Deploying a stateless Go app with Redis on Kubernetes

In the last article, I wrote about how to deploy a standalone Go web app on Kubernetes.

In this article, we’ll go a step further and deploy a stateless Go web app with Redis on Kubernetes. You’ll get to understand how the deployment of multiple distinct Pods work and how two Pods can communicate with each other in the cluster.

Building a sample Go app that uses Redis

We’ll create a simple web application in Go that contains an API to display the “Quote of the day”.

The app fetches the quote of the day from a public API hosted at http://quotes.rest/, then it caches the result in Redis until the end of the day. For subsequent API calls, the app will return the result from Redis cache instead of fetching it from the public API.

Open your terminal and type the following commands to create the project and initialize Go modules

$ mkdir go-redis-kubernetes
$ cd go-redis-kubernetes
$ go mod init github.com/callicoder/go-redis-kubernetes # Change `callicoder` to your Github username

Next, create a file called main.go with the following code:

package main

import (
	"context"
	"encoding/json"
	"errors"
	"log"
	"net/http"
	"os"
	"os/signal"
	"syscall"
	"time"

	"github.com/go-redis/redis"
	"github.com/gorilla/mux"
)

func indexHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	w.Write([]byte("Welcome! Please hit the `/qod` API to get the quote of the day."))
}

func quoteOfTheDayHandler(client *redis.Client) http.HandlerFunc {
	return func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
		currentTime := time.Now()
		date := currentTime.Format("2006-01-02")

		val, err := client.Get(date).Result()
		if err == redis.Nil {
			log.Println("Cache miss for date ", date)
			quoteResp, err := getQuoteFromAPI()
			if err != nil {
				w.Write([]byte("Sorry! We could not get the Quote of the Day. Please try again."))
				return
			}
			quote := quoteResp.Contents.Quotes[0].Quote
			client.Set(date, quote, 24*time.Hour)
			w.Write([]byte(quote))
		} else {
			log.Println("Cache Hit for date ", date)
			w.Write([]byte(val))
		}
	}
}

func main() {
	// Create Redis Client
	var (
		host     = getEnv("REDIS_HOST", "localhost")
		port     = string(getEnv("REDIS_PORT", "6379"))
		password = getEnv("REDIS_PASSWORD", "")
	)

	client := redis.NewClient(&redis.Options{
		Addr:     host + ":" + port,
		Password: password,
		DB:       0,
	})

	_, err := client.Ping().Result()
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// Create Server and Route Handlers
	r := mux.NewRouter()

	r.HandleFunc("/", indexHandler)
	r.HandleFunc("/qod", quoteOfTheDayHandler(client))

	srv := &http.Server{
		Handler:      r,
		Addr:         ":8080",
		ReadTimeout:  10 * time.Second,
		WriteTimeout: 10 * time.Second,
	}

	// Start Server
	go func() {
		log.Println("Starting Server")
		if err := srv.ListenAndServe(); err != nil {
			log.Fatal(err)
		}
	}()

	// Graceful Shutdown
	waitForShutdown(srv)
}

func waitForShutdown(srv *http.Server) {
	interruptChan := make(chan os.Signal, 1)
	signal.Notify(interruptChan, os.Interrupt, syscall.SIGINT, syscall.SIGTERM)

	// Block until we receive our signal.
	<-interruptChan

	// Create a deadline to wait for.
	ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), time.Second*10)
	defer cancel()
	srv.Shutdown(ctx)

	log.Println("Shutting down")
	os.Exit(0)
}

func getQuoteFromAPI() (*QuoteResponse, error) {
	API_URL := "http://quotes.rest/qod.json"
	resp, err := http.Get(API_URL)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()
	log.Println("Quote API Returned: ", resp.StatusCode, http.StatusText(resp.StatusCode))

	if resp.StatusCode >= 200 && resp.StatusCode <= 299 {
		quoteResp := &QuoteResponse{}
		json.NewDecoder(resp.Body).Decode(quoteResp)
		return quoteResp, nil
	} else {
		return nil, errors.New("Could not get quote from API")
	}

