Apache NiFi is simply an amazing piece of software. While NiFi is powerful and fun to use it often confuses people around more traditional topics in the SDLC. This shell is meant to try and fill those gaps to make more enterprise driven deployments of NiFi fit more neatly into their existing SDLC functions.
This project's main goal right now is to make this process incredibly easy and straight forward. In that spirit some technical best practices have not been followed since the main goal right now is to feel out what is actually helpful and desired by the community rather than making the most efficient piece of software possible. I find it more important that the software helps end users be more efficient at first and later we can focus on making the codebase itself more efficient by removing poor practices like global variables, better logging practices, better memory management, and more elaboratly designed objects. In the mean time please reflect and ask yourself what features you would like to see and create a Github Issue here and lets work together to make something great for the Apache NiFi community! Once we have something we are all happy with the end goal will be to contribute it back to Apache NiFi where it can be used by a much larger audience! Open source for the win!
- Execute Shell files from the CLI that has a series of commands
- Handle operations for NiFi cluster
- Support multiple environments
- Promote workflows from Environment -> Environment
Currently the shell is in development so requires you build the shell before running it. The shell can be build by running mvn clean install package -DskipTests then
the shell can be ran using java -jar $SHELL_HOME/target/nifi-shell-1.2.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
There will certainly be more convenient scripts to do this later but it is what it is for right now.
| Command | Description | Min Version | Demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| deployment | Promotes a NiFi template, environment variables, configurations, and nars from one environment to another. | 1.2.0 | Youtube |
| lenvs | Lists all of the environments that are currently configured for this NiFi-Shell instance | 1.2.0 | Youtube |
| ltemplates | Lists all of the templates from the current working environment. | 1.2.0 | Youtube |
| help | Lists all of the available commands to the shell user | 1.2.0 | None |
| senv | Sets the current working environment | 1.2.0 | Youtube |
| status | Gets the status via the NiFi REST API for the current working environment. | 1.2.0 | Youtube |
| quit | Exits the NiFi-Shell | 1.2.0 | None |
###deployment
deployment is used to initiate a new deployment from one NiFi environment to another. A deployment can be a rather complicated process if handled manually since
a number of configurations must be manually checked in each environment which can lead to user error. A deployment seamlessly handles several aspects of making
a Apache NiFi environment promotion. Including ...
- Copying desired NiFi template XML file from source environment to destination.
- Comparing available processors in source environment with that of the destination.
- If the processors differ the shell user will be presented to option to abort or resolve the missing requirements.
- Comparing environment variables that are set in the source environment with those in the destination. This helps reduce the risks of missing environment variables that are referenced by NiFi expression language snippets in the promoted template.
- Comparing NiFi configuration values from the $NIFI_HOME/conf/nifi.properties file. This helps ensure that the template will run as expected on the promoted environment in the same successful manner as it was running on the lesser environment.
- Rollbacks. The deployment process will keep a transaction log of changes and promotions. If something does go wrong the shell user will have the option to rollback the deployment.
- Deployment Log. A complete log of all changes made during the deployment are logged to a special file that can later be referenced or stored elsewhere for reference.
###lenvs
Lists all of the environments that are configured in this instance of NiFi-Shell. The list of environments are loaded by default from ~/.nifishell/conf.json. This
is the default configuration file and if you add any new environments they will be persisted to this file so that upon next execution of NiFi-Shell they are loaded
and prepared for interaction.
###ltemplates Lists all of the templates from the current working environment. The templates are pulled from whatever environment is currently set.
###help Pretty self explanatory ...
###senv Sets the current working environment that all commands requiring a current environment will use. The shell prompt will change to reflect the environment that is your current working environment to serve as a reminder and for convenience.
###status Gets the status from the NiFi REST API for the current working environment.
###quit Exits the NiFi-Shell.
##Terminology
- environment - An environment is a single instance or cluster of NiFi nodes. An environment shares a common list of NiFi templates with 0 or more templates running. An environment also shares a common configuration instance and variables from an optional configured variable registry.
- template - An object in Apache NiFi that represents a piece of workflow logic in a configured environment.