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RightLink automates servers configuration and monitoring. It uses HTTP as its RightNet communication mode and relies on Chef for system configuration. RightLink uses RightPopen to monitor the stdout and stderr streams of scripted processes. Servers running the RightLink agent configure themselves on startup and register with the RightNet router so that operational recipes and scripts can be run at a later time.

Supported cloud types:

• azure

• cloudstack

• ec2

• gce

• openstack

• rackspace (Open Cloud)

• softlayer

• vsphere

Refer to the support site (support.rightscale.com/12-Guides/RightLink/) for up-to-date documentation.

Use the built-in issues tracker (github.com/rightscale/right_link/issues) to report issues.

Maintained by the RightScale Ivory Team

The RightLink agent exposes actors and methods used to schedule the execution of Chef recipes and RightScripts (shell scripts) and perform other server management operations. You can find these actors in the ‘actors’ subdirectory of RightLink.

RightLink retrieves executable bundles containing all the information required to run the Chef recipe or RightScript from other agents. An executable bundle consists of a sequence of Chef recipes and/or RightScripts together with any required data (Chef attributes, RightScript parameters, packages etc.). The exact definition can be found in RightAgent.

Some of the other agent operations that RightLink relies on:

• booter actor:

  • booter/declare: Set the RightLink version number

  • booter/get_repositories: Retrieve the repositories bundle used to configure the server

  • booter/get_boot_bundle: Retrieve the boot execution bundle

  • booter/get_decommission_bundle: Retrieve the decommission execution bundle

• auditor actor:

  • auditor/create_new_section: Create a new audit section

  • auditor/update_status: Update the current audit summary

  • auditor/append_info: Append information text to the audit

  • auditor/append_error: Append error message to the audit

  • auditor/append_output: Append script output to the audit

  • auditor/append_raw_output: Same as above, but don’t append newline character

• forwarder actor:

  • forwarder/schedule_recipe: Request a Chef recipe to be scheduled on this instance

  • forwarder/schedule_right_script: Request a RightScript to be scheduled on this instance

• state recorder actor:

  • state_recorder/record: Record instance state transitions (e.g. boot->operational)

Upon startup the instance agent will first request the boot execution bundle and run it. If the execution is successful it will then tell the state recorder actor to transition to the operational state. At that point the agent is ready to receive requests.

RightLink comes with two command line tools rs_run_recipe and rs_run_right_script which allow triggering the execution of operational Chef recipes or RighScript respecively from within the instance itself. These two command line tools tell the RightLink agent to send a forwarder/schedule_recipe or forwarder/schedule_right_script request to the agents that provide these operations. These agents should in turn call the instance_scheduler/schedule_bundle operation of the RightLink agent with the right execution bundle.

See INSTALL.rdoc for more information

• 1

  Chef is wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home

• 2

  RightPopen is gemcutter.org/gems/right_popen

• 3

  RightAgent is gemcutter.org/gems/right_agent

RightLink

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