NGINX Plus R33 requires NGINX Instance Manager 2.18 or later
If your NGINX data plane instances are running NGINX Plus R33 or later, you must upgrade to NGINX Instance Manager 2.18 or later to support usage reporting. NGINX Plus R33 instances must report usage data to the F5 licensing endpoint or NGINX Instance Manager. Otherwise, they will stop processing user traffic.

For more details about usage reporting and enforcement, see About solution licenses.

Frequently used Helm configurations

Overview

Legacy 'nms' references
Some commands, file paths, and configuration references still use nms due to the ongoing transition from NGINX Management Suite (NMS) to NGINX Instance Manager (NIM). These will be updated in future releases.

This guide provides frequently used configurations for NGINX Instance Manager. To apply any of these configurations, modify the values.yaml file accordingly.

Refer to the configurable Helm settings guide for a complete list of configurable parameters and default values used by NGINX Instance Manager and its modules when installing from a Helm chart.

Use your own ClickHouse installation

NGINX Instance Manager requires a ClickHouse database server for storing metrics data. ClickHouse is an open-source, column-based, high-performance analytics database that allows real-time queries on large amounts of data.

By default, the Helm chart installs ClickHouse, which is enabled in the values.yaml file by setting nms-hybrid.nmsClickhouse.enabled to true.

To use your own ClickHouse installation, follow these steps:

  1. Set nms-hybrid.nmsClickhouse.enabled to false.

  2. Add values for nms-hybrid.externalClickhouse.address, .user, and .password that match your ClickHouse installation.

    Note:
    The nms-hybrid.externalClickhouse field is required when nms-hybrid.nmsClickhouse is disabled.

Use your own certificates

Production Deployment:
This section is recommended for production deployments.

NGINX Instance Manager generates a certificate authority and self-signs its certificates by default.

To use your own certificates, follow these steps:

  1. Open values.yaml for editing.

  2. Add the name of a Kubernetes secret to nms-hybrid.apigw.tlsSecret. The following fields are required:

    • tls.crt
    • tls.key
    • ca.pem

    Example Kubernetes secret:

    apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
   name: apigw-tls
type: kubernetes.io/tls
data:
   tls.crt: |
      <base64-encoded-certificate>      
   tls.key: |
      <base64-encoded-key>      
   ca.pem: |
      <base64-encoded-ca>

Adjust storage settings or disable persistent storage

You can review and adjust the deployment’s default resource and storage settings by editing the values.yaml file in the Helm package you downloaded. Adjust the values to meet your data needs.

Persistent volumes are enabled by default for the ClickHouse database server and the nms-hybrid.core and nms-hybrid.dpm services. To disable persistent storage for a configuration, set nms-hybrid.persistence.enabled to false.

Use NGINX Plus for API Gateway

To use NGINX Plus for the API Gateway, follow these steps:

  1. Build your own Docker image for the NGINX Plus API Gateway by providing your nginx-repo.crt and nginx-repo.key. Download the certificate and key from the MyF5 website and add them to your build context.

    Use the following example Dockerfile to build the image. In this example, we use apigw:<version> as the base image, which you obtained when you downloaded the Helm package.

    Example Dockerfile:

    # syntax=docker/dockerfile:1

# NGINX PLUS API-GW
# NOTE:
# NMS does not publish this Docker image and these are only instructions on how to build API-GW with NGINX-PLUS.
# This Docker build should be performed by the customer using their own nginx-repo.crt and nginx-repo.key.
# API-GW with NGINX-PLUS is needed to enable OIDC.

# Download NMS API gateway Docker image from MyF5 Downloads, https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-management-suite/installation/helm-chart/
# Replace "apigw:<version>" with a known release tag.
# For example: apigw:2.6.0

FROM apigw:<version> as apigw-plus

ARG REPO_PATH=.

