System Components

System components are a collection of predefined, high-quality modules maintained by the Klarity ImageFactory team. These components are available to all customers and provide essential functionality for cloud-native images, such as monitoring agents, security scanners, and industry-standard hardening.

Available System Components

The following table lists the primary system components currently available in ImageFactory. These components are designed to be cross-platform and cross-provider where possible.

Component	Description	Supported OS	Supported Providers
AWS CLI	Installs the AWS Command Line Interface for interacting with AWS services.	Linux, Windows	AWS
AWS CloudWatch Agent	Installs the Amazon CloudWatch agent for collecting metrics and logs.	Linux, Windows	AWS
AWS Inspector Agent	Installs the Amazon Inspector agent for automated security assessments.	Linux, Windows	AWS
Datadog Agent	Installs the Datadog monitoring agent for infrastructure visibility.	Linux, Windows	All
Hardening Level 1	Applies CIS Benchmark Level 1 hardening for essential security.	Linux, Windows	All
Hardening Level 2	Applies CIS Benchmark Level 2 hardening for defense-in-depth.	Linux, Windows	All
Ops Agent (GCP)	Installs the Google Cloud Ops Agent for logging and metrics.	Linux	GCP
Stackdriver Agent	Installs the legacy Stackdriver monitoring agent for GCP.	Linux	GCP
SumoLogic Agent	Installs the SumoLogic collector agent for log management.	Linux, Windows	All
TrendMicro Agent	Installs the Trend Micro Deep Security agent for workload protection.	Linux, Windows	All
VMware Tools	Installs open-vm-tools for optimized performance on VMware.	Linux	VMware

Component Architecture

System components are primarily implemented as Ansible playbooks. This choice ensures that the components are idempotent, meaning they can be run multiple times without changing the system state beyond the initial application.

The internal directory structure for a system component typically follows this pattern:

component-name/
├── linux/
│   ├── playbook.yml
│   └── tasks/
│       └── main.yml
└── windows/
    ├── playbook.yml
    └── tasks/
        └── main.yml

Each operating system type has its own dedicated playbook and task definitions, allowing for platform-specific optimizations and logic while maintaining a unified component interface.

Release and Versioning Process

System components follow a structured release process to ensure stability and reliability:

1. Development: Changes are made in a dedicated repository and tested against various distributions.
2. Merge to Master: Once validated, changes are merged into the master branch. This automatically updates the latest version of the component.
3. Release Tagging: When a stable milestone is reached, a release tag (e.g., v1.2.0) is created. This generates a versioned package that is permanently stored and can be pinned in image templates.

Using System Components

To include a system component in an image template, you must reference it by its unique ID. For example, to add the AWS CLI to a Linux image, you would add the aws-cli component to the components list in your template definition.

{
  "component_id": "aws-cli",
  "version": "latest"
}

While system components are managed by Nordcloud, customers can influence their behavior through component properties. These are key-value pairs passed to the component at runtime, which are then available as variables within the Ansible playbooks or scripts. This allows for customization, such as specifying a particular version of an agent or providing a license key.

Maintenance and Updates

Nordcloud regularly updates system components to include the latest security patches, agent versions, and support for new operating system releases. It is recommended that customers periodically review their image templates and consider updating pinned versions to benefit from these improvements.