Configuration

Configuring Values in a Deployment

You can start a deployment with a predefined configuration by using the --values-file flag to pass a file with configuration, e.g. rasactl start --values-file values.yaml.

Configurable Values

rasactl uses the Rasa X Helm chart to deploy Rasa X. Therefore the same values that apply to a Helm chart installation apply to a rasactl installation.

Applying Changes

To change values for an existing Rasa X deployment:

Set the relevant values in values.yml.

Upgrade the deployment:

rasactl upgrade --values-file values.yml

If you have multiple deployments, specify the deployment that you want to customize:

rasactl upgrade deployment-name --values-file values.yml

To list all available deployments use the rasactl list command.

Common Customizations

Use a Specific Rasa X / Enterprise Version

You can configure a Rasa X deployment to use a specific Rasa X version.

Create a values.yaml file with the following content:

rasax:
  tag: "1.0.0"
eventService:
  tag: "1.0.0"
dbMigrationService:
  tag: "1.0.0"

Apply the values to the deployment:

rasactl upgrade --values-file values.yml

Deploy Rasa X with a Defined Password

By default, the password for a Rasa X user (the admin user) is rasaxlocal.

You can use the --rasa-x-password flag to define the user password while creating a new deployment.

You can use the --rasa-x-password-stdin flag if you want to read the password from STDIN.

rasactl start --rasa-x-password my-password

Enable TLS

Requirements

Your deployment must be available at a domain (not a bare IP address). If you started your deployment using rasactl start on your local machine, you can use the URL returned by rasactl status. If you use a VM with a dynamic external IP address, use a static one to avoid IP address rotation and assign a domain to it.
Your deployment must be accessible on ports 80 and 443.

Steps

Install cert-manager via helm.

helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
helm repo update
helm install \
cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
--namespace cert-manager \
--create-namespace \
--version v1.5.3 \
--set installCRDs=true

Create a Basic ACME Issuer.

You will need to create a cluster-issuer.yaml file that contains a specification for the cluster issuer. In the example below Let's Encrypt is used as the certificate issuer.

apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: ClusterIssuer
metadata:
  name: letsencrypt
spec:
  acme:
    email: user@example.com  # You must replace this email address with your own.
    server: https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
    privateKeySecretRef:
      name: example-issuer-account-key
    solvers:
      - http01:
          ingress:
            class: nginx

Then create the ClusterIssuer resource:

kubectl create -f cluster-issuer.yaml

Configure your Rasa X / Enterprise deployment.

You will need to upgrade your deployment so that a new TLS certificate can be issued for your domain. First, update your deployments values to include configuration for an Ingress resource.

ingress:
  enabled: true
  annotations:
    cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt
  hosts:
    - host: your-domain.com
      paths:
        - /
  tls:
    - secretName: rasa-x-tls
      hosts:
        - your-domain.com
nginx:
  enabled: false

Then apply the changes by upgrading your deployment:

rasactl upgrade --values-file values.yaml

After the configuration is applied, you should be able to access your deployment over HTTPS.

You can execute the rasactl status command to check a URL and if HTTPS is enabled.

$ rasactl status
Name: quirky-jang
Status: Running
URL: https://rasa-x.example.com
Version: 1.0.4
Enterprise: inactive
Rasa production version: 0.0.0
Rasa worker version: 0.0.0
Project path: not defined

Share your bot running locally

To share your bot you’ll need to make your locally running Rasa X server available to external traffic. You can do this using ngrok.

You can download and install ngrok for free. Once it is installed, open a new terminal window and run:

Determine URL for your deployment by executing the rasactl status command.

$ rasactl status
Name: inspiring-albattani
Status: Running
URL: http://inspiring-albattani.rasactl.localhost
Version: 1.0.4
Enterprise: inactive
Rasa production version: 0.0.0
Rasa worker version: 0.0.0
Project path: not defined

Run ngrok.

ngrok http -host-header=inspiring-albattani.rasactl.localhost inspiring-albattani.rasactl.localhost

This will create a public HTTPS URL for your locally running Rasa X server, given that it is running at the default port (if not, change the command above).

You should see something like this:

Session Status   online
Session Expires   1 hour, 58 minutes
Version   2.3.40
Region   Europe (eu)
Web Interface   http://127.0.0.1:4040
Forwarding   http://3c3f-2a02-2454-25a-d700-5147-7d98-d4c4-e178.eu.ngrok.io -> http://inspiring-albattani.rasactl.localhost:80
Forwarding   https://3c3f-2a02-2454-25a-d700-5147-7d98-d4c4-e178.eu.ngrok.io -> http://inspiring-albattani.rasactl.localhost:80

To share your bot, replace the http://inspiring-albattani.rasactl.localhost portion of your share your bot link with the HTTPS forwarding address from ngrok. Your link should look like this: https://3c3f-2a02-2454-25a-d700-5147-7d98-d4c4-e178.eu.ngrok.io/guest/conversations/production/29fbd34c2a06481f . From there you can follow the instructions for sharing your bot as usual.

Keep in mind that ngrok has limits on free usage and this is not a production set up.

Accessing Secrets

This section describes how to retrieve secrets from your running deployment. The following secrets are created by default

description	default secret name
PostgreSQL database password	`postgresql`
Redis lock store and cache password	`redis`
RabbitMQ event broker password	`rabbit`

To view the plaintext value of a secret, run the following, replacing <your deployment name> and <your release name> with your deployment and the name of your release:

secret=<secret name>
namespace=<your deployment name>
release_name=<your release name>

kubectl --namespace ${namespace} \
get secret ${release_name}-${secret} -o yaml \
| awk -F ': ' '/password/{print $2}' | base64 -d

For example, if you want to see the value of the redis secret for a release called rasa-x in the local namespace:

$ secret=redis
$ namespace=local
$ release_name=rasa-x
$ kubectl --namespace ${namespace} get secret ${release_name}-${secret} -o yaml \
| awk -F ': ' '/password/{print $2}' | base64 -d

redis-password


If you’re not sure what deployment name or release name your deployment runs under, you can use the following commands to find out. To list the available deployments, run:

```bash
rasactl list

And to list the releases under a particular deployment, run:

rasactl status <deployment-name> --details

The release name can be found in the Helm release field.