# Define NGINX versions for NGINX Plus and NGINX Plus modules
# Uncomment this block and the versioned nginxPackages in the main RUN
# instruction to install a specific release
# ENV NGINX_VERSION 21
# ENV NJS_VERSION   0.3.9
# ENV PKG_RELEASE   1

# Remove any previous version of NGINX
RUN apk del nginx*

# Download certificate and key from the customer portal (https://cs.nginx.com)
# and copy them to the build context
COPY ${REPO_PATH}/nginx-repo.crt /etc/apk/cert.pem
COPY ${REPO_PATH}/nginx-repo.key /etc/apk/cert.key

RUN set -x \
# Install the latest release of NGINX Plus and/or NGINX Plus modules
# Uncomment individual modules if necessary
# Use versioned packages over defaults to specify a release
   && nginxPackages=" \
       nginx-plus \
       # nginx-plus=${NGINX_VERSION}-${PKG_RELEASE} \
       nginx-plus-module-njs \
       # nginx-plus-module-lua \
       # nginx-plus-module-xslt \
       # nginx-plus-module-xslt=${NGINX_VERSION}-${PKG_RELEASE} \
       # nginx-plus-module-geoip \
       # nginx-plus-module-geoip=${NGINX_VERSION}-${PKG_RELEASE} \
       # nginx-plus-module-image-filter \
       # nginx-plus-module-image-filter=${NGINX_VERSION}-${PKG_RELEASE} \
       # nginx-plus-module-perl \
       # nginx-plus-module-perl=${NGINX_VERSION}-${PKG_RELEASE} \
       # nginx-plus-module-njs=${NGINX_VERSION}.${NJS_VERSION}-${PKG_RELEASE} \
   " \
   KEY_SHA512="de7031fdac1354096d3388d6f711a508328ce66c168967ee0658c294226d6e7a161ce7f2628d577d56f8b63ff6892cc576af6f7ef2a6aa2e17c62ff7b6bf0d98 *stdin" \
   && apk add --no-cache --virtual .cert-deps \
       openssl vim \
   && wget -O /tmp/nginx_signing.rsa.pub https://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.rsa.pub \
   && if [ "$(openssl rsa -pubin -in /tmp/nginx_signing.rsa.pub -text -noout | openssl sha512 -r)" = "$KEY_SHA512" ]; then \
       echo "key verification succeeded!"; \
       mv /tmp/nginx_signing.rsa.pub /etc/apk/keys/; \
   else \
       echo "key verification failed!"; \
       exit 1; \
   fi \
   && apk del .cert-deps \
   && apk add -X "https://plus-pkgs.nginx.com/alpine/v$(egrep -o '^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+' /etc/alpine-release)/main" --no-cache $nginxPackages \
   && if [ -n "/etc/apk/keys/nginx_signing.rsa.pub" ]; then rm -f /etc/apk/keys/nginx_signing.rsa.pub; fi \
   && if [ -n "/etc/apk/cert.key" && -n "/etc/apk/cert.pem"]; then rm -f /etc/apk/cert.key /etc/apk/cert.pem; fi \
# Bring in gettext so we can get `envsubst`, then throw
# the rest away. To do this, we need to install `gettext`
# then move `envsubst` out of the way so `gettext` can
# be deleted completely, then move `envsubst` back.
   && apk add --no-cache --virtual .gettext gettext \
   && mv /usr/bin/envsubst /tmp/ \
   \
   && runDeps="$( \
       scanelf --needed --nobanner /tmp/envsubst \
           | awk '{ gsub(/,/, "\nso:", $2); print "so:" $2 }' \
           | sort -u \
           | xargs -r apk info --installed \
           | sort -u \
   )" \
   && apk add --no-cache $runDeps \
   && apk del .gettext \
   && mv /tmp/envsubst /usr/local/bin/ \
# Bring in tzdata so users can set timezones through environment variables
   && apk add --no-cache tzdata \
# Bring in curl and ca-certificates to make registering on DNS SD easier
   && apk add --no-cache curl ca-certificates \
# Forward request and error logs to Docker log collector
   && ln -sf /dev/stdout /var/log/nginx/access.log \
   && ln -sf /dev/stderr /var/log/nginx/error.log

CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

# vim:syntax=Dockerfile

  2. Tag the Docker image:

    docker tag apigw-plus <my-docker-registry>/nms-apigw-plus:<version>
    • Replace <my-docker-registry> with your private Docker registry.
    • Replace <version> with the version tag.

  3. Push the image to your private registry:

    docker push <my-docker-registry>/nms-apigw-plus:<version>

  4. Edit the values.yaml file to configure the Helm chart to pull the apigw image from your private Docker registry:

    # values.yaml
nms-hybrid:
    imagePullSecrets:
        - name: regcred
    apigw:
        image:
            repository: <my-docker-registry>/nms-apigw-plus
            tag: <version>

This configuration specifies the name of the secret that should be used for pulling images (regcred) and configures the apigw image to be pulled from your private Docker registry.