Introduction
The purpose of this Lab is to introduce NGINX Instance Manager. NGINX Instance Manager is designed to make NGINX even easier to configure, use and maintain. We designed it from the ground up to be in line with the experience you expect from NGINX (small, lightweight, fast). NGINX Instance Manager is our latest product offerring and the lab is designed to showcase how to get started with it and what it can do.
NGINX Instance Manager is focused on using existing NGINX instances and the concepts in this lab can be applied to production environments.
Background
NGINX and NGINX Plus itself uses a native configuration lanugage (“NCL”) that leverages the linux flat file and directory structure. A main nginx.conf file will have multiple includes that typically will be in directories. This allows shared configurations and isolation for individual instances. NGINX can also be deployed on many different form factors and integrates well into CI/CD pipelines.
NGINX has become a very popular application and is the most used web server on the internet today. NGINX Instance Manager extends the existing functionality of NGINX by adding an API, metrics and Analyzer functionality. It is a native NGINX management solution.
Overview
This Lab guide will help you complete the following:
Utilize the scanner function in NGINX Instance Manager to discover new instances.
Deploy the nginx-agent to existing NGINX instances.
Manage configurations of NGINX instances and utilize NGINX Analyzer for suggestions.
Display the metrics of NGINX instances.
Explore the API of NGINX Instance Manager.
Lab Goals
During this lab you will make use of NGINX Instance Manager to discover, manage and produce metrics for NGINX Open Source and NGINX Plus instances.
Getting Started
The NSM Host is the instance that provides the NGINX Instance Manager API, metrics endpoint and user interface to use. It also functions as the reciever for the nginx-agent component on the NGINX instances. Run all lab activities from the nginx-manager unless specified
Lab Topology and Credentials
The NGINX machines are there to provide a cross section of installation options.
NGINX Instances (WIP):
Instance |
FQDN |
OS |
NGINX |
OSS-Centos |
nginx5.f5demolab.com |
Centos 7 |
Open Source |
OSS-Ubuntu |
nginx6.f5demolab.com |
Ubuntu 18.04 |
Open Source |
Plus-Ubuntu |
nginx7.f5demolab.com |
Ubuntu 18.04 |
Plus |
Plus-Centos |
nginx8.f5demolab.com |
Centos 7 |
Plus |
Expected time to complete: 1 hour, 30 minutes
A listing of the modules for this class is listed below. This same list is also available on the left column of every page for direct access.