Introduction

The Eevee Kubernetes Operator is a custom controller designed to manage the lifecycle of the chat utility bot Eevee within a Kubernetes environment. The operator facilitates the deployment, configuration, scaling, and updates of Eevee by consuming and interpreting Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). This documentation provides a comprehensive overview of the operator’s functionality and how it interacts with the Kubernetes ecosystem.

Key Features

Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs)

The Eevee Operator consumes CRDs that encapsulate the configuration and operational requirements of the Eevee chat utility bot. The CRDs define various settings that influence the behavior and deployment of the bot, including:

  • Bot Configuration: Settings related to the bot’s functionality, such as:
    • Server connections
    • Admin configuration
    • Module configuration
  • Infrastructure Configuration: Specifications for the underlying infrastructure:
    • NATS
    • postgresql?
    • mysql?
  • Integration Settings: Configurations for various service integrations, including APIs, third-party services, and external databases.

Lifecycle Management

The Eevee Operator automates the lifecycle management of the Eevee chat utility bot:

  • Deployment: Initializes and configures the bot within the Kubernetes cluster according to the specified CRD settings.
  • Configuration: Applies updates to the bot’s configuration dynamically without downtime.
  • Scaling: Manages the scaling of the bot instances based on demand or predefined policies.
  • Updates: Seamlessly applies software updates to the bot while ensuring minimal disruption to service availability.

Monitoring and Logging

The Eevee Operator leverages Kubernetes monitoring tools and integrates with logging frameworks to provide visibility into the bot’s performance and operational health. This includes:

  • Custom Metrics: Exposes custom metrics that can be used to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) related to the bot.
  • Logging: Integrates with centralized logging systems to capture detailed logs for diagnostic and auditing purposes.
  • Alerts: Sends alerts and notifications in case of detected anomalies or failures.

Fault Tolerance and Recovery

The Eevee Operator incorporates mechanisms to ensure fault tolerance and facilitate recovery from failures:

  • Self-healing: Automatically restarts failed bot instances and restores the system to a healthy state.
  • Backup and Restore: Compatible with standard Kubernetes backup and restore tooling such as Velero.

Architecture

The architecture of the Eevee Operator is designed to be fairly standard, following the typical Kubernetes Operator patterns.

  • Controller: The primary component responsible for reconciling the desired state of the Eevee bot as defined by the CRDs with the actual state in the Kubernetes cluster.
  • CRDs: Custom resource definitions that serve as configuration templates for the Eevee bot.
  • API Server: The central Kubernetes API server that interacts with the operator to send requests and receive responses.
  • Etcd: The distributed key-value store used by Kubernetes to store the state of the cluster, including the CRDs managed by the Eevee Operator.

Usage

To deploy and configure the Eevee chat utility bot using the Eevee Kubernetes Operator, follow these steps:

  1. Install the Operator: Deploy the operator within the Kubernetes cluster using the files in operator/dist
  2. Create CRDs: Define the necessary CRs to specify the configuration and settings for the Eevee bot instance.
  3. Deploy the Bot: Apply the CRs to the Kubernetes cluster to initiate the deployment and configuration of the Eevee bot.
  4. Monitor and Manage: Use Kubernetes monitoring tools and logs to monitor the performance of the Eevee bot and make adjustments as needed through CRD updates (grafana-k8s-monitoring recommended).