install-party 0.1

Instantiate and manage hosts for Matrix homeserver install parties

Install Party

This is a project that creates and manages ephemeral servers for install parties/workshops of Matrix homeservers.

Install and run

Installing Install Party is done by cloning its Git repository and installing its dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/babolivier/install-party.git
cd install-party
virtualenv -p python3 env
source env/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Then it can be run with:

source env/bin/activate
./install_party.py [mode] [options]

Creation mode

The creation mode (create) uses the OpenStack and OVH APIs to create a new host, attach a domain to it, and run a script that installs Riot and Caddy on it, so that an attendee can log in (with SSH) with the configured username and password, install a new homeserver, and directly use it with the Riot instance.

The OpenStack instance name will be {namespace}-{name} and the domain name will be {name}.{namespace}.{zone}, where:

• {namespace} is a configured namespace (e.g. the event's name as a slug)
• {zone} is a configured DNS zone (must be managed by OVH)
• {name} is the host's name (either provided, e.g. install_party.py create foo, or a randomly generated 5-letter string)

Note: currently, if attendees wish/need to use a homeserver's built-in ACME support, they must set the post the ACME support listener is listening to to 8888.

Configuration

The configuration is provided as a YAML configuration file. By default, a file named config.yaml in the current directory will be used, but this can be overridden by setting the environment variable INSTALL_PARTY_CONFIG to the path of the desired file.

The configuration file's content must follow the following structure. Currently, all fields are mandatory.

# General configuration that's not specific to a section.
general:
  # Namespace to use when creating/listing the instances and DNS records.
  namespace: my-super-event
  # DNS zone to create the DNS records on.
  dns_zone: example.com
  # The version of Riot to install on the hosts.
  riot_version: v1.4.2

# Configuration specific to the instances.
instances:
  # User the attendee will use when logging into the host with SSH.
  # Must already exist on the system.
  user: superevent
  # Password the attendee will use when logging into the host with SSH.
  password: superevent2019

# Configuration to connect to the OVH API.
# See https://api.ovh.com/ for a full documentation.
ovh:
  endpoint: ovh-eu
  application_key: somesecret
  application_secret: somesecret
  consumer_key: somesecret

# Configuration to connect to the OpenStack API or that is using notions
# specific to OpenStack.
# See https://docs.openstack.org/ for a full documentation.
openstack:
  # Version of the OpenStack compute API. Currently, only versions 2 and
  # above are supported.
  api_version: 2
  auth_url: https://auth.example.com/v2.0/
  tenant_name: somesecret
  tenant_id: somesecret
  username: somesecret
  password: somesecret
  region_name: GRA3
  # ID of the image to use to create the instances.
  image_id: my_super_image
  # ID of the flavor to use to create the instances.
  flavor_id: my_super_flavor