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Posted to dev@vcl.apache.org by ik...@mit.bme.hu on 2014/02/27 16:43:31 UTC
virtualESXi module
Dear all,
to support our basic virtualization technologies lab, our colleague, Áron
Tóth has developed a "virtualESXi" module that enables ESXi reservations -
that is, the user gets an ESXi 5.x instance or cluster (and
hypothetically, the VMs located in its local datastore during VCL image
capture - currently we start clean ESXi-s) instead of a Linux/Windows/...
instance. This is basically nested virtualization brought to VCL. VT-x or
AMD-V hardware support is enough to start with, although you need Intel
EPT or AMD RVI for running 64 bit guests on the virtualized hypervisor.
Currently, our solution supports only ESXi over ESXi.
The OS module can be found at:
https://svn.inf.mit.bme.hu/projects/vcl/esxi-module/ W.r.t. provisioning
the standard VMware module can be used. A new Connectmethod was defined
(vSphere client on port 443). Before capture, some preparatory steps have
to be performed (see the SVN).
VCL also has to be patched slightly (see the SVN). We intend to make this
the cornerstone of "Cloud over Cloud" deployments as in "VCL over VCL" or
"OpenStack over VCL" (something Áron is working on) - this is necessary
for teaching cloud technologies and cyber-physical systems with VCL.
Your comments and insights would be appreciated. The module was developed
for our specific needs so it is not fully in-line with the usual VCL
design philosophy and it is a bit rough around edges. Anyhow, if you think
that the community would be interested in this functionality we are
certainly open to polish it and document it properly.
Best regards
Imre Kocsis
on behalf of the BME-DMIS VCL team
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Imre Kocsis
assistant lecturer
Fault Tolerant Systems Research Group
Department of Measurement and Information Systems
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
mail: ikocsis@mit.bme.hu
phone: +36-1-463-2006
mobile: +36-20-514-6881
skype: kocsis_imre
Re: virtualESXi module
Posted by Andy Kurth <an...@ncsu.edu>.
This is wonderful. This is something we could use at NCSU as well. I use
nested ESXi VMs as well for VCL bootcamps but the configuration is done via
a custom script outside of our production VCL.
Some work has been to on an existing module: Modules/OS/Linux/ESXi.pm. The
existing module hasn't been updated in a while. It would probably be best
to incorporate your work into this module to avoid duplicate modules/code.
A few comments regarding the information in vcl-modification.txt below...
All of the changes can be incorporated into the base code so that custom
modifications won't be necessary.
VCL Modification (patches):
> 1. Modify VMware.pm, in prepare_vmx function
> comment Line 1774:
> #"usb.present" => "TRUE",
>
This line really isn't needed anyway as far as I know. I added it just in
case it was necessary for a user to be able to connect a local USB device
to the remote computer. I'm not sure if it even helps. Out of curiousity,
what problem does this cause with an ESXi VM?
> 2. Modify utils.pm line 5254
> From:
> ###original was: $command .= $current_image_contents . '" >
> currentimage.txt && cat currentimage.txt';
> to:
> if($image_os_type =~ /esxi/i) {
> $command .= $current_image_contents . '" > /etc/currentimage.txt && cat
> /etc/currentimage.txt';
> }
> else {
> $command .= $current_image_contents . '" > currentimage.txt && cat
> currentimage.txt';
> }
>
This won't be needed sometime in the near future. This is legacy code and
really should not be located in utils.pm. It should be located in an OS
module. Once this is moved, your ESXi OS module can contain a subroutine
with the same name which overrides the default behavior if necessary.
> 3. Modify utils.pm
> utils.pm line 2807
> password length change to 8 from 6
>
The Windows code has to workaround the same issue. A security policy is
applied during image capture to allow for shorter passwords.
Could /etc/pam.d/passwd be modified to allow shorter passwords? This could
possibly done in the code to minimize the number of manual changes someone
has to make to their base image.
There are some other options. We could add a passwordlength column to the
OS table to allow different lengths.
