[Oneiric-Topic] Ubuntu Orchestra

[Clint Byrum]

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 <kirkland at ubuntu.com> 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.