Configuration overview¶

Fabric peers must be configured to use the k8s external builder, and to propagate the required environment variables to configure the builder.

Fabric peer configuration¶

External builders are configured in the core.yaml file, for example:

externalBuilders:
  - name: k8s_builder
    path: /opt/hyperledger/k8s_builder
    propagateEnvironment:
      - CORE_PEER_ID
      - FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_DEBUG
      - FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_NAMESPACE
      - FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_NODE_ROLE
      - FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_OBJECT_NAME_PREFIX
      - FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_SERVICE_ACCOUNT
      - FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_START_TIMEOUT
      - KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST
      - KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT

If you are only planning to use the k8s builder and do not need to fallback to the legacy Docker build process for any chaincode, check your core.yaml file for the vm.endpoint Docker endpoint configuration shown below and remove it if necessary.

vm:
  # Endpoint of the vm management system.  For docker can be one of the following in general
  # unix:///var/run/docker.sock
  # http://localhost:2375
  # https://localhost:2376
  # If you utilize external chaincode builders and don't need the default Docker chaincode builder,
  # the endpoint should be unconfigured so that the peer's Docker health checker doesn't get registered.
  endpoint: unix:///var/run/docker.sock

For more information, see Configuring external builders and launchers in the Fabric documentation.

Environment variables¶

The k8s builder is configured using the following environment variables.

Name	Default	Description
CORE_PEER_ID		The Fabric peer ID (required)
FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_NAMESPACE	The peer namespace or `default`	The Kubernetes namespace to run chaincode with
FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_NODE_ROLE		Use dedicated Kubernetes nodes to run chaincode
FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_OBJECT_NAME_PREFIX	`hlfcc`	Eye-catcher prefix for Kubernetes object names
FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_SERVICE_ACCOUNT	`default`	The Kubernetes service account to run chaincode with
FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_START_TIMEOUT	`3m`	The timeout when waiting for chaincode pods to start
FABRIC_K8S_BUILDER_DEBUG	`false`	Set to `true` to enable k8s builder debug messages

The k8s builder can be run in cluster using the KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST and KUBERNETES_SERVICE_PORT environment variables, or it can connect using a KUBECONFIG_PATH environment variable.