{"id":2167,"date":"2015-08-30T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/reallifecode\/index.php\/2015\/08\/30\/deploying-flynn-clusters-on-azure\/"},"modified":"2020-03-18T16:43:18","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T23:43:18","slug":"deploying-flynn-clusters-on-azure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/ise\/deploying-flynn-clusters-on-azure\/","title":{"rendered":"Deploying Flynn Clusters on Azure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flynn is a next-generation PaaS (Platform as a Service) solution that can deploy, run, and scale both twelve-factor apps as well as stateful services. The company behind Flynn (which is also named Flynn) recently joined Y Combinator and is moving fast with bold goals: \u201cFlynn deploys apps, scales apps, and manages databases with best practices right out of the box. Automatically doing all the things that were too complicated, expensive, or time consuming to do manually. And because it\u2019s open source, modular, and built on a set of core APIs, it\u2019s easy to extend or customize to any environment or need. Flynn is simply the easiest, most powerful way to run and scale your applications\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pretty bold statement, but we can attest that the team behind Flynn cares about quality like few others – over the course of a few weeks, we worked together to add Microsoft Azure as a target to Flynn\u2019s installation tool<\/a>. More than 5,000 lines of Go code were written so that others are able to spin up intelligent infrastructure for their apps in a few clicks. Let\u2019s take it for a ride!<\/p>\n

\"Flynn's<\/p>\n

Running the Installer<\/h3>\n

Flynn comes with a fancy command line client, available for both Windows, OS X, and Linux. On Windows, make use of your PowerShell by installing the Windows CLI:<\/p>\n

\n
(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https:\/\/dl.flynn.io\/cli.ps1') | iex\r\n\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
On OS X or Linux, curl the CLI straight to your bin folder:<\/p>\n
\n
L=\/usr\/local\/bin\/flynn && curl -sSL -A \"`uname -sp`\" https:\/\/dl.flynn.io\/cli | zcat >$L && chmod +x $L\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
Using your freshly installed command line client, run flynn install<\/code> to start the installer. A browser window should pop up, pointing to localhost<\/code>.<\/p>\n
Wait, Localhost?<\/h4>\n
This is a big thing: All your data is in your control. Flynn gives you the convenience of a web app without actually being one. The installer naturally has the power to mess with your Azure Account (to spin up machines and deploy the cluster), but your credentials actually never leave your machine. This might seem trivial, but it\u2019s a major security feature – one that was bought with a lot of elbow grease.<\/p>\n
We had to come up with a somewhat tricky architecture where you, the user, will create your own Flynn Installer web application on Azure. It would have been easy to create a centralized web application able to create new clusters: Users would simply have to authenticate the app (much like you\u2019d authenticate a Facebook, Twitter, or Google app), but it would have also involved asking for complete administrative access to every user\u2019s cluster. If you take a peek at some of Flynn\u2019s underlying code<\/a>, you\u2019ll find a cool authentication flow.<\/p>\n
Going Through the Installation Steps<\/h3>\n
In the Flynn Installer, select \u2018Microsoft Azure\u2019 in the upper right and click on \u2018Add Credentials\u2019. A popup will open, asking you if you want the walkthrough. For the walkthrough, I created a series of GIFs showing you all the necessary steps individually. I heavily recommend that you follow the guide, but here\u2019s a quick summary:<\/p>\n