfileSecretName: cluster-a-sync-auth
  destination:
    deploymentName: cluster-b

This definition results in:

the arangosync SyncMaster in deployment cluster-b is called to configure a synchronization from the syncmasters in cluster-a to the syncmasters in cluster-b, using the client authentication certificate stored in Secret cluster-a-sync-auth. To access cluster-a, the JWT secret found in the deployment of cluster-a is used. To access cluster-b, the JWT secret found in the deployment of cluster-b is used.

Example replication definition for replicating from a source that is outside the current Kubernetes cluster to a destination that is in the same Kubernetes cluster:

apiVersion: "replication.database.arangodb.com/v1alpha"
kind: "ArangoDeploymentReplication"
metadata:
  name: "replication-from-a-to-b"
spec:
  source:
    masterEndpoint: ["https://163.172.149.229:31888", "https://51.15.225.110:31888", "https://51.15.229.133:31888"]
    auth:
      keyfileSecretName: cluster-a-sync-auth
    tls:
      caSecretName: cluster-a-sync-ca
  destination:
    deploymentName: cluster-b

This definition results in:

the arangosync SyncMaster in deployment cluster-b is called to configure a synchronization from the syncmasters located at the given list of endpoint URLs to the syncmasters cluster-b, using the client authentication certificate stored in Secret cluster-a-sync-auth. To access cluster-a, the keyfile (containing a client authentication certificate) is used. To access cluster-b, the JWT secret found in the deployment of cluster-b is used.

Specification reference

Below you’ll find all settings of the ArangoDeploymentReplication custom resource.

`spec.source.deploymentName: string`

This setting specifies the name of an ArangoDeployment resource that runs a cluster with sync enabled.

This cluster configured as the replication source.

`spec.source.masterEndpoint: []string`

This setting specifies zero or more master endpoint URLs of the source cluster.

Use this setting if the source cluster is not running inside a Kubernetes cluster that is reachable from the Kubernetes cluster the ArangoDeploymentReplication resource is deployed in.

Specifying this setting and spec.source.deploymentName at the same time is not allowed.

`spec.source.auth.keyfileSecretName: string`

This setting specifies the name of a Secret containing a client authentication certificate called tls.keyfile used to authenticate with the SyncMaster at the specified source.

If spec.source.auth.userSecretName has not been set, the client authentication certificate found in the secret with this name is also used to configure the synchronization and fetch the synchronization status.

This setting is required.

`spec.source.auth.userSecretName: string`

This setting specifies the name of a Secret containing a username & password used to authenticate with the SyncMaster at the specified source in order to configure synchronization and fetch synchronization status.

The user identified by the username must have write access in the _system database of the source ArangoDB cluster.

`spec.source.tls.caSecretName: string`

This setting specifies the name of a Secret containing a TLS CA certificate ca.crt used to verify the TLS connection created by the SyncMaster at the specified source.

This setting is required, unless spec.source.deploymentName has been set.

`spec.destination.deploymentName: string`

This setting specifies the name of an ArangoDeployment resource that runs a cluster with sync enabled.

This cluster configured as the replication destination.

`spec.destination.masterEndpoint: []string`

This setting specifies zero or more master endpoint URLs of the destination cluster.

Use this setting if the destination cluster is not running inside a Kubernetes cluster that is reachable from the Kubernetes cluster the ArangoDeploymentReplication resource is deployed in.

Specifying this setting and spec.destination.deploymentName at the same time is not allowed.

`spec.destination.auth.keyfileSecretName: string`

This setting specifies the name of a Secret containing a client authentication certificate called tls.keyfile used to authenticate with the SyncMaster at the specified destination.

If spec.destination.auth.userSecretName has not been set, the client authentication certificate found in the secret with this name is also used to configure the synchronization and fetch the synchronization status.

This setting is required, unless spec.destination.deploymentName or spec.destination.auth.userSecretName has been set.

Specifying this setting and spec.destination.userSecretName at the same time is not allowed.

`spec.destination.auth.userSecretName: string`

This setting specifies the name of a Secret containing a username & password used to authenticate with the SyncMaster at the specified destination in order to configure synchronization and fetch synchronization status.

The user identified by the username must have write access in the _system database of the destination ArangoDB cluster.

Specifying this setting and spec.destination.keyfileSecretName at the same time is not allowed.

`spec.destination.tls.caSecretName: string`

This setting specifies the name of a Secret containing a TLS CA certificate ca.crt used to verify the TLS connection created by the SyncMaster at the specified destination.

This setting is required, unless spec.destination.deploymentName has been set.

Authentication details

The authentication settings in a ArangoDeploymentReplication resource are used for two distinct purposes.

The first use is the authentication of the syncmasters at the destination with the syncmasters at the source. This is always done using a client authentication certificate which is found in a tls.keyfile field in a secret identified by spec.source.auth.keyfileSecretName.

The second use is the authentication of the ArangoDB Replication operator with the syncmasters at the source or destination. These connections are made to configure synchronization, stop configuration and fetch the status of the configuration. The method used for this authentication is derived as follows (where X is either source or destination):

If spec.X.userSecretName is set, the username + password found in the Secret identified by this name is used.
If spec.X.keyfileSecretName is set, the client authentication certificate (keyfile) found in the Secret identifier by this name is used.
If spec.X.deploymentName is set, the JWT secret found in the deployment is used.

Creating client authentication certificate keyfiles

The client authentication certificates needed for the Secrets identified by spec.source.auth.keyfileSecretName & spec.destination.auth.keyfileSecretName are normal ArangoDB keyfiles that can be created by the arangosync create client-auth keyfile command. In order to do so, you must have access to the client authentication CA of the source/destination.

If the client authentication CA at the source/destination also contains a private key (ca.key), the ArangoDeployment operator can be used to create such a keyfile for you, without the need to have arangosync installed locally. Read the following paragraphs for instructions on how to do that.

Creating and using access packages

An access package is a YAML file that contains:

A client authentication certificate, wrapped in a Secret in a tls.keyfile data field.
A TLS certificate authority public key, wrapped in a Secret in a ca.crt data field.

The format of the access package is such that it can be inserted into a Kubernetes cluster using the standard kubectl tool.

To create an access package that can be used to authenticate with the ArangoDB SyncMasters of an ArangoDeployment, add a name of a non-existing Secret to the spec.sync.externalAccess.accessPackageSecretNames field of the ArangoDeployment. In response, a Secret is created in that Kubernetes cluster, with the given name, that contains a accessPackage.yaml data field that contains a Kubernetes resource specification that can be inserted into the other Kubernetes cluster.

The process for creating and using an access package for authentication at the source cluster is as follows:

Edit the ArangoDeployment resource of the source cluster, set spec.sync.externalAccess.accessPackageSecretNames to ["my-access-package"]
Wait for the ArangoDeployment operator to create a Secret named my-access-package.
Extract the access package from the Kubernetes source cluster using:

kubectl get secret my-access-package --template='{{index .data "accessPackage.yaml"}}' | base64 -D > accessPackage.yaml

Insert the secrets found in the access package in the Kubernetes destination cluster using:

kubectl apply -f accessPackage.yaml

As a result, the destination Kubernetes cluster will have 2 additional Secrets. One contains a client authentication certificate formatted as a keyfile. Another contains the public key of the TLS CA certificate of the source cluster.

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