Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) - CLI Hands On

• How to connect to PCF from CLI?
  Open your terminal and type cf login -a https://api.run.pivotal.io

API endpoint: https://api.run.pivotal.io

Email: <your-email>

Password: 
Authenticating...
OK

Targeted org techstack

Targeted space development

API endpoint:   https://api.run.pivotal.io (API version: 3.82.0)
User:           <entered-email-id>
Org:            techstack
Space:          development

• How to check where you have connected?
  This cli command cf t or cf target will give you the information about your connected environment.

api endpoint:   https://api.run.pivotal.io
api version:    2.147.0
user:           <Your login email id>
org:            techstack
space:          development

• How to switch from Org or Space?
  Before

cf t 
api endpoint:   https://api.run.pivotal.io
api version:    2.147.0
user:           <Your login email id>
org:            techstack
space:          development

After

cf t -o techstack -s testing | cf target -o techstack -s testing
api endpoint:   https://api.run.pivotal.io
api version:    2.147.0
user:           <Your login email id>
org:            techstack
space:          testing

• How to push apps to your org / space?
  cf push <app-name> ==> if the <app-name> already exists globally on your PCF domain, it would throw an error. Hence use a unique <app-name> when you push.

OR

cf push <app-name> --random-route ==> In this way PCF would assign a random route for your app.

If you do not specify any <build-pack>, it would throw an error. Because, PCF couldn’t find a right build pack for your app.

cf push <app-name> -p target/hello-world-rest-api.jar ==> Here -p —> Path to app directory or to a zip file of the contents of the app directory.

cf push ==> it would look for manifest.yml file at the root of your application folder structure.

• How to view application logs?
  cf logs APP_NAME ==> it would show all the logs in your cf console.

• How to view application info?
  cf apps ==> it would display apps which is belongs to selected org and space as shown below.

name            requested state   instances   memory   disk   urls
hello-service   stopped           0/1         1G       1G     hello-service.cfapps.io

• How to see the configured routes for your applications?
  cf routes ==> It would display the routes for the apps belongs to the selected org and space. You can point multiple routes to a single application.

space         host            domain      port   path   type   apps            service
development   hello-service   cfapps.io                        hello-service

• How to map a new route to an existing app?
  If you would like to add a new Route for an existing application, use below syntax
  Route is nothing but a new host URL
  cf map-route APP_NAME DOMAIN --hostname <your-new-unique-host-name>

• How to List all the spaces for the current logged in org?
  cf spaces

name
development

• **How to List available orgs information? **
  cf orgs

name
techstack

• How to start and stop and restart the application?
  cf start APP_NAME ==> To start
  cf stop APP_NAME ==> To stop
  cf restart APP_NAME ==> To restart (stop and start)

• How to create a manifest file from the deployed application?
  cf create-app-manifest APP_NAME
  The above command would look at the app which is deployed on the PCF and based on the app configuration, it would generate the manifest.yml file at your current path.

• List Droplets of an app
  This command is in EXPERIMENTAL stage and may change without notice
  cf v3-droplets APP_NAME

• List all the services which are attached to your application
  cf services

• How to bind a service instance to your APP?
  cf bind-service APP_NAME SERVICE_NAME

• How to create a service using CLI?
  cf create-service SERVICE PLAN SERVICE_INSTANCE
cf create-service db-service silver mydb

• How to show all env variables for an APP?
  cf env APP_NAME cf env hello-service