Thanks,
Andy
On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 10:43 AM, <ik...@mit.bme.hu> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> to support our basic virtualization technologies lab, our colleague, Áron
> Tóth has developed a "virtualESXi" module that enables ESXi reservations -
> that is, the user gets an ESXi 5.x instance or cluster (and
> hypothetically, the VMs located in its local datastore during VCL image
> capture - currently we start clean ESXi-s) instead of a Linux/Windows/...
> instance. This is basically nested virtualization brought to VCL. VT-x or
> AMD-V hardware support is enough to start with, although you need Intel
> EPT or AMD RVI for running 64 bit guests on the virtualized hypervisor.
> Currently, our solution supports only ESXi over ESXi.
>
> The OS module can be found at:
> https://svn.inf.mit.bme.hu/projects/vcl/esxi-module/ W.r.t. provisioning
> the standard VMware module can be used. A new Connectmethod was defined
> (vSphere client on port 443). Before capture, some preparatory steps have
> to be performed (see the SVN).
>
> VCL also has to be patched slightly (see the SVN). We intend to make this
> the cornerstone of "Cloud over Cloud" deployments as in "VCL over VCL" or
> "OpenStack over VCL" (something Áron is working on) - this is necessary
> for teaching cloud technologies and cyber-physical systems with VCL.
>
> Your comments and insights would be appreciated. The module was developed
> for our specific needs so it is not fully in-line with the usual VCL
> design philosophy and it is a bit rough around edges. Anyhow, if you think
> that the community would be interested in this functionality we are
> certainly open to polish it and document it properly.
>
> Best regards
> Imre Kocsis
> on behalf of the BME-DMIS VCL team
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Imre Kocsis
> assistant lecturer
>
> Fault Tolerant Systems Research Group
> Department of Measurement and Information Systems
> Budapest University of Technology and Economics
>
> mail: ikocsis@mit.bme.hu
> phone: +36-1-463-2006
> mobile: +36-20-514-6881
> skype: kocsis_imre
>
Re: virtualESXi module
Posted by Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>.
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Hash: SHA1
Imre and Áron,
This is great! This is something we (at NCSU) have wanted but have not had
the time to develop. I know there have been others interested in it as well.
Thanks for developing and contributing it.
Josh
On Thursday, February 27, 2014 4:43:31 PM ikocsis@mit.bme.hu wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> to support our basic virtualization technologies lab, our colleague, Áron
> Tóth has developed a "virtualESXi" module that enables ESXi reservations -
> that is, the user gets an ESXi 5.x instance or cluster (and
> hypothetically, the VMs located in its local datastore during VCL image
> capture - currently we start clean ESXi-s) instead of a Linux/Windows/...
> instance. This is basically nested virtualization brought to VCL. VT-x or
> AMD-V hardware support is enough to start with, although you need Intel
> EPT or AMD RVI for running 64 bit guests on the virtualized hypervisor.
> Currently, our solution supports only ESXi over ESXi.
>
> The OS module can be found at:
> https://svn.inf.mit.bme.hu/projects/vcl/esxi-module/ W.r.t. provisioning
> the standard VMware module can be used. A new Connectmethod was defined
> (vSphere client on port 443). Before capture, some preparatory steps have
> to be performed (see the SVN).
>
> VCL also has to be patched slightly (see the SVN). We intend to make this
> the cornerstone of "Cloud over Cloud" deployments as in "VCL over VCL" or
> "OpenStack over VCL" (something Áron is working on) - this is necessary
> for teaching cloud technologies and cyber-physical systems with VCL.
>
> Your comments and insights would be appreciated. The module was developed
> for our specific needs so it is not fully in-line with the usual VCL
> design philosophy and it is a bit rough around edges. Anyhow, if you think
> that the community would be interested in this functionality we are
> certainly open to polish it and document it properly.
>
> Best regards
> Imre Kocsis
> on behalf of the BME-DMIS VCL team
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Imre Kocsis
> assistant lecturer
>
> Fault Tolerant Systems Research Group
> Department of Measurement and Information Systems
> Budapest University of Technology and Economics
>
> mail: ikocsis@mit.bme.hu
> phone: +36-1-463-2006
> mobile: +36-20-514-6881
> skype: kocsis_imre
- --
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University
my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which
are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public
Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.
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