}

func getEnv(key, defaultValue string) string {
	value := os.Getenv(key)
	if value == "" {
		return defaultValue
	}
	return value
}

Also, create the following structs in a file named quote.go to parse the JSON response returned from http://quotes.rest/ API.

package main

type QuoteData struct {
	Id         string   `json:"id"`
	Quote      string   `json:"quote"`
	Length     string   `json:"length"`
	Author     string   `json:"author"`
	Tags       []string `json:"tags"`
	Category   string   `json:"category"`
	Date       string   `json:"date"`
	Permalink  string   `json:"parmalink"`
	Title      string   `json:"title"`
	Background string   `json:"Background"`
}

type QuoteResponse struct {
	Success  APISuccess   `json:"success"`
	Contents QuoteContent `json:"contents"`
}

type QuoteContent struct {
	Quotes    []QuoteData `json:"quotes"`
	Copyright string      `json:"copyright"`
}

type APISuccess struct {
	Total string `json:"total"`
}

Let’s now build and run the app locally:

$ go build
$ ./go-redis-kubernetes
2019/07/28 13:32:05 Starting Server

$ curl localhost:8080
Welcome! Please hit the `/qod` API to get the quote of the day.

$ curl localhost:8080/qod
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Containerizing the Go app

Let’s now containerize our Go app by creating a Dockerfile with the following configurations:

# Dockerfile References: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/

# Start from the latest golang base image
FROM golang:latest as builder

# Add Maintainer Info
LABEL maintainer="Rajeev Singh <rajeevhub@gmail.com>"

# Set the Current Working Directory inside the container
WORKDIR /app

# Copy go mod and sum files
COPY go.mod go.sum ./

# Download all dependencies. Dependencies will be cached if the go.mod and go.sum files are not changed
RUN go mod download

# Copy the source from the current directory to the Working Directory inside the container
COPY . .

# Build the Go app
RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux go build -a -installsuffix cgo -o main .


######## Start a new stage from scratch #######
FROM alpine:latest  

RUN apk --no-cache add ca-certificates

WORKDIR /root/

# Copy the Pre-built binary file from the previous stage
COPY --from=builder /app/main .

# Expose port 8080 to the outside world
EXPOSE 8080

# Command to run the executable
CMD ["./main"]

Check out the article Building Docker Containers for Go Applications to learn more about how to containerize a Go app.

I’ve already built and published the docker image for our app on docker hub. You can use the following commands to do so -

# Build the image
$ docker build -t go-redis-kubernetes .

# Tag the image
$ docker tag go-redis-kubernetes callicoder/go-redis-app:1.0.0

# Login to docker with your docker Id
$ docker login
Login with your Docker ID to push and pull images from Docker Hub. If you don\'t have a Docker ID, head over to https://hub.docker.com to create one.
Username (callicoder): callicoder
Password:
Login Succeeded

# Push the image to docker hub
$ docker push callicoder/go-redis-app:1.0.0

Creating the Kubernetes deployment and service manifest for Redis

Let’s now create the configuration for deploying our Redis app on Kubernetes. We’ll need to create a deployment for managing the Redis instance and a Service to proxy traffic from our Go app to the Redis Pod.

Create a folder called deployments inside the project’s root directoy to store all the deployment manifests. And then, create a file called redis-master.yml with the following configurations:

type: post
---
apiVersion: apps/v1  # API version
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: redis-master # Unique name for the deployment
  labels:
    app: redis       # Labels to be applied to this deployment
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:     # This deployment applies to the Pods matching these labels
      app: redis
      role: master
      tier: backend
  replicas: 1        # Run a single pod in the deployment
  template:          # Template for the pods that will be created by this deployment
    metadata:
      labels:        # Labels to be applied to the Pods in this deployment
        app: redis
        role: master
        tier: backend
    spec:            # Spec for the container which will be run inside the Pod.
      containers:
      - name: master
        image: redis
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 100Mi
        ports:
        - containerPort: 6379
type: post
---        
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service        # Type of Kubernetes resource
metadata:
  name: redis-master # Name of the Kubernetes resource
  labels:            # Labels that will be applied to this resource
    app: redis
    role: master
    tier: backend
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 6379       # Map incoming connections on port 6379 to the target port 6379 of the Pod
    targetPort: 6379
  selector:          # Map any Pod with the specified labels to this service
    app: redis
    role: master
    tier: backend

