Dashboard on Red Hat (RHEL) / CentOS

Getting Started

1. clone the tyk-ansible repository

$ git clone https://github.com/TykTechnologies/tyk-ansible

2. cd into the directory

$ cd tyk-ansible

3. Run initialisation script to initialise environment

$ sh scripts/init.sh

4. Modify hosts.yml file to update ssh variables to your server(s). You can learn more about the hosts file here

5. Run ansible-playbook to install tyk-dashboard

$ ansible-playbook playbook.yaml -t tyk-dashboard

Supported Distributions

Variables

• vars/tyk.yaml

Install Tyk Dashboard on Red Hat

Tyk has its own signed RPMs in a YUM repository hosted by the kind folks at packagecloud.io, which makes it easy, safe and secure to install a trusted distribution of the Tyk Gateway stack.

This configuration should also work (with some tweaks) for CentOS.

Prerequisites

• Ensure port 3000 is open: This is used by the Dashboard to provide the GUI and the Classic Developer Portal.
• Follow the steps provided in this link Getting started on Red Hat (RHEL / CentOS) to install and configure Tyk dependencies.

Step 1: Set up YUM Repositories

First, install two package management utilities yum-utils and a file downloading tool wget:

sudo yum install yum-utils wget

Then install Python:

sudo yum install python3

Step 2: Configure and Install the Tyk Dashboard

Create a file named /etc/yum.repos.d/tyk_tyk-dashboard.repo that contains the repository configuration settings for YUM repositories tyk_tyk-dashboard and tyk_tyk-dashboard-source used to download packages from the specified URLs, including GPG key verification and SSL settings, on a Linux system.

Make sure to replace el and 8 in the config below with your Linux distribution and version:

[tyk_tyk-dashboard]
name=tyk_tyk-dashboard
baseurl=https://packagecloud.io/tyk/tyk-dashboard/el/8/$basearch
repo_gpgcheck=1
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1
gpgkey=https://packagecloud.io/tyk/tyk-dashboard/gpgkey
sslverify=1
sslcacert=/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
metadata_expire=300

[tyk_tyk-dashboard-source]
name=tyk_tyk-dashboard-source
baseurl=https://packagecloud.io/tyk/tyk-dashboard/el/8/SRPMS
repo_gpgcheck=1
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1
gpgkey=https://packagecloud.io/tyk/tyk-dashboard/gpgkey
sslverify=1
sslcacert=/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
metadata_expire=300

We’ll need to update the YUM package manager’s local cache, enabling only the tyk_tyk-dashboard repository while disabling all other repositories --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo='tyk_tyk-dashboard', and confirm all prompts -y.

sudo yum -q makecache -y --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo='tyk_tyk-dashboard'

Install Tyk dashboard:

sudo yum install -y tyk-dashboard

Step 3: Confirm Redis and MongoDB or PostgreSQL are running

Start Redis since it is always required by the Dashboard.

sudo service redis start

Then start either MongoDB or PostgreSQL depending on which one you are using.

sudo systemctl start mongod

sudo systemctl start postgresql-13

Step 4: Configure Tyk Dashboard

We can set the Dashboard up with a similar setup command, the script below will get the Dashboard set up for the local instance. Make sure to use the actual DNS hostname or the public IP of your instance as the last parameter.

sudo /opt/tyk-dashboard/install/setup.sh --listenport=3000 --redishost=<Redis Hostname> --redisport=6379 --mongo=mongodb://<Mongo IP Address>:<Mongo Port>/tyk_analytics --tyk_api_hostname=$HOSTNAME --tyk_node_hostname=http://localhost --tyk_node_port=8080 --portal_root=/portal --domain="XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX"

sudo /opt/tyk-dashboard/install/setup.sh --listenport=3000 --redishost=<Redis Hostname> --redisport=6379 --storage=postgres --connection_string=postgresql://<User>:<Password>@<PostgreSQL Hostname>:<PostgreSQL Port>/<PostgreSQL DB> --tyk_api_hostname=$HOSTNAME --tyk_node_hostname=http://localhost --tyk_node_port=8080 --portal_root=/portal --domain="XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX"

With these values your are configuring the following:

• --listenport=3000: Tyk Dashboard (and Portal) to listen on port 3000.
• --redishost=<hostname>: Tyk Dashboard should use the local Redis instance.
• --redisport=6379: The Tyk Dashboard should use the default port.
• --domain="XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX": Bind the Dashboard to the IP or DNS hostname of this instance (required).
• --mongo=mongodb://<Mongo IP Address>:<Mongo Port>/tyk_analytics: Use the local MongoDB (should always be the same as the Gateway).
• --storage=postgres: In case, your preferred storage Database is PostgreSQL, use storage type “postgres” and specify connection string.
• --connection_string=postgresql://<User>:<Password>@<PostgreSQL Host Name>:<PostgreSQL Port>/<PostgreSQL DB>: Use the PostgreSQL instance provided in the connection string (should always be the same as the gateway).
• --tyk_api_hostname=$HOSTNAME: The Tyk Dashboard has no idea what hostname has been given to Tyk, so we need to tell it, in this instance we are just using the local HOSTNAME env variable, but you could set this to the public-hostname/IP of the instance.
• --tyk_node_hostname=http://localhost: The Tyk Dashboard needs to see a Tyk node in order to create new tokens, so we need to tell it where we can find one, in this case, use the one installed locally.
• --tyk_node_port=8080: Tell the Dashboard that the Tyk node it should communicate with is on port 8080.
• --portal_root=/portal: We want the Portal to be shown on /portal of whichever domain we set for the Portal.

Step 5: Start Tyk Dashboard

sudo service tyk-dashboard start

sudo journalctl -u tyk-dashboard 

Notice how we haven’t actually started the gateway yet, because this is a Dashboard install, we need to enter a license first.

host    all    all    <IP_address>/<netmask>    scram-sha-256

host    all    all    <IP_address>/<netmask>    md5

sudo systemctl restart postgresql-13

Step 6: Enter Dashboard license

Add your license in /var/opt/tyk-dashboard/tyk_analytics.conf in the license field.

If all is going well, you will be taken to a Dashboard setup screen - we’ll get to that soon.

Step 7: Restart the Dashboard process

Because we’ve just entered a license via the UI, we need to make sure that these changes get picked up, so to make sure things run smoothly, we restart the Dashboard process (you only need to do this once) and (if you have it installed) then start the gateway:

sudo service tyk-dashboard restart 

Step 8 - Go to the Tyk Dashboard URL

Go to the following URL to access to the Tyk Dashboard:

127.0.0.1:3000

You should get to the Tyk Dashboard Setup screen:

Step 9 - Create your Organisation and Default User

You need to enter the following:

• Your Organisation Name
• Your Organisation Slug
• Your User Email Address
• Your User First and Last Name
• A Password for your User
• Re-enter your user Password

Click Bootstrap to save the details.

Step 10 - Login to the Dashboard

You can now log in to the Tyk Dashboard from 127.0.0.1:3000, using the username and password created in the Dashboard Setup screen.

Configure your Developer Portal

To set up your Developer Portal follow our Self-Managed tutorial on publishing an API to the Portal Catalogue.