System-Provided:
{
 "VCAP_APPLICATION": {
  "application_id": "f03f0b8f-92f9-44cd-bfef-27f9cb14da59",
  "application_name": "hello-service",
  "application_uris": [
   "hello-service.cfapps.io"
  ],
  "application_version": "708d4d2e-dad3-4c94-a9c2-b2d1a72a605a",
  "cf_api": "https://api.run.pivotal.io",
  "limits": {
   "disk": 1024,
   "fds": 16384,
   "mem": 1024
  },
  "name": "hello-service",
  "organization_id": "3a0d67e0-3bd1-45a2-aa55-d9c93d9060d3",
  "organization_name": "techstack",
  "process_id": "f03f0b8f-92f9-44cd-bfef-27f9cb14da59",
  "process_type": "web",
  "space_id": "2269acd4-48c0-4174-9642-3652296a7af2",
  "space_name": "development",
  "uris": [
   "hello-service.cfapps.io"
  ],
  "users": null,
  "version": "708d4d2e-dad3-4c94-a9c2-b2d1a72a605a"
 }
}

No user-defined env variables have been set

No running env variables have been set

No staging env variables have been set

• How to set a environment variable for the specific application?
  cf set-env APP_NAME ENV_VAR_NAME ENV_VAR_VALUE

Setting env variable 'test' for app hello-service in org techstack / space development as ... OK TIP: Use cf restage hello-service to ensure your env variable changes take effect

After this step, you will see your env variable under User-Provider category.

User-Provided:
test: 10

• How to unset / remove a environment variable for the specific application?
  cf unset-env APP_NAME ENV_VAR_NAME
cf unset-env hello-service test

Removing env variable test from app hello-service in org techstack / space development as ...
OK
TIP: Use cf restage to ensure your env variable changes take effect

After this step, you will see your env variable under User-Provider category is removed.

• How to scale your application instance on PCF?
  The below command scale your given application to two instances.
  cf scale APP_NAME -i 2
cf scale hello-service -i 2

• How to install a plugin?
  cf install-plugin LOCAL-PATH/TO/PLUGIN

For more information refer: https://docs.cloudfoundry.org/cf-cli/use-cli-plugins.html

• How to work with Auto Scaling?

  • Enable: cf enable-autoscaling APP_NAME
  • Disable: cf disable-autoscaling APP_NAME
  • List Auto Scaling Apps: cf autoscaling-apps
  • See all the Auto Scaling events for a the specific App: cf autoscaling-events APP_NAME

• How to create a user provided service?
  Make a user-provided service instance available to CF apps
  cf create-user-provided-service SERVICE_INSTANCE

In short you can call this as cups

• How to bind / unbind a user provided service?

  • To Bind: cf bind-route-service DOMAIN_NAME --hostname HOST_NAME ROUTE_SERVICE
  • To Unbind: cf unbind-route-service DOMAIN_NAME --hostname HOST_NAME ROUTE_SERVICE

• How to do a health check for an application?
  cf set-health-check APP_NAME http --endpoint /manage/health

• Setting up Direct communication between Microservices container?
  cf set-env APP_NAME spring.cloud.services.registrationMethod [route | direct] => use direct

If you try to apply APP-to-APP comunication as Direct, also think about the following steps.

cf network-policies => This would display configured network policies.

• How to add network policy?
  cf add-network-policy SOURCE_APP --destination-app DEST_APP

• How to remove the network policy?
  cf remove-network-policy SOURCE_APP --destination-app DEST_APP --protocol tcp --port 8080

• How to deploy Docker container to PCF?
  cf push APP_NAME --docker-image DOCKER_IMAGE_PATH --random-route

• Blue Green Deployment
  Assumptions:

  • Existing running app on PROD (BLUE APP)
  • Done a code change in the current version of the app (GREEN_APP)
    • Create a temp route
    • Push the code
    • Now both BLUE and GREEN are running on different routes
  • Once you verify GREEN app is running without any issues
  • map-route to the PROD route to pointing to your GREEN app.
    • cf map-route APP_NAME DOMAIN --hostname HOST_NAME
    • cf unmap-route APP_NAME DOMAIN --hostname HOST_NAME
    • cf stop YOUR_PREVIOUS_BLUE_APP

Reference:

https://docs.cloudfoundry.org/cf-cli/
https://login.run.pivotal.io/login
https://console.run.pivotal.io/