SideCar Buildpacks

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Sidecar processes

Sidecar processes are additional dependent processes that are run in the same container as the main app process. For more info on these please see Sidecars

A buildpack can specify sidecar processes simply by writing a launch.yml at the root of its deps directory during the supply phase. This deps dir is a combination of the DEPS_DIR and the DEP_IDX. For more info about how these two values are passed to the buildpack interface see understanding buildpacks.

Example launch.yml:

---
processes:
- type: "process_name"
  command: "some-command-to-run"
  limits:
    memory: 10
  platforms:
    cloudfoundry:
      sidecar_for: [ "web", "other process", "blerb"]

The launch.yml document can be interpreted as follows:

• type: this a key that is mapped to a individual command. The web command will automatically be run to start an app after it has been built.

  • Note that it is possible for mutiple buildpacks to write their own launch.yml files. If there are type keys in common between two of these files, the launch.yml writen last will overwrite the previous commands of the same type.

• command: the command that will be envolked in the container, note that container health is tied to the longevity of this command, if this comman ends so too will the container.

• limits: resource limits to be placed on the sidecar process

  • Memory: memory limit in MB

• platforms: platform specific key, cloudfoundry with only read data under the cloudfoundry key

• sidecar_for: this is a list of types that this specific command is a sidecar process for. (remember this makes the health checks co-dependent)

Example Buildpack

This buildpack functions as a supply buildpack, or the non-final buildpack in a multi-buildpack build. It’s only purpose is to write the process.yml file to the buildpacks DEPS_DIR/DEPS_IDX

for a repo containing the full sidecar buildpack described below see example repo.

has the following directory structure:

bin/
bin/supply
manifest.yml # just used to specify id & stack
VERSION

Because this is a supply buildpack, the only interesting script here is supply. Its purpose is to write a launch.yml file to a specific location. bin/supply

#!/bin/bash

set -euo pipefail

BUILD_DIR=$1
CACHE_DIR=$2
DEPS_DIR=$3
DEPS_IDX=$4

LAUNCH_CONTENTS='---
processes:
- type: "sidecar_process"
  command: "while true; do echo hello from a sidecar process; sleep 10; done"
  platforms:
    cloudfoundry:
      sidecar_for: [ "web"]
'

echo "-----> Running sidecar supply"

export BUILDPACK_DIR=`dirname $(readlink -f ${BASH_SOURCE%/*})`

pushd "$BUILDPACK_DIR"
  # notice where we are writing the launch.yml below
  echo "$LAUNCH_CONTENTS" > "$DEPS_DIR"/"$DEPS_IDX"/launch.yml
popd