ravstack 1.0.1

Run OpenStack on Ravello Systems.

Ravstack is a toolkit that make it easy to run OpenStack on Ravello Systems. It focuses on OpenStack distributions that are installed by TripleO based installers, such as RDO-Manager. Ravstack offers:

• Ironic power control for Ravello.

• Commands to create new “virtual bare metal” nodes and create an instack compatible instackenv.json file for them.

• Commands to do certain post-install fixups requires because of the split inside/outside network offered by Ravello.

Installing RDO-Manager

The hard way to install ravstack is to create a new CentOS VM in a new Ravello application, and install RDO-Manager per its installation instructions. You then install ravstack on the RDO-Manager using:

$ sudo pip3 install ravstack
$ sudo ravstack config-create
Created config file `/etc/ravstack/ravstack.conf`.
$ sudo mkdir /var/log/ravstack
$ sudo chown stack:stack /var/log/ravstack
$ ravstack proxy-create

Note that you need to have a working Python3 environment. Ravstack does not work with Python 2.x. The easiest is to use the python34 package from EPEL.

The recommended way however is to download an already pre-configured undercloud image from the Ravello Repo. The image contains an installed RDO-Manager with configured bare metal images and has ravstack installed and configured. This installation method is what we will assume for the rest of this document.

Installing From the Ravello Repo

First step is to get the required images and create a new Ravello application:

• Go to the ManageIQ page on the Ravello Repo.

• Copy the VM named “RDO Manager” into your account.

• Copy the ISO named “ipxe.iso” into your account.

• Create a new application.

• Add the RDO Manager VM to the application.

• Give the VM a shorter, easier name (I suggest “undercloud”).

• Configure an SSH keypair for the VM.

• Publish the application.

Once the VM is up and running, log on via SSH as the “stack” user. Note that the undercloud VM is set up to use port mapping and so its ssh service will run on a non-standard port somewhere in the range of 10000. The exact address and port number of the SSH service are available from Ravello web UI in the “summary” pane of the undercloud VM.

On the undercloud VM, edit the file /etc/ravstack/ravstack.conf. Change the [ravello]username and [ravello]password settings to match your Ravello username and password. Ravstack needs access to your account so that it can create new nodes and perform power control operations.

Now create the nodes and add them to Ironic. You can create as many nodes are you want. The default networking range configured in RDO-Manager allows up to 100 IPs for the nodes, and in addition 40 IPs for introspection (see below). The example below creates 3 nodes:

$ ravstack node-create -n 3
Created 3 nodes: node1, node2, node3.
$ ravstack node-dump
Wrote 3 nodes to `~/instackenv.json`.
Wrote 6 mac addresses to `/etc/ethers`.
$ source ~/stackrc
$ openstack baremetal import --json instackenv.json

The nodes should now be visible in Ironic (output abridged):

$ ironic node-list
+--------------------------------------+-------------+-----------------+-------------+
| UUID                                 | Power State | Provision State | Maintenance |
+--------------------------------------+-------------+-----------------+-------------+
| cf30c3ba-7294-44cd-b835-664069289228 | power off   | available       | False       |
| e8f715b1-8c07-4361-8bb6-74dbe66dc134 | power off   | available       | False       |
| a12beebc-7e04-42e6-9f70-9fe9b585454f | power off   | available       | False       |
+--------------------------------------+-------------+-----------------+-------------+

Configure the boot order for the nodes and start introspection. The following commands might issue a few warnings that nodes are locked. This is OK and expected. The operation will retry automatically. Introspection should take less than 10 minutes to complete:

$ openstack baremetal configure boot
$ openstack baremetal introspection bulk start

We are now ready to deploy the overcloud. The following command may take up to an hour to complete:

$ openstack overcloud deploy --plan overcloud --compute-scale 2

After the installation is done, you should see the overcloud in a state of CREATE_COMPLETE (output abridged):

$ heat stack-list
+--------------------------------------+------------+-----------------+
| id                                   | stack_name | stack_status    |
+--------------------------------------+------------+-----------------+
| 8e53c52f-8a02-4a7a-9ef8-4de530e37ff4 | overcloud  | CREATE_COMPLETE |
+--------------------------------------+------------+-----------------+

A post install step is required. The VMs in a Ravello application are connected by an isolated network, and they communicate with the outside through one of the available NAT options. The following command will set up the required port mappings and makes sure that Horizon and the VNC proxy have the correct configuration:

$ ravstack fixup
Fixed Ravello config for 3 nodes.
Fixed OS config for 3 nodes.

That’s it! You now have a working undercloud and overcloud.

• To access the undercloud from the CLI, source the file ~/stackrc on the undercloud VM, and use any of the available OpenStack commands.

• To access the overcloud from the CLI, source the file ~/overcloudrc on the undercloud VM, and use any of the available OpenStack commands.

• To access the overcloud Horizon, go to the Ravello web UI, and open the “http” service on the “overcloud-controller-1” VM.

NOTE: the following post-installation steps still remain to be done to make the installation useful. These will be automated soon:

Create an image in Glance:

$ glance image-create --name fedora --file fedora-user.qcow2 \
      --disk-format qcow2 --container-format bare

Setup overcloud networking. See the Setup the overcloud network section in the RDO-Manager docs. With the instructions there you will be able to launch an instance and access it over VNC. However for outbound access you need to create a router and a tenant network. TBD.

Enable the undercloud Horizon for remote access. The image does not have the undercloud Horizon service exposed because it contains a pre-installed undercloud with fixed passwords. To enable this service, either we need to change all password (can this be done easily?) or maybe more simply, install a unique random password at the Apache level.

Documentation

In addition to this README, the following documents exist:

• Ravello Notes - Some notes on working with Ravello.

• RDO-Manager Notes - Some notes on working with RDO Manager.

Comments

Feel free to report issues on Github or mail me at [e-mail].