Bare Metal Deployment

Deploy Nextmini Controller and Dataplane Nodes as native binaries across multiple physical machines.

This guide demonstrates native binary deployment on bare metal servers or virtual machines using automated Python deployment scripts. Unlike Docker-based examples where components run in containers, both the Controller and Dataplane nodes run directly on the host operating system as native processes, leveraging TUN interfaces for networking. This deployment model requires sudo privileges for network configuration. PostgreSQL runs in a Docker container to simplify database management.

Quick Start

Before you start, remember to generate your own SSH key.

Generate SSH Key:

# Generate a new RSA SSH key pair (if you don't have one).
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/nextmini/examples/bare-metal/dataplane/ssh/id_rsa -N ""

The -N "" flag creates a key without a passphrase. If you prefer to use a passphrase for added security, omit this flag.

Step 1: Build the Rust Binaries

cd nextmini
cargo run -p cert-gen
cargo build --release -p controller
cargo build --release -p nextmini

Optional Step: Start Database (One-time)

bash utils/start-database.sh

Step 2: Deploy Controller

cd examples/bare-metal/controller
chmod +x ./deploy.sh
./deploy.sh

Step 3: Setup SSH (One-time)

This could be set up on any physical machine.

# Install keychain firstly.
sudo apt-get install keychain

# Load SSH key.
eval $(keychain --eval ~/nextmini/examples/bare-metal/dataplane/ssh/id_rsa)

Or add to ~/.bashrc for permanent setup:

echo 'eval $(keychain --eval --quiet ~/nextmini/examples/bare-metal/dataplane/ssh/id_rsa)' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Enter passphrase once, it will persist across terminal sessions.

Step 4: Configure

For a complete list of configuration options, see the Configuration section.

Edit controller/config.toml:

[topology]
type = "full_mesh"
full_mesh_config = { n_nodes = 2 }

Edit dataplane/hosts.txt:

Each line contains three pipe-separated fields: node_id|username@host|public_ip_address

• Column 1: Unique node ID
• Column 2: SSH connection string (username@host, supports both IP addresses and DNS hostnames)
• Column 3: Public IP address for network configuration

1|[email protected]|157.180.84.40
2|[email protected]|206.12.91.229

Edit dataplane/node.toml:

Specify the Controller's WebSocket address (IP address with port 3000).

controller_addr = "ws://206.12.89.244:3000"

Step 5: Deploy Nodes

cd examples/bare-metal/dataplane
chmod +x ./deploy.sh
./deploy.sh

Step 6: Manage Services

Stop nodes:

cd examples/bare-metal/dataplane
chmod +x ./stop.sh
./stop.sh

Stop controller:

cd examples/bare-metal/controller
chmod +x ./stop.sh
./stop.sh