Month: February 2019

Creating and containerizing a TensorFlow Go application

In an earlier post, I discussed using a TensorFlow model from a Go application. With the TensorFlow bindings for Go, you can load a model that was exported with TensorFlow’s SavedModelBuilder module. That module saves a “snapshot” of a trained model which can be used for inference.

In this post, we will actually use the model in a web application. The application presents the user with a page to upload an image:

The upload page

The class and its probability is displayed, including the processed image:

Clearly a hen!

The source code of the application can be found at https://github.com/gbaeke/nasnet-go. If you just want to try the application, use Docker and issue the following command (replace port 80 with another port if there is a conflict):

docker run -p 80:9090 -d gbaeke/nasnet

The image is around 2.55GB in size so be patient when you first run the application. When the container has started, open your browser at http://localhost to see the upload page.

To quickly try it, you can run the container on Azure Container Instances. If you use the Portal, specify port 9090 as the container port.

Nasnet container in ACI

A closer look at the appN

**UPDATE**: since first publication, the http handler code was moved into from main.go to handlers/handlers.go

In the init() function, the nasnet model is loaded with tf.LoadSavedModel. The ImageNet categories are also loaded with a call to getCategories() and stored in categories which is a map of int to a string array.

In main(), we simply print the TensorFlow version (1.12). Next, http.HandleFunc is used to setup a handler (upload func) when users connect to the root of the web app.

Naturally, most of the logic is in the upload function. In summary, it does the following:

  • when users just navigate to the page (HTTP GET verb), render the upload.gtpl template; that template contains the upload form and uses a bit of bootstrap to make it just a bit better looking (and that’s already an overstatement); to learn more about Go web templates, see this link.
  • when users submit a file (POST), the following happens:
    • read the image
    • convert the image to a tensor with the getTensor function; getTensor returns a *tf.Tensor; the tensor is created from a [1][224][224][3] array; note that each pixel value gets normalized by subtracting by 127.5 and then dividing by 127.5 which is the same preprocessing applied as in Keras (divide by 127.5 and subtract 1)
    • run a session by inputting the tensor and getting the categories and probabilities as output
    • look for the highest probability and save it, together with the category name in a variable of type ResultPageData (a struct)
    • the struct data is used as input for the response.gtpl template

Note that the image is also shown in the output. The processed image (resized to 224×224) gets converted to a base64-encoded string. That string can be used in HTML image rendering as follows (where {{.Picture}} in the template will be replaced by the encoded string):

 <img src="data:image/jpg;base64,{{.Picture}}">

Note that the application lacks sufficient error checking to gracefully handle the upload of non-image files. Maybe I’ll add that later! 😉

Containerization

To containerize the application, I used the Dockerfile from https://github.com/tinrab/go-tensorflow-image-recognition but removed the step that downloads the InceptionV3 model. My application contains a ready to use NasnetMobile model.

The container image is based on tensorflow/tensorflow:1.12.0. It is further modified as required with the TensorFlow C API and the installation of Go. As discussed earlier, I uploaded a working image on Docker Hub.

Conclusion

Once you know how to use TensorFlow models from Go applications, it is easy to embed them in any application, from command-line tools to APIs to web applications. Although this application does server-side processing, you can also use a model directly in the browser with TensorFlow.js or ONNX.js. For ONNX, try https://microsoft.github.io/onnxjs-demo/#/resnet50 to perform image classification with ResNet50 in the browser. You will notice that it will take a while to get started due to the model being downloaded. Once the model is downloaded, you can start classifying images. Personally, I prefer the server-side approach but it all depends on the scenario.

Using TensorFlow models in Go

Image via www.vpnsrus.com

In earlier posts, I discussed hosting a deep learning model such as Resnet50 on Kubernetes or Azure Container Instances. The model can then be used as any API which receives input as JSON and returns a result as JSON.

Naturally, you can also run the model in offline scenarios and directly from your code. In this post, I will take a look at calling a TensorFlow model from Go. If you want to follow along, you will need Linux or MacOS because the Go module does not support Windows.

Getting Ready

I installed an Ubuntu Data Science Virtual Machine on Azure and connected to it with X2Go:

Data Science Virtual Machine (Ubuntu) with X2Go

The virtual machine has all the required machine learning tools installed such as TensorFlow and Python. It also has Visual Studio Code. There are some extra requirements though:

  • Go: follow the instructions here to download and install Go
  • TensorFlow C API: follow the instructions here to download and install the C API; the TensorFlow package for Go requires this; it is recommended to also build and run the Hello from TensorFlow C program to verify that the library works (near the bottom of the instructions page)

After installing Go and the TensorFlow C API, install the TensorFlow Go package with the following command:

go get github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tensorflow/go

Test the package with go test:

go test github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tensorflow/go

The above command should return:

ok      github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tensorflow/go  0.104s

The go get command installed the package in $HOME/go/src/github.com if you did not specify a custom $GOPATH (see this wiki page for more info).

