Concepts
This page describes some of the core concepts of CloudCrafter, alongside the progress of the feature.
Conceptual entities
There are several aspects in CloudCrafter that are important to understand. The User-Interface should be straight forward, but it is still important to understand the underlying concepts.
Servers
You can add a server to CloudCrafter by going to the servers-page and clicking the "Add server" button. CloudCrafter will then allow that server to create a connection by the CloudCrafter Agent. More information about the CloudCrafter Agent can be found here.
Projects
You can add as many projects as you want to CloudCrafter. See a project a "set" of something you would like to deploy. For example, if you would like to deploy an app that requires multiple services (for instance: redis, database), you can name the project "My Application".
A project contains Environments. When you create a project, CloudCrafter will create a default environment called "Production". Within a project, you can create multiple environments. You can also rename environments - they are purely cosmetical and will not affect the deployment process.
Environments
As described above, an environment belongs to a project. You can rename environments - they are purely cosmetical and will not affect the deployment process. An environment contains Stacks - you can add as many stacks as you want to an environment.
Stacks
A stack is a collection of services that are used to deploy an application. A great example of a stack would be a "Blog" stack, which contains all the services that are needed to deploy a blog. A blog typically consists of a backend (for example: a Node.js application), a database and a queue. You can add all these services to the stack and will be deployed together.
Services
A service is a single component of a stack. A Node.js application is a service, a database is a service and a queue is also a service.
Volumes
Volumes are a way to persist data outside of the container. This is useful for databases, but also for other services.
Types of Volumes
There are two types of volumes:
- Local mount
- Traditional Docker Volume
Local mount
A local mount will mount a directory from the server to the service.
Docker Volume
A Docker Volume is a volume that is managed by Docker. It will show up if you run docker volume ls on the server.
Environment Variables
Environment variables are a way to pass environment variables to the services. They are useful for passing secrets, API keys and other sensitive information.
Types of Environment Variables
There are three types of environment variables:
- Runtime
- Buildtime
- Runtime & Buildtime
Runtime
A runtime environment variable will be available at runtime.
Buildtime
A buildtime environment variable will be available at buildtime.
Runtime & Buildtime
A runtime & buildtime environment variable will be available at runtime and buildtime.
Current feature state and wishes
TODO: Link to the correct page.