ComputeMode server appliance

Revision as of 14:05, 4 February 2013

This page describe how to use ComputeMode server appliance.

Download a virtual appliance

First we need to download the appliance. Please choose the one that meets your need.

for VMware:

wget http://computemode.imag.fr/files/appliances/ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_vmware_64bits.zip

or:

wget http://computemode.imag.fr/files/appliances/ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_vmware_32bits.zip

for KVM:

wget http://computemode.imag.fr/files/appliances/ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_kvm_64bits.zip

or:

wget http://computemode.imag.fr/files/appliances/ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_kvm_32bits.zip

• Then, unzip the appliance:

For Virtualbox:

unzip ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_vbox_64bits.zip

or:

unzip ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_vbox_32bits.zip

For VMware:

unzip ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_vmware_64bits.zip

or:

unzip ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_vmware_32bits.zip

For KVM:

unzip ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_kvm_64bits.zip

or:

unzip ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_kvm_32bits.zip 

Configuration of your new CMserver appliance for VirtualBox

Installation of the CMserver appliance for VirtualBox

• Create and configure a new virtual machine with virtualbox:

Create a new virtual appliance

Configuration of the new appliance

Configuration of the new appliance

Configuration of hard disk

Configuration of the new appliance

Configuration of the new appliance

• A new appliance is now available, you now have to configure the network:

Configuration of the network: bridged interface

You may define two interfaces: the first interface bridged with your local interface eth0 for example, to access to your server through a ssh connection:

Configuration of your bridged connection

or if you are only using virtual appliance and you don't want your virtual network to interact with your local one, you can define a host-only interface:

Configuration of the network: host-only interface

The second, with a NAT configuration, to allow the cmserver to access to the outside (to upgrade packages for example):

Configuration of your bridged connection

Finally you have to configure your local network. The eth0 interface have to access to the CMserver network, this is an example of how to configure the /etc/nerwork/interfaces file. This is just needed for a bridged interface, you don't have to edit anything for a host-only interface:

Configuration of the /etc/network/interfaces file

Note: if you are using bridged or NAT-ed interfaces, you may have to check that the DNS nameservers are not changed by the dhcp configuration. a simple way of ensuring that localhost is used as dns server is to edit the dhclient configuration file from /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf and set the following options:

 supersede domain-name "computemode.local";
 supersede domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;

Finishing the installation: configuration of the cmserver for VirtualBox

• You just have to start your appliance and log-in with the following credentials (be carrefull with the US default keyboard map)

login: root
password: icatis

• Once logged, a script is executed the first time the appliance is booted to configure environment. This script named cmaskconfig is used to configure both environment of nodes in the /cm directory and the cmserver. So you will ask to answer several time to configure a timezone, keyboard mapping, locales [...]: once for images in /cm directory and once for your local virtual machine.

Execution of the cmaskconfig script during the first boot

• To finish the installation, just edit the /etc/nerwork/interfaces file from the cmserver and configure your two new interfaces like following:

# The bridged/host-only interface:
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
       address 172.28.255.253
       netmask 255.255.0.0
# The NATed interface:
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

• Just reboot the cmserver to complete your installation

How to create nodes on VirtualBox to test the appliance

• You can quickly create a diskless node for the computemode cluster:

Creation of a diskless node

Creation of a diskless node

Creation of a diskless node

• and then configure the network of this node:

Network configuration of the diskless node

If your server is configured with a bridged interface, you have to configure a bridged one for the node:

Network configuration of the diskless node(bridged interface)

If you are using a host-only interface for your server, you need to use the some configuration for your node:

Network configuration of the diskless node(host-only interface)

And to finish configure the boot order of your node to set the network boot in first:

Boot order of the diskless node

Configuration of your new CMserver appliance for KVM

Installation of the CMserver appliance for KVM

You can use the basics KVM/QEMU softwares to configure your cmserver appliance:

• Installation of the KVM/QEMU software under a Debian Squeeze:

 sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin

• Configuration of your user permissions:

 adduser <youruser> kvm

• Run the following kvm command:

 kvm -m 1024 --boot c -vga std -net nic /PATH/TO/THE/FILE/ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_kvm.qcow2

Some explanations:

-m the memory size used for the virtual appliaces, here 1GB
--boot the boot order ot the virtual appliance, here the local hard disk
-vga  the configuration of your graphical driver
-net the definition of your network card
 

You can also configure a bridged network connection to access through SSH to your new server:

• Install missing packages:

 apt-get install bridge-utils uml-utilities

• Edit your /etc/network/interfaces file:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto br0
iface br0 inet static
      address 172.28.255.224 
      netmask 255.255.0.0
      broadcast 172.28.255.255
      bridge_stp off
      bridge_maxwait 5
      bridge_fd 0
      pre-up /usr/sbin/tunctl -u <username> -t tap0
      pre-up ifconfig tap0 up
      bridge_ports eth0 tap0
      post-down ifconfig tap0 down
      post-down tunctl -d tap0

• Restart your network:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

• Launch the appliance:

kvm -m 1024 --boot c -vga std -net nic -net tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no /PATH/TO/THE/FILE/ComputeMode_Appliance_2.0_kvm.qcow2

• You can customize your /etc/qemu-ifup script and /etc/qemu-ifdown script to manage users and tap devices and execute the previous command without the 'script=no,downscript=no' options.

How to test the computemode server

If you want to run some tests on your computemode server, you can follow this link: http://computemode.imag.fr/mediawiki/index.php/HowTo_test_cmserver