Getting a model

A model describes how the input (e.g. an image for image classification) gets translated to an output (e.g. a list of classes with probabilities). The model contains thousands or even millions of parameters which means a model can be quite large. In this example, we will use NASNetMobile which can be used to classify images.

Now we need some code to save the model in TensorFlow format so that it can be used from a Go program. The code below is based on the sample code on the NASNetMobile page from modeldepot.io. It also does a quick test inference on a cat image.

import keras
from keras.applications.nasnet import NASNetMobile
from keras.preprocessing import image
from keras.applications.xception import preprocess_input, decode_predictions
import numpy as np
import tensorflow as tf
from keras import backend as K

sess = tf.Session()
K.set_session(sess)

model = NASNetMobile(weights="imagenet")
img = image.load_img('cat.jpg', target_size=(224,224))
img_arr = np.expand_dims(image.img_to_array(img), axis=0)
x = preprocess_input(img_arr)
preds = model.predict(x)
print('Prediction:', decode_predictions(preds, top=5)[0])

#save the model for use with TensorFlow
builder = tf.saved_model.builder.SavedModelBuilder("nasnet")

#Tag the model, required for Go
builder.add_meta_graph_and_variables(sess, ["atag"])
builder.save()
sess.close()

On the Ubuntu Data Science Virtual Machine, the above code should execute without any issues because all Python packages are already installed. I used the py35 conda environment. Use activate py35 to make sure you are in that environment.

The above code results in a nasnet folder, which contains the saved_model.pb file for the graph structure. The actual weights are in the variables subfolder. In total, the nasnet folder is around 38MB.

Great! Now we need a way to use the model from our Go program.

Using the saved model from Go

The model can be loaded with the LoadSavedModel function of the TensorFlow package. That package is imported like so:

import (
     tf "github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tensorflow/go"
)

LoadSavedModel is used like so:

model, err := tf.LoadSavedModel("nasnet",
         []string{"atag"}, nil)
if err != nil {
         log.Fatal(err)
}

The above code simply tries to load the model from the nasnet folder. We also need to specify the tag.

Next, we need to load an image and convert the image to a tensor with the following dimensions [1][224][224][3]. This is similar to my earlier ResNet50 post.

Now we need to pass the tensor to the model as input, and retrieve the class predictions as output. The following code achieves this:

output, err := model.Session.Run(
         map[tf.Output]*tf.Tensor{
             model.Graph.Operation("input_1").Output(0): input,
         },
         []tf.Output{
             model.Graph.Operation("predictions/Softmax").Output(0),
         },
         nil,
)
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}

What the heck is this? The run method is defined as follows:

func (s *Session) Run(feeds map[Output]*Tensor, fetches []Output, targets []*Operation) ([]*Tensor, error)

When you build a model, you can give names to tensors and operations. In this case the input tensor (of dimensions [1][224][224][3]) is called input_1 and needs to be specified as a map. The inference operation is called predictions/Softmax and the output needs to be specified as an array.

The actual predictions can be retrieved from the output variable:

predictions, ok := output[0].Value().([][]float32)
if !ok {
         log.Fatal(fmt.Sprintf("output has unexpected type %T", output[0].Value()))
}

If you are not very familiar with Go, the code above uses type assertion to verify that predictions is a 2-dimensional array of float32. If the type assertion succeeds, the predictions variable will contain the actual predictions: [[<probability class 1 (tench)>, <probability class 2 (goldfish)>, …]]

You can now simply find the top prediction(s) in the array and match them with the list of classes for NASNet (actually the ImageNet classes). I get the following output with a cat image:

Yep, it’s a tabby!

If you are wondering what image I used:

Tabby?

Conclusion

With Go’s TensorFlow bindings, you can load TensorFlow models from disk and use them for inference locally, without having to call a remote API. We used Python to prepare the model with some help from Keras.

AKS Managed Pod Identity and access to Azure Storage

When you need to access Azure Storage (or other Azure resources) from a container in AKS (Kubernetes on Azure), you have many options. You can put credentials in your code (nooooo!), pass credentials via environment variables, use Kubernetes secrets, obtain secrets from Key Vault and so on. Usually, the credentials are keys but you can also connect to a Storage Account with an Azure AD account. Instead of a regular account, you can use a managed identity that you set up specifically for the purpose of accessing the storage account or a specific container.

