Component Breakdown¶

NITA is composed of six core components, each running as a container within Kubernetes. This page details the purpose, configuration, and operational characteristics of each component.

Component Map¶

graph TB
    subgraph "Persistent Components"
        PROXY["🛡️ Nginx Proxy"]
        WEBAPP["🌐 NITA Webapp"]
        JENKINS["⚙️ Jenkins"]
        DB["🗄️ MariaDB"]
    end

    subgraph "Ephemeral Components"
        ANSIBLE["📦 Ansible"]
        ROBOT["🧪 Robot Framework"]
    end

    subgraph "External Systems"
        DEVICES["🖧 Network Devices"]
        CHATGPT["🤖 ChatGPT API"]
    end

    PROXY --> WEBAPP
    PROXY --> JENKINS
    WEBAPP --> DB
    JENKINS --> ANSIBLE
    JENKINS --> ROBOT
    ANSIBLE --> DEVICES
    ROBOT --> DEVICES
    ROBOT -.-> CHATGPT

🛡️ Nginx Proxy¶

The Nginx reverse proxy acts as the front door to NITA, handling TLS termination and routing requests to the appropriate backend service.

Routing Rules:

• https://<host>:443/ → NITA Webapp (:8000)
• https://<host>:8443/ → Jenkins (:8443)

Key Files:

• /etc/nginx/nginx.conf — Nginx configuration (from ConfigMap)
• /etc/certificate/ — TLS certificates (from ConfigMap)

nita-cmd proxy restart

🌐 NITA Webapp¶

The Webapp provides the primary user interface for NITA. It is a Django-based web application that manages network types, networks, configuration data, and triggers build/test actions.

Key Features:

• Upload and manage Network Types (project templates)
• Define Networks with host inventories
• Import configuration data via Excel spreadsheets
• Trigger Build, Test, and NOOB actions
• View console output and job history
• Export/import YAML data

Default Credentials:

Database Tables (Sites):

nita-cmd webapp cli

⚙️ Jenkins¶

Jenkins is the automation engine at the heart of NITA. It orchestrates all build and test workflows by managing pipelines that launch ephemeral Ansible and Robot containers as Kubernetes jobs.

Built-in Jobs:

Key Environment Variable:

JENKINS_OPTS=--httpPort=8080 --httpsPort=8443
  --httpsKeyStore=/var/jenkins_home/certificate/jenkins_keystore.jks
  --httpsKeyStorePassword=nita123

Useful Commands:

nita-cmd jenkins status        # Check Jenkins status
nita-cmd jenkins cli jenkins   # Log in as jenkins user
nita-cmd jenkins cli root      # Log in as root
nita-cmd jenkins jobs ls       # List all Jenkins jobs
nita-cmd jenkins restart       # Restart Jenkins

🗄️ MariaDB¶

MariaDB provides persistent relational storage for the NITA Webapp's Django backend.

Accessing the Database:

kubectl exec -it -n nita <db-pod-name> -- bash
mysql -u root -p

USE Sites;
SHOW TABLES;
SELECT * FROM ngcn_campusnetwork;

📦 Ansible (Ephemeral)¶

The Ansible container is launched on-demand by Jenkins as a Kubernetes job to execute Ansible playbooks for device configuration.

Behaviour:

• Started by Jenkins via kubectl apply with a generated job YAML
• Executes Ansible playbooks defined in build.sh
• Communicates with network devices via Netconf or SSH
• All data is temporary — reset on each execution
• Only one instance can run at a time

Manual Access:

nita-cmd ansible cli 22.8

🧪 Robot Framework (Ephemeral)¶

The Robot container is launched on-demand by Jenkins to execute automated network tests using Robot Framework.

Behaviour:

• Started by Jenkins via kubectl apply with a generated job YAML
• Executes Robot test suites defined in test.sh
• Tests communicate with devices via SSH / Netconf
• Generates HTML test reports (viewable in Jenkins)
• Can integrate with external APIs (e.g., ChatGPT for failure analysis)
• Only one instance can run at a time

Manual Access:

nita-cmd robot cli 22.8

Component Lifecycle¶

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Proxy: kubectl apply
    [*] --> Webapp: kubectl apply
    [*] --> Jenkins: kubectl apply
    [*] --> MariaDB: kubectl apply

    state "Persistent Pods" as PersistentPods {
        Proxy --> Proxy: Always running
        Webapp --> Webapp: Always running
        Jenkins --> Jenkins: Always running
        MariaDB --> MariaDB: Always running
    }

    Jenkins --> AnsibleJob: Build triggered
    Jenkins --> RobotJob: Test triggered

    state "Ephemeral Jobs" as EphemeralJobs {
        AnsibleJob --> AnsibleComplete: Playbook finishes
        RobotJob --> RobotComplete: Tests finish
        AnsibleComplete --> [*]: Auto-deleted (2 min)
        RobotComplete --> [*]: Auto-deleted (2 min)
    }

NITA Sub-Repositories¶

NITA is organized across multiple GitHub repositories, each containing the source for a specific component: