Actions and Resources
This tutorial will teach you how to use actions and manage your resources in System Initiative.
To follow along, you should:
Finish the Getting Started tutorial, to have basic knowledge of System Initiative.
An AWS account that allows you to create free-tier resources, such as EC2 instances.
You should have your System Initiative workspace open in another window.
Create a Change Set
Click the create Change Set button.
Name your new Change Set Actions Tutorial, and click the Create Change Set button.
Add an AWS Credential Component and set its properties
Click AWS Credential from the AWS category of the asset pallete, and drop it on the Diagram canvas.
Resize the Component until it fills most of the visible canvas by dragging the lower right corner of the frame.
Name your AWS Credential Component Actions.
Click the Select/add secret button of the AWS Credential property.
If you have completed the Getting Started tutorial, you may have a Credential already present you can use. If so, select it, and move on to the next section.
If not, click the Add Secret button.
Fill in your AWS accounts Access Key Id and Secret Access Key. Refer to the AWS documentation if you do not know what they are.
Click Store Secret to securely encrypt and save your Secret.
Add an AWS Region Component and set its properties
Click Region from the AWS category of the Asset pallete, and drop it on the Diagram canvas.
Resize the Component until it fills the Credential frame.
Name your AWS Region Component Northern Virginia.
Set the region property to us-east-1.
Add a VPC Component and set its properties
Click VPC from the AWS EC2 category of the Asset pallete, and drop it on the Diagram canvas.
Name your VPC Tutorial Network.
Investigate the Actions tab for the VPC
Click the Actions tab in the right side panel. You will see a list of all the available actions for the VPC.
The Tutorial Network Component was created in this Change Set - so System Initiative has automatically enqueued the Create VPC action for you.
Apply the Change Set
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Your Tutorial Network VPC will be failing its qualifications at this point. This is okay - this tutorial will show you what happens when actions fail before it shows you how they succeed.
Press the Escape key or click on an empty area of the canvas to select the workspace itself.
Notice that there is a create action for the VPC Tutorial Network. All the actions enqueued for a Change Set will be shown here.
Click Apply Change Set.
A modal will appear confirming you want to take these actions. Click the Apply Changes button to proceed.
Observe the failed creation of the VPC
The Changes panel will show that there is 1 Action, CRT: VPC Tutorial Network currently waiting to run.
The red hexagon shows you that it has failed. Click on the failed action to view the logs from the action.
The logs show that the action has failed to run:
Running CLI command: "aws 'ec2' 'create-vpc' '--region' 'us-east-1' '--cli-input-json' '{
"TagSpecifications": [
{
"ResourceType": "vpc",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Name",
"Value": "Tutorial Network"
}
]
}
]
}'"
An error occurred (MissingParameter) when calling the CreateVpc operation: Either 'cidrBlock' or 'ipv4IpamPoolId' should be provided.The cause is that AWS has rejected your request to create the VPC, due to missing a cidrBlock or ipv4IpamPoolId.
Check the arguments
You can check the arguments sent to the action by clicking the Arguments tab of the action details panel. This will show you the exact data sent to the underlying action function.
Check the executed code
Clicking the Code Executed tab of the action details panel shows you the precise code that was executed when this action was run.
Check the result
Clicking the Result tab of the action details panel shows you the return result of the function.
Close the panel by clicking the X.
Create another Change Set
To finish creating your VPC, you need to add a valid CidrBlock. To do that, you need to create a new Change Set.
Click the Create Change Set button.
Name your Change Set Fix VPC.
Click Create Change Set.
Add the CidrBlock property to your VPC
Select the Tutorial Network VPC Component.
Set the CidrBlock property to 10.0.0.0/24.
Apply the Change Set
Hit Escape or click on the diagram background to select the workspace.
Your create action is still enqueued, so this Change Set shows no proposed actions.
Click Apply Change Set.
Confirm that you want to apply this Change Set by clicking Apply Changes in the modal.
Try to create the VPC again
Try creating your VPC again by clicking the Play button.
You'll see the action execute and succeed!
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System Initiative records your intent to take an action, and it remains present on HEAD until it succeeds or is intentionally removed from the list.
Checking the successful create action result
Click the History tab in the right hand panel.
