Configuring Vista Bridge

Yelena Binkle

September 30, 2021 05:38

💡: Vista Bridge is an API server for Viewpoint’s Vista on-premise application. It serves to give Aclaimant integrations access to our customers Vista instance by adding an API layer. It interacts directly with Vista’s underlying MSSQL database.

This Article Has the Following Sections:

Setting up Docker on Windows
Updating Vista-Bridge Version
Working with the Docker Container
Post setup

Setting Up Docker on Windows:

Set Up Notes:

Docker is required in order to run the vista bridge, Docker can be run on a Linux server or Windows server.
A minimum Windows Server version of 1709 is required.
The following instructions were tested on Windows Server 2019.
Running Linux Containers on Windows (LCOW) is still considered experimental
Docker requires Hyper-V to run on Windows. On a physical machine, this may require enabling virtualization in the BIOS. If running on a cloud provider like AWS/Azure, this will require specific instance types. On AWS, it requires a bare metal instance like i3.metal. On Azure look for HyperThreaded instances like D_v3, Ds_v3, E_v3, Es_v3, F2s_v2 - F72s_v2, M (subject to change, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/acu has more info)

Installation:

Log into your Windows instance with administrator credentials.
Launch Powershell.

Install Docker EE using DockerMsftProvider.

Install-Module "DockerMsftProvider" -Force Update-Module "DockerMsftProvider" Install-Package Docker -ProviderName "DockerMsftProvider" -Update -Force

Select Yes if prompted to install the NuGet Provider.
If needed, restart.
```
Restart-computer
```
Launch Powershell.
Enable Windows Containers Feature.
```
Install-WindowsFeature Containers
```
If needed, restart.
```
Restart-computer
```
Launch Powershell.

Enable Experimental Features.

Set-Content -Value "`{`"experimental`":true`}" -Path C:\\ProgramData\\docker\\config\\daemon.json

Restart Docker.
```
Restart-Service docker
```
Check Docker Info and verify Experimental is set to true.
```
docker info
```
LCOW Setup:

Create Folder C:\Program Files\Linux Containers

cd 'C:\\Program Files\\' mkdir "Linux Containers"

Download the latest release from https://github.com/linuxkit/lcow/releases

cd '.\\Linux Containers\\' curl -OutFile release.zip <https://github.com/linuxkit/lcow/releases/download/v4.14.35-v0.3.9/release.zip>

Expand Archive

Expand-Archive -DestinationPath . .\\release.zip

Delete release.zip
```
rm release.zip
```

Make sure Hyper-V is installed

Install-WindowsFeature Hyper-V –IncludeManagementTools –Restart

You may need to restart after Hyper-V installs. If so, log back in and launch Powershell.

Test docker on Linux.

docker run --rm -it --platform=linux busybox echo "LCOW on a Windows Server!"---

You should see LCOW on a Windows Server! If the above command is successful, you’re ready to install the Vista Bridge. If not, some docker troubleshooting will be required.

Configuration:

Environment Variables
Variable name	Required?	Default	Description
`ACL_VB_API_TOKEN`	true	N/A	The secret API Token that will be used by the Aclaimant system for authentication when making API calls
`ACL_VB_INSTANCE`	true	N/A	Instance name, used for tagging of logs in LogDNA
`ACL_VB_DB_USER`	true	N/A	The database username used to access the Vista MSSQL instance
`ACL_VB_DB_PASSWORD`	true	N/A	Vista database password for given user
`ACL_VB_DB_HOST`	true	N/A	Vista database host
`ACL_VB_DB_PORT`	N/A	1433	Vista database port
`ACL_VB_DB_NAME`	true	N/A	Vista database dbname

Loading and Running the Docker Image (Loading the Tar):

docker load -i aclaimant-vista-bridge-<version>.tar

Initial Run of the Docker Image:

To set the necessary environment variables you can put them in a file or instead use -e ACL_VB_<env>=<value> -e ACL_VB_<env>=<value
Argument -v sets where on disk the search index is stored, useful for restarting and maintaining the index.

docker run -itd -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -v <folder-for-data-on-windows-server>:/usr/vista-bridge/data --name=aclaimant-bridge-<version> --env-file=<envfile> --restart unless-stopped aclaimant/vista-bridge:<version>

An example env-file minimally should look like:

ACL_VB_INSTANCE=<aclaimant’s-customer-company-name>
ACL_VB_API_TOKEN=<generated-secret-token>
ACL_VB_DB_USER=<VistaDB-User>
ACL_VB_DB_PASSWORD=<VistaDB-Password>
ACL_VB_DB_NAME=<VistaDB-Database-name>
ACL_VB_DB_HOST=<VistaDB-Host>
ACL_VB_DB_PORT=<VistaDB-Port>

Docker Image Notes:

-d Runs this as a daemon
--restart=unless-stopped Will cause the container to start whenever docker restarts on the machines, unless the container had been stopped with docker stop aclaimant-bridge-<version>
--name is optional and can be anything; it's becomes useful for working with the instance
sudo may be required before all docker commands; especially if running on linux
-p 443:443 Binds the docker image's port 443 to your local port 443
-p 80:80 Binds the docker image's port 80 to your local port 80

Updating Vista-Bridge Version:

Load the tar
Stop the previous version. Note: this uses the name from the currently running instance; you can see this with docker ps
```
docker stop aclaimant-bridge-<old-version>
```
Start the new version
- This will be the same argument you use in Initial run of the Docker image, just with the latest version for <version>

Working with the Docker Container:

Viewing logs
```
docker logs -t aclaimant-bridge
```
Stopping instance
```
docker stop aclaimant-bridge
```
Re-starting the instance
```
docker start aclaimant-bridge
```

Note: The aclaimant-bridge is the --name from the initial run command above. Feel free to change it in all places.

Post Setup:

Aclaimant and customer will both need the API token in order for the servers to communicate.
Aclaimant will need the IP of the customer's server.
- Aclaimant will create a DNS record on our side in order to communicate with this server.