When managing microservices in a cloud-native world, we often default to tools like Terraform, Ansible, or Kubernetes. But what if we could do something equally powerful with something as old-school and universal as Bash?
Welcome to RoboShop Shell Automation — a complete, script-driven deployment solution for a microservices-based e-commerce application.
🛍️ What is RoboShop?
RoboShop (originally a project by DevOps enthusiasts for training and demonstrations) is a fully containerized or VM-deployable e-commerce platform built on a microservices architecture. Each service handles a business function such as:
- catalog — product listings
- user — user management
- cart — shopping cart logic
- payment — payment gateway simulation
- shipping — logistics layer
- frontend — user-facing UI
- databases — MongoDB, MySQL, Redis, RabbitMQ (for async messaging)
🧠 Why Shell Scripting?
Many infra projects lean heavily on configuration management tools (Ansible, Chef, etc.), which are excellent but often overkill for small-to-mid scale dev/test environments. Definitely it's a simple and steady in learning as beginners level.
Shell scripting provides:
🔁 Repeatability — one-click install via ./service.sh
📦 Portability — runs on any POSIX-compliant environment
🧩 Composability — scripts are modular; services can be deployed independently
💡 Learning opportunity — teaches sysadmin basics like systemd, user creation, logs, idempotency
📦 Repo Overview
📂 roboshop-shell GitHub Repo
Each script is service-specific and handles:
- Dependency installation (Node.js, Python, Java, etc.)
- App code setup from source or package repo
- Service user creation (roboshop, catalog, etc.)
- systemd unit file creation and daemon reload
- Logging into /var/log/roboshop/
🔧 Example Services
common.sh # Global setups: users, utils, colors, logging
catalog.sh # Node.js-based service for product listings
cart.sh # Redis-backed cart logic
shipping.sh # Java-based microservice
payment.sh # Python-based payment gateway
mongodb.sh # Installs & configures MongoDB backend
🛠️ How to Use It
🧰 Prerequisites
- CentOS 7 / RHEL 9/ Amazon Linux 2023
- Sudo privileges
- Internet access (to fetch dependencies and app artifacts)
🐧 Installation Steps
1: Clone the Repo
git clone https://github.com/MannmeetOrg/roboshop-shell.git
cd roboshop-shell
2: Run the Scripts
sudo ./common.sh
sudo ./mongodb.sh
sudo ./catalog.sh
sudo ./cart.sh
…
sudo ./frontend.sh
3: Or Automate It All
for svc in common mongodb redis mysql rabbitmq user cart shipping payment frontend; do
sudo ./${svc}.sh || { echo "Failed on $svc"; exit 1; }
done
✅ What Makes This Project Robust?
🧩 Idempotent Logic
Each script checks if a user exists, if services are already running, or if dependencies are installed. This prevents double provisioning or service conflicts.
🔍 Centralized Logging
All scripts log to:
/logs/<service>.log
Helps in debugging failures post-installation.
🔐 Secure Practices
- App users are created with no-login shells
- Systemd services run as non-root users
- Limited package exposure to only what’s needed
🔭 What I Learned
While building this project, I focused on:
- Mastering systemd services
- Realizing the power of Bash as an orchestration tool
- Debugging with set -e, trap, and return codes
- Emphasizing modularity so that each service is deployable in isolation
🚧 Future Enhancements
☁️ Integrate with Terraform to provision base VMs
🐳 Dockerize each service and use shell to build/run containers
🔁 Add rollback logic for failed deployments
🧪 Integrate with GitHub Actions or Jenkins CI
🤝 Contribute
This project is ideal for DevOps learners or infra engineers who want to:
- Understand service orchestration from the ground up
- Build infra-automation projects using core tools
- Improve their shell scripting and systemd knowledge
Fork it here: https://github.com/MannmeetOrg/roboshop-shell
✍️ Final Thoughts
Shell scripting might be “old school,” but it’s still immensely powerful — especially when layered with a clean architecture, thoughtful structure, and microservice best practices.
If you’re preparing for a DevOps role, building demo labs, or learning backend automation — RoboShop Shell Automation is a hands-on, real-world project you should try!
🔗 Repo: MannmeetOrg/roboshop-shell
👩💻 Author: Manmeet Kaur Ahir
📫 Connect: LinkedIn
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