A managed identity is created as an Azure resource and will appear in the resource group where it was created:

User assigned managed identity

This managed identity can be created from the Azure Portal but also with the Azure CLI:

az identity create -g storage-aad-rg -n demo-pod-id -o json

The managed identity can subsequently be granted access rights, for instance, on a storage account. Storage accounts now also support Azure AD accounts (in preview). You can assign roles such as Blob Data Reader, Blob Data Contributor and Blob Data Owner. The screenshot below shows the managed identity getting the Blob Data Reader role on the entire storage account:

Granting the managed identity access to a storage account

When you want to use this specific identity from a Kubernetes pod, you can use the aad-pod-identity project. Note that this is an open source project and that it is not quite finished. The project’s README contains all the instructions you need but here are the highlights:

  • Deploy the infrastructure required to support managed identities in pods; these are the MIC and NMI containers plus some custom resource definitions (CRDs)
  • Assign the AKS service principle the role of Managed Identity Operator over the scope of the managed identity created above (you would use the resource id of the managed identity in the scope such as  /subscriptions/YOURSUBID/resourcegroups/YOURRESOURCEGROUP/providers/Microsoft.ManagedIdentity/userAssignedIdentities/YOURMANAGEDIDENTITY
  • Define the pod identity via the AzureIdentity custom resource definition (CRD); in the YAML file you will refer to the managed identity by its resource id (/subscr…) and client id
  • Define the identity binding via the AzureIdentityBinding custom resource definition (CRD); in the YAML file you will setup a selector that you will use later in a pod definition to associate the managed identity with the pod; I defined a selector called myapp

Here is the identity definition (uses one of the CRDs defined earlier):

apiVersion: "aadpodidentity.k8s.io/v1"
kind: AzureIdentity
metadata:
   name: aks-pod-id
spec:
  type: 0
  ResourceID:  /subscriptions/SUBID/resourcegroups/RESOURCEGROUP/providers/Microsoft.ManagedIdentity/userAssignedIdentities/demo-pod-id
   ClientID: c35040d0-f73c-4c4e-a376-9bb1c5532fda

And here is the binding that defines the selector (other CRD defined earlier):

apiVersion: "aadpodidentity.k8s.io/v1"
kind: AzureIdentityBinding
metadata:
  name: aad-identity-binding
spec:
  AzureIdentity: aks-pod-id
  Selector: myapp

Note that the installation of the infrastructure containers depends on RBAC being enabled or not. To check if RBAC is enabled on your AKS cluster, you can use https://resources.azure.com and search for your cluster. Check for the enableRBAC. In my cluster, RBAC was enabled:

Yep, RBAC enabled so make sure you use the RBAC YAML files

With everything configured, we can spin up a container with a label that matches the selector defined earlier:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: ubuntu
  labels:
    aadpodidbinding: myapp
spec:
  containers:
    name: ubuntu
    image: ubuntu:latest
    command: [ "/bin/bash", "-c", "--"]
    args: [ "while true; do sleep 30; done;"]

Save the above to a file called ubuntu.yaml and use kubectl apply -f ubuntu.yaml to launch the pod. The pod will keep running because of the forever while loop. The pod can use the managed identity because of the aadpodidbinding label of myapp. Next, get a shell to the container:

kubectl exec -it ubuntu /bin/bash

To check if it works, we have to know how to obtain an access token (which is a JWT or JSON Web Token). We can obtain it via curl. First use apt-get update and then use apt-get install curl to install it. Then issue the following command to obtain a token for https://azure.storage.com:

curl 'http://169.254.169.254/metadata/identity/oauth2/token?api-version=2018-02-01&resource=https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.azure.com%2F' -H Metadata:true -s

TIP: if you are not very familiar with curl, use https://curlbuilder.com. As a precaution, do not paste your access token in the command builder.

The request to 169.254.169.254 goes to the Azure Instance Metadata Service which provides, among other things, an API to obtain a token. The result will be in the following form:

{"access_token":"THE ACTUAL ACCESS TOKEN","refresh_token":"", "expires_in":"28800","expires_on":"1549083688","not_before":"1549054588","resource":"https://storage.azure.com/","token_type":"Bearer"

Note that many of the SDKs that Microsoft provides, have support for managed identities baked in. That means that the SDK takes care of calling the Instance Metadata Service for you and presents you a token to use in subsequent calls to Azure APIs.

Now that you have the access token, you can use it in a request to the storage account, for instance to list containers:

curl -XGET -H 'Authorization: Bearer THE ACTUAL ACCESS TOKEN' -H 'x-ms-version: 2017-11-09' -H "Content-type: application/json" 'https://storageaadgeba.blob.core.windows.net/?comp=list

The result of the call is some XML with the container names. I only had a container called test:

OMG… XML

Wrap up

You have seen how to bind an Azure managed identity to a Kubernetes pod running on AKS. The aad-pod-identity project provides the necessary infrastructure and resources to bind the identity to a pod using a label in its YAML file. From there, you can work with the managed identity as you would on a virtual machine, calling the Instance Metadata Service to obtain the token (a JWT). Once you have the token, you can include it in REST calls to the Azure APIs by adding an authorization header. In this post we have used the storage APIs as an example.

Note that Microsoft has AKS Pod Identity marked as in development on the updates site. I am not aware if this is based on the aad-pod-identity project but it does mean that the feature will become an official part of AKS pretty soon!

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