Excerpts from Raphaël Pinson's message of Fri Apr 01 16:28:40 -0700 2011: > On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Dustin Kirkland <[email protected]> wrote: > > A series of similarly themed blueprints from UDS-Natty in Orlando were > > subsequently combined into a single blueprint [1] in the Natty cycle. > > > > As of 11.04, we have several of the key building blocks now packaged > > in the Ubuntu archive (cobbler, mcollective, etc). And we have a > > branch at lp:orchestra that provides the basic meta packaging for > > pieces we want to implement using the best of free software: > > * Provisioning / Installation Services > > * Configuration Management > > * Monitoring > > * Orchestration > > > > There are several limitations to stock ISO-based installs (eg, another > > thread here raises the issue of the limited ISO capacity). A complete > > network installation service is essential to the future of Ubuntu > > Server efforts. I envision a situation where the first step in > > deploying a set of Ubuntu Servers is to install the Ubuntu Orchestra > > Provisioning server (apt-get install > > ubuntu-orchestra-provisioning-server, or perhaps run a temporary > > deploy server from a LiveUSB). Subsequent installations in the > > hundreds or thousands are rapidly and flexibly bootstrapped directly > > from the provisioning server. > > One thing I like about FAI is that (afair from a few years back at > least) the live CD uses FAI to install the FAI server itself, using a > special class. All the same, when setting up a puppetmaster, it's > often recommended to begin with the puppetmaster class itself, > ensuring that the machine can install/replicate/manage itself before > it begins installing/replicating/managing others. > > I think it could be good to have an install CD specifically tailored > for bootstrapping a provisioning server. After all, that's the only CD > you might ever have to use to get started with your DC. >
Agreed. Right now we have a CD for installing the whole UEC. That is useful for some but its not the whole story. Having a CD which bootstraps cobbler onto a server so you can rapidly build a private cloud would be super awesome (as would a DVD with "everything" on it). There's support in Cobbler for building custom CDs from the archives you've imported. I don't think it works for building an Ubuntu/Debian CD yet, but that is largely because we haven't done the work to integrate the tools for doing that into Cobbler. That would be a great project for Oneiric. > > Our OpenStack integration efforts for 11.10 will require some > > installation modifications similar to what we did in 9.10 for > > Eucalyptus and UEC. Rather than hacking through the guts of the > > debian-installer again for this work, I suggest that we build > > OpenStack's installation on top of a modern network installation > > service, as serious cloud deployments necessarily require the > > installation of more than one system. (Note that OpenStack already > > has a prototype of such a service with the Crowbar project.) > > > As a note from working in a DC with complex network infrastructure, it > could be useful (but maybe it's not Ubuntu's job) to provide a layout > to control switches. In our infrastructure, we use VLANs extensively > to organize services in sub-networks. We have an installation VLAN > that is not routed and is reserved for machines to be installed via > FAI. I know we're not the only ones doing this, and I believe it's > generally a good practice, since it ensures that your installation > DHCPd will not mess up production machines, and at the same time you > won't have to play with cables either, just retag the switch port to > use a production VLAN (or more than one if necessary) instead of the > installation VLAN. In such infrastructures, it is useful to consider > that the network installation service (or orchestra-like service) > might control switches via SNMP to automatize this step. So the steps > are: > > 1) Set switch port assigned to machine to installation VLAN; > 2) Start network installation (reboot and let pxe + > cobbler/FAI/kickstart/other do its job); > 3) Set switch port assigned to machine to production VLAN; > 4) Let puppet/cfengine/chef/other deploy software and configure the > machine for production. > > I don't expect that Orchestra would impose a VLAN-based network > infrastructure, but maybe it would be great if it provided > functionalities to plug this kind of DC architecture directly in it. > We could consider having such a functionality, and letting people plug > in the SNMP mib they need for their router. > > Just an idea, but I think it might make a huge difference for big DCs. > And sorry for the noise if that's already implemented :-) https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/wiki/AdvancedNetworking There's the current state of advanced networking stuff in Cobbler. I'm sure there are switch control tools out there that allow altering a ports vlan tags simply. > > > A web/network-based installation service would allow the Ubuntu Server > > to modernize its interface and handle far more installation modes and > > workloads than an 80x25 teletype terminal can deliver. It would give > > the Server Team the ability to integrate new software stacks such as > > OpenStack easily within a single Ubuntu development cycle, something > > that's simply not possible when integral debian-installer changes are > > required (the tasksel menu is the only hook really at our disposal > > right now). The combination of dynamically generated preseed > > configurations coupled with config-management based post installation > > handling would provide a modern, DevOps-style interface to Ubuntu > > Server installations, and is key to our future. > > > A web-base service is nice and user-friendly; I'm all for that. But I > don't think it should replace the console tools, or implement > functionalities that the CLI tools don't have. Sometimes you need to > go to machine room, log in to your network installation server and do > things manually, and then you're just happy to have CLI tools that do > the same as the web interface. Thats one reason we all like Cobbler so much. Its built around a RESTful API, so the cmdline tools and web interface are just frontends to the same backend which has all of the intelligence. -- ubuntu-server mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