You'll see your failed create actions, and the final success, indicated by a green filled-in hexagon next to the action. Click your successful create action to view the action details.
Click the Result tab.
You will see output similar to this:
{
"error": null,
"executionId": "01J5XBTT8ZF6QX3B2SDKC4HXGY",
"message": null,
"payload": {
"CidrBlock": "10.0.0.0/24",
"CidrBlockAssociationSet": [
{
"AssociationId": "vpc-cidr-assoc-059d9d6854371c4ad",
"CidrBlock": "10.0.0.0/24",
"CidrBlockState": {
"State": "associated"
}
}
],
"DhcpOptionsId": "dopt-b05847cb",
"InstanceTenancy": "default",
"Ipv6CidrBlockAssociationSet": [],
"IsDefault": false,
"OwnerId": "835304779882",
"State": "pending",
"Tags": [
{
"Key": "Name",
"Value": "Tutorial Network"
}
],
"VpcId": "vpc-041a1f62d65eaac18"
},
"status": "ok"
}The payload field of your action result contains the information System Initiative will use to populate the resource for your model.
Note that the payload/State field is set to pending. The AWS API for VPC creation is asynchronous - AWS is informing us that it will create our VPC, but has not done so yet.
Refreshing the Tutorial Network Resource
Click the Tutorial Network VPC Component on the diagram.
Click the Resource tab in the right side panel.
You will likely see that the state of your resource has already been updated from when it was created - the State will have transitioned to available.
Click the Refresh Resource button, above the Resource tab, to ensure you have the most up to date resource data.
You can also refresh the resource data from the Diagram Outline in the
left panel. Hover over the Components entry, and click the small Refresh icon.
Create a new Change Set
Now we will update some properties of our VPC, and add
Click the Create Change Set button.
Name your Change Set Update VPC.
Click Create Change Set.
Update the properties of the Tutorial Network VPC
Select the Tutorial Network VPC.
Click the Component tab.
Set the Component type to Configuration Frame (Down).
Resize the frame large enough to hold a new Component.
Set the EnableDnsHostnames property to true.
Set the EnableDnsResolution property to true.
Enqueue the Update VPC Attributes action
Click the Actions tab in the right side panel.
Toggle the Update VPC Attributes action to on.
This will update the Tutorial Network VPC resource to reflect your changed Component properties when the Change Set is applied.
Add a Subnet and set its properties
Click Subnet from the AWS EC2 category of the asset pallete, and drop it within the Tutorial Network VPC frame.
Name your Subnet Tutorial Network Subnet.
Set the AvailabilityZone property to us-east-1a.
Set the CidrBlock property to 10.0.0.0/26.
Observe the enqueued actions
Press the Escape key or click on the diagram canvas background to select the workspace.
You will have 2 actions enqueued for this Change Set - one that is the manual action to update the attributes of the VPC, and a create action for your new Subnet.
Click the ... button next to the Subnet Create action. You will see that it is Waiting On the manual action to update the VPC.
When you apply the Change Set, the action to update the attributes will run first. If it succeeds, then the action to create your Subnet will run.
Apply the Change Set
Click Apply Change Set.
Confirm that you want to apply this Change Set by clicking Apply Changes in the modal.
Observe the action order
You will see the action to update the Tutorial Network VPC finish, followed by the create action of your Tutorial VPC Subnet.
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The order of actions is automatically determined based on their configuration relationships.
Clean Up
Select the Actions AWS Credential frame.
Press the Delete key.
Click to Confirm that you want to delete the resources you created.
Click the Apply Change Set button.
Click the Apply Changes button in the modal to confirm.
Congratulations
In this tutorial you learned:
- How to use the Actions tab to enable/disable an action in a Change Set
- Enqueued actions can be seen in the changes tab
- Enqueued actions are persisent across change-sets until they succeed
- Actions are executed in order according to their configuration relationships
- Failed actions can be debugged by looking at their arguments, function code, results, and logs
- Past action executions can be viewed from the history panel
- Updating resources requires changing both properties and enqueing an action
- Actions set a models resource value through their return value
- Resources can be refreshed as needed, to ensure an accurate view of the system
Vocabulary
In this tutorial bits of System Initiative Vocabulary will be shown with a capital letter. All definitions for these can be found here: System Initative - Vocabulary