Re: VCL 2.2 with VMware Server 2.x or ESXi 4.x

2010-05-29 Thread Vallard Benincosa 
xCAT 2.5 which vcl can be based off automatically configures ESXi 4  
with ssh enabled.  This is for running diskless installs.




On May 29, 2010, at 10:14 AM, Andy Kurth andy_ku...@ncsu.edu wrote:

It would be pretty easy to implement but requiring SSH poses some  
legal/licensing questions, along with some technical problems.


There's a thread that discusses whether or not it violates the  
VMware EULA to enable and use SSH, with no definitive answer:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1418182

Even if the EULA would not be violated by VCL managing free ESXi  
via SSH, I'd be wary to devote much development time or make this  
the recommended configuration because (a) the EULA may be changed in  
the future to disallow it and (b) there is nothing preventing VMware  
from taking away the SSH Tech Support Mode in the future, and (c)  
there is no way to automate the enabling of SSH so every host will  
have to be manually configured.


That said, I have enabled SSH on my ESXi test hosts and have found  
it very useful.  Instructions on how to enable SSH:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003677

Once enabled, the VCL code could do everything it needs by running  
vim-cmd and other commands.  This would be easy to implement.  The  
new code is very modular and contains 2 utility modules, VIX_API.pm  
and vSphere_SDK.pm.  These implement the functions to control the  
VMs such as register, power_on, etc.  We would need to implement  
another utility module to perform the same functions via ESXi/SSH.


There will be some technical problems that will need to be  
addressed. For example, you can create an authorized_keys file on  
the ESXi host to login using an identity key but this file gets  
deleted for some reason every time you reboot the ESXi host.


-Andy



Ryan Johnson wrote:
I was going through some of the posts on the vmware forums.   
Apparently one
could ssh into the ESXi host itself and use the vimsh wrapper to  
administer

virtual machines.  Not sure how hard this would be to implement.
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/203414

Re: Change image timeout

2010-05-17 Thread Vallard Benincosa 
xCAT puts that in the site table which is on default xCAT 1.3 installations
at /opt/xcat/etc/site


On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Roger Herling roger.herl...@marist.eduwrote:

 Where do I set that?


 Roger Herling
 Sr. Desktop Administrator
 Marist College
 PH: 845-575-3347



 From:
 Andy Kurth andy_ku...@ncsu.edu
 To:
 vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
 Date:
 05/14/2010 10:03 AM
 Subject:
 Re: Change image timeout



 I'm assuming you're using xCAT 1.3.  Would it be possible to configure
 xCAT to
 store the images in /opt/image/x86?  The VCL xCAT code really needs the
 image
 path to contain a 3rd component because it determines where the images
 reside as
 follows:

 managementnode.installpath/OS.sourcepath/image.architecture

 If you can configure xCAT to use /opt/image/x86, then
 managementnode.installpath
 should be set to /opt and I believe the path should be constructed
 correctly.

 Hope this helps,
 Andy

 Roger Herling wrote:
  xCAT root path is /opt/xcat according to the vcld log
 
  but the images are actuially store in /opt/x86
 
  Roger Herling
  Sr. Desktop Administrator
  Marist College
  PH: 845-575-3347
 
 
 
  From:
  Andy Kurth andy_ku...@ncsu.edu
  To:
  vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
  Date:
  05/11/2010 10:49 AM
  Subject:
  Re: Change image timeout
 
 
 
  I believe the problem is related to the Install Path setting for your
  management
  node:
  Management Nodes  Edit Management Node Information  Edit
 
  Based on the paths being used, I'm guessing yours is set to
 'storage/x86'.
 
  Where does the partimage .gz file reside?  If it actually resides in
  '/storage/image/x86' then change the Install Path setting to 'storage'.
 
  The .tmpl file residing in this directory may indicate another problem
  with the
  xCAT root path.  Where is xCAT installed and which version of xCAT are
 you
 
  using?  Search your log file for 'xCAT root path found:'.  What path
 does
  this
  line contain?
 
  Regards,
  Andy
 
 
  Roger Herling wrote:
  [r...@vcl ~]# du -c
  /storage/x86/image/x86/winvista-Windows7FacStaff49-v0*
  4   /storage/x86/image/x86/winvista-Windows7FacStaff49-v0.tmpl
  4   total
 
  [r...@vcl ~]# ls -l
  /storage/x86/image/x86/winvista-Windows7FacStaff49-v0*
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 352 May 10 12:09
  /storage/x86/image/x86/winvista-Windows7FacStaff49-v0.tmpl
 
 
  Roger Herling
  Sr. Desktop Administrator
  Marist College
  PH: 845-575-3347
 
 
 
  From:
  Andy Kurth andy_ku...@ncsu.edu
  To:
  vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
  Date:
  05/11/2010 09:06 AM
  Subject:
  Re: Change image timeout
 
 
 
  The command that is being executed to check the size should be:
  du -c /storage/x86/image/x86/winvista-Windows7FacStaff49-v0*
 
  Try running this.  What output does it generate?  The last line should
  look like:
   total
 
  The code appears to be finding the 'total' line but is either not
  parsing
  it
  correctly, not calculating the size correctly, or the du command isn't
  correct.
 
  Also, it would be helpful if you include the output from:
  ls -l /storage/x86/image/x86/winvista-Windows7FacStaff49-v0*
 
  -Andy
 
 
  Waldron, Michael H wrote:
  So you never answered whether you watched the capture occurring from
  the
  node console. Can you watch the console and see the capture running
  while
  monitoring the log that shows the capture file is size 0?
  What about any other error messages for the rest of the log capture
 for
 
  this imaging request?
  Mike Waldron
  Systems Specialist
  ITS Research Computing
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  CB #3420, ITS Manning, Rm 2509
  919-962-9778
 
 
  -Original Message-
  From: Roger Herling [mailto:roger.herl...@marist.edu]
  Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 4:18 PM
  To: vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
  Subject: RE: Change image timeout
 
  yup
  Roger Herling
  Sr. Desktop Administrator
  Marist College
  PH: 845-575-3347
 
 
 
  From:
  Waldron, Michael H mwald...@email.unc.edu
  To:
  'vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org' vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
  Date:
  05/10/2010 04:17 PM
  Subject:
  RE: Change image timeout
 
 
 
  So you can do an ls -l
  /storage/x86/image/x86/winvista-Windows7FacStaff49-v0 and it shows
  some
  size?
 
 
 
  Mike Waldron
  Systems Specialist
  ITS Research Computing
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  CB #3420, ITS Manning, Rm 2509
  919-962-9778
 
 
  -Original Message-
  From: Roger Herling [mailto:roger.herl...@marist.edu]
  Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 4:03 PM
  To: vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
  Subject: RE: Change image timeout
 
  The image is definately being captured and I can force the image to be

  used after it fails by manually undeleting it from the mysql database
  Roger Herling
  Sr. Desktop Administrator
  Marist College
  PH: 845-575-3347
 
 
 
  From:
  Waldron, Michael H mwald...@email.unc.edu
  To:
  'vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org' vcl-dev@incubator.apache.org
  Date:
  05/10/2010 04:01 PM
  Subject:
  RE: Change image timeout