Exporting the Envoy config and extensions for external use

By default, the boe CLI generates an Envoy configuration that contains the filters for the provided extensions and proxies https://httpbin.org. While this configuration is convenient to test a wide variety of use cases, there are situations where customizing the generated Envoy configuration is needed.

This guide explains how to run the extensions locally in Envoy using func-e (the tool internally used by boe) or using Docker.

Export the configuration and run it locally

Export the configuration for the extensions using the boe gen-config command with the --output flag.

In this example we will use the ip-restriction as a remote extension and the example-go as a local one.

boe gen-config \
        --extension ip-restriction --config '{"allow_addresses":["127.0.0.1"]}' \
        --local ./extensions/composer/example/ \
        --output /tmp/boe-export

This will export the Envoy configuration and the extensions to the given directory and produce a detailed output with instructions explaining how to run Envoy with func-e or Docker:

→ Fetching ip-restriction...
→ Building example-go...

✓ Config exported to: /tmp/boe-export
    - envoy.yaml
    - libip-restriction.so
    - libcomposer.so
    - example-go.so

→ Run locally with with func-e: (https://func-e.io/)
    cd /tmp/boe-export
    export GODEBUG=cgocheck=0
    func-e run -c envoy.yaml --log-level info --component-log-level dynamic_modules:debug

→ Run locally in Docker: (not supported in Darwin hosts yet)
    docker run --rm \
        -p 10000:10000 \
        -p 9901:9901 \
        -e ENVOY_DYNAMIC_MODULES_SEARCH_PATH=/boe \
        -e GODEBUG=cgocheck=0 \
        -v /tmp/boe-export:/boe \
        -w /boe \
        envoyproxy/envoy:v1.37.0 -c /boe/envoy.yaml --log-level info --component-log-level dynamic_modules:debug

This will export the Envoy configuration to the configured output directory (/tmp/boe-export in out example) and copy the Envoy Dynamic Module library files to that same directory to facilitate configuring the Envoy Dynamic Module search path.

⚠️ Make sure you export the GODEBUG environment variable. It is needed to disable the cgo pointer checks as Envoy may hold pointers to Go memory.

Onve ready, follow the instructions in the output and Envoy start & run with the extensions configured. You can change and customize the Envoy configuration at your convenience.