Pineapple Networks (moved to https://gitlab.com/drakemp)

Youtube: https://youtu.be/5N_ltwRUuec

Used Services

AWS

• EC2
• DynamoDB
• Simple System Manager
• Lambda
• ALB

Non-AWS

• Python Flask
• Docker

Overview

This website lets you spin-up containers, create network switches, and test software or tools that normally require a multi-machine setup.

Website for creating virtual network environments

`index.py` is the flask server that can be run to interact with site. The server triggers lambda functions (source in `/lambda-functions`) that interacts with the specified container running docker. The containers and networks are created and removed from lambda functions that use the Simple System Manager (SSM) service in AWS. Cloudwatch and SSM are very useful for debugging with these services. The containers that get spun up are all using the docker image: rahmanusta/cloudterm. The users and session Ids are stored in DynamoDB. Lastly I used the Application Load Balancer service to scale the front end of the site.

Setting up

I used two EC2 instances as a foundation for the site. One for the Front end running the flask server. The other as the back end running the Docker containers. The front end needs an IAM role with the permissions for using lambda and Dynamodb. The lambda functions need a role with permission to use SSM, and the EC2 back end also needs permission to accept SSM commands.

Once the EC2 set up and IAM roles created, the lambda functions can be created. SSM is slow and lambda is fast so a timed delay is needed inside the lambda to get the status of the ran command, this also means to increase the timeout for lambda to at least 5 seconds or more. After that, Dynamodb just needs two tables, One named `users` and the other `sessions`.

An ALB can be used to increase scalability. Add the front end to a target group and create the ALB. Mine is called `pineapple-networks`. Then the site can be accessed with the load balancer’s DNS link.

Future Changes

I want to make this completely serverless using API Gateway and S3 on top of services already being used. Fix all the bugs, and make a proper user database that is secure. Lastly I would like to make an SSH websocket client with terminal window. This would allow for various containers or Dockerfiles to be uploaded and used instead of only using the cloudterm container.