The redis-master Service is only accessible within the container cluster because the default type for a Service is ClusterIP. ClusterIP provides a single IP address for the set of Pods the Service is pointing to. This IP address is accessible only within the cluster.

Kubernetes deployment manifest for the Go app

Let’s now create a deployment and a service for our Go app. We’ll run 3 Pods for the Go app and the Pods will be exposed via a Service to the outside world:

type: post
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment                 # Type of Kubernetes resource
metadata:
  name: go-redis-app             # Unique name of the Kubernetes resource
spec:
  replicas: 3                    # Number of pods to run at any given time
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: go-redis-app          # This deployment applies to any Pods matching the specified label
  template:                      # This deployment will create a set of pods using the configurations in this template
    metadata:
      labels:                    # The labels that will be applied to all of the pods in this deployment
        app: go-redis-app 
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: go-redis-app
        image: callicoder/go-redis-app:1.0.0 
        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 100Mi
        ports:
          - containerPort: 8080  # Should match the port number that the Go application listens on    
        env:                     # Environment variables passed to the container
          - name: REDIS_HOST
            value: redis-master
          - name: REDIS_PORT
            value: "6379"    
type: post
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service                    # Type of kubernetes resource
metadata:
  name: go-redis-app-service     # Unique name of the resource
spec:
  type: NodePort                 # Expose the Pods by opening a port on each Node and proxying it to the service.
  ports:                         # Take incoming HTTP requests on port 9090 and forward them to the targetPort of 8080
  - name: http
    port: 9090
    targetPort: 8080
  selector:
    app: go-redis-app            # Map any pod with label `app=go-redis-app` to this service

The Golang app can communicate with Redis using the hostname redis-master. This is automatically resolved by Kubernetes to point to the IP address of the service redis-master.

Deploying the Go app and Redis on Kubernetes

We’ll deploy the Go web app and Redis on a local kubernetes cluster created using Minikube.

Please install Minikube and Kubectl if you haven’t installed them already. Check out the Kubernetes official documentation for instructions.

Start a Kubernetes cluster using minikube

$ minikube start

Deploy Redis

$ kubectl apply -f deployments/redis-master.yml
deployment.apps/redis-master created
service/redis-master created

$ kubectl get pods
NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
redis-master-7b44998456-pl8h9   1/1     Running   0          34s

Deploy the Go app

$ kubectl apply -f deployments/go-redis-app.yml
deployment.apps/go-redis-app created
service/go-redis-app-service created

$ kubectl get pods
NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
go-redis-app-57b7d4d4cd-fkddw   1/1     Running   0          27s
go-redis-app-57b7d4d4cd-l9wg9   1/1     Running   0          27s
go-redis-app-57b7d4d4cd-m9t8b   1/1     Running   0          27s
redis-master-7b44998456-pl8h9   1/1     Running   0          82s

Accessing the application

The Go app is exposed as NodePort via the service. You can get the service URL using minikube like this -

$ minikube service go-redis-app-service --url
http://192.168.99.100:30435

You can use the above endpoint to access the application:

$ curl http://192.168.99.100:30435
Welcome! Please hit the `/qod` API to get the quote of the day.

$  curl http://192.168.99.100:30435/qod
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Conclusion

In this article, you learned how to deploy a stateless Go web app with Redis on a local Kubernetes cluster created using Minikube. You can find the complete code in the following Github repository.