Michael asked that I post a summary about the some cobbler patches from
yesterday which provide a virt-image driver to koan. Here is the quick
summary which I sent to the cobbler list:
-- bk
<snip>
The patches allow the user to import a pre-configured image (virtual
appliance) into cobbler, and to provision it via koan. Outside of koan,
the process would be something akin to:
I) Create the appliance from a kickstart file using he appliance-creator
[1] tool. This creates a raw image file and a virt-image xml [2] file
which is the metadata about the appliance.
II) Locate a VMWare appliance and convert it the virt-image file using
the virt-convert [3]tooling. Again, this gives you a raw disk and
appliance metadata in the form of an XML File.
III) Install the appliance into your hypervisor of choice using
virt-image tool.
These patches allow the metadata in the appliance xml file (output of I
or II) to be stored within cobbler. The mapping for this information is
below. Koan then uses this data on the client machine to copy the image
file and to install it using virt-image libraries. In effect, this is
step III above.
The process for this is then:
A) Assume you have an image which is located on network accessable storage
B) Add the image to cobbler using "cobbler add image -name FOO ..... "
or one of the APIs. The image-type should be virt-clone.
C) Using koan, deploy the image using a command such as "koan --server
localhost --image base --virt --virt-path /tmp"
D) During deployment, koan will create one NIC based on the new
network_count attribute. These are filled either with bridges defined in
the image or with the default network connection.
The image type of "virt-clone" will tell koan to use the virt-image
driver. The --virt-path argument says where to copy the image to
locally.. since this is a clone. The --virt-type argument can be used,
or virt-image will detect your hypervisor.
I would like to see a tool which does all of step B based off of the
existing xml file, but that is not written yet. I also noticed I need to
add network_count to the cli add function.
Any comments or concerns are appreciated.
-- bk
[1] http://www.thincrust.net/tooling.html
[2] http://people.redhat.com/dlutter/kronolith-appliance/virt-image-xml.html
[3] http://www.thincrust.net/tooling-conversion.html
Mapping between Cobbler and virt-image xml
===========================================
Cobbler :: Virt-Image-XML :: Notes
CobblerImage.name :: image.name :: Overridden at command line
CobblerImage.arch :: None :: Need to translate this since virt-image
seems to use i686 not i386
CobblerImage.file :: image.domain.boot.drive | image.storage.disk@file
:: What is lost is the ability to denote boot drives
CobblerImage.parent :: None :: Not needed as this is internal cobbler logic
CobblerImage.depth :: None :: Not needed as this is internal cobbler logic
CobblerImage.owners :: None :: Not needed as this is internal cobbler logic
CobblerImage.virt_ram :: image.domain.devices.memory ::
CobblerImage.virt_file_size :: None ::
CobblerImage.virt_path :: None :: Used to denote where to copy the image
on the local filesystem
CobblerImage.virt_cpus :: image.domain.devices.vcpu ::
CobblerImae.network_count :: image.domain.networks ::
CobblerImage.virt_type :: image.domain.boot@type |
image.domain.boot.os.loader@dev :: See Issue 2
CobblerImage.virt_bridge :: :: Creates one nic on the guest for each entry
CobblerImage.xml_file :: None :: No need to store the file, virt-image
is called directlry
CobblerImage.image_type :: virt-clone :: May need to break this down
once we resolve the issues below
CobblerImage.breed, :: None ::
CobblerImage.os_version, :: None ::
</snip>
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