Managing runtime configs for your service tiles

You can define and manage named runtime configs with your service tile for VMware Tanzu Operations Manager. A runtime config is a section of the tile metadata that defines global deployment configurations.

Tile authors can create tiles that contain only a runtime config or add a runtime config to an existing product tile. When a tile developer includes a runtime config as a top-level property in the tile metadata, BOSH applies the runtime config to every VM in the deployment.

You can manage runtime configs in the following ways:

Add a Runtime Config in an existing product tile.
Delete a Runtime Config from a tile.
Create a Runtime Config tile that only contains a runtime config.

For more information, see also:

When you apply changes to deployments, Tanzu Operations Manager combines the runtime config information from every tile in the deployment and assigns each named runtime config a unique identifier. Tanzu Operations Manager creates the identifier using the tile name, a generated GUID, and the runtime config name defined in the metadata.

The identifier follows the following format:

TILE_NAME-GUID-RUNTIME_CONFIG_NAME

Add a Runtime Config

Tile authors can add runtime_configs as a top-level property in tile metadata. In the runtime config section, you define configuration properties that Tanzu Operations Manager applies to all deployments. A tile can support any number of runtime configs.

A named runtime config, can contain any number of add-ons. Each add-on can contain any number of jobs.

To add a runtime config to a tile, add the following section to the tile metadata:

runtime_configs:
  - name: YOUR-RUNTIME-CONFIG
    runtime_config: |
      releases:
      - name: RELEASE
        version: RELEASE-VERSION
      addons:
      - name: YOUR-ADDON-NAME
        jobs:
        - name:YOUR-RUNTIME-CONFIG-JOB
          release: RELEASE
        properties:
          YOUR-PROPERTY:
        ...

Where:

YOUR-RUNTIME-CONFIG is the name of the runtime config.
RELEASE is the release used for the runtime config.
RELEASE-VERSION is the version of the release.
YOUR-ADDON-NAME is the name of the add-on that contains the runtime config job.
YOUR-RUNTIME-CONFIG-JOB is the name of the job the runtime config describes.
YOUR-PROPERTY is a property used in the job.

For more information about:

runtime config keys, see Director Runtime Config.
top-level properties in the tile manifest, see Top-Level properties.

Tip: Append your product name or another unique identifier to each of the named items in the runtime_configs section.

Delete a Runtime Config

You can remove an existing runtime config from a tile. When you upgrade the tile, Tanzu Operations Manager detects the missing reference and deletes the runtime config.

To delete a runtime config from a tile, remove the runtime_configs section from the tile metadata.

For example, to delete a runtime config from a tile, remove the following section:

runtime_configs:
  - name: YOUR-RUNTIME-CONFIG
    runtime_config: |
      releases:
      - name: RELEASE
        version: RELEASE-VERSION
      addons:
      - name: YOUR-ADDON-NAME
        jobs:
        - name:YOUR-RUNTIME-CONFIG-JOB
          release: RELEASE
        properties:
          YOUR-PROPERTY:
        ...

Create a Runtime Config tile

In Tanzu Operations Manager, a runtime config tile appears as a tile with minimal configuration options. Runtime config tiles contain no stemcell, network, availability zone (AZ), or resource config information. You might create a runtime config tile if you want global deployment configurations to be applied to all VMs in deployment and you don’t need any other capability.

For a runtime config tile, tile authors are not required to define the following top-level properties:

post_deploy_errands
pre_delete_errands
job_types

Example Runtime Config-only tile

The following example shows a runtime config tile with minimal configuration:

---
name: runtime-config-only-example-product
product_version: "3.4"
minimum_version_for_upgrade: "2.0"
metadata_version: "2.0"
label: 'Runtime Config Only Example Product'
description: An example product to demonstrate runtime config features
rank: 1
service_broker: false # Default value
stemcell_criteria:
  os: xenial 97
  version: STEMCELL-VERSION

releases:
  - name: os-conf
    file: os-conf
    version: '15'

post_deploy_errands: []

pre_delete_errands: []

form_types:
  - name: example_form
    label: 'Example form'
    description: 'An example form'
    property_inputs:
      - reference: .properties.example_string
        label: 'Example string'

property_blueprints:
  - name: example_string
    type: string
    configurable: true
    default: Pizza

job_types: []

runtime_configs:
  - name: example-runtime-config
    runtime_config: |
      releases:
      - name: os-conf
        version: 15
      addons:
      - name: login
        jobs:
        - name: login-banner
          release: os-conf
        properties:
          login_banner:
            text: |
              (( .properties.example_string.value )).

In the previous runtime config example, the login-banner job prints a banner when you log in to any VM in the deployment. You can use the default value defined in the form_types section of the metadata or configure the banner by editing the Example string value in Tanzu Operations Manager.

Runtime Config Tile on the Tanzu Operations Manager Installation Dashboard