Ansible Playbook for Generating Virtual Machines in OpenStack for Students

Creates a number of virtual machines with

Provides remote access to

• SSH (native or web interface)
• a graphical desktop (VNC via web interface or RDP via client)

Original Github repo: https://github.com/pfisterer/edsc-openstack-studentnodes

Todos

• https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra
• https://spice-space.org/

Usage (local installation of Ansible)

1. Set the required environment variables (see table below) and run ansible-playbook
   • Set environent variables (e.g., using multiple export NAME="VALUE" statements on Linux)
2. Run ansible-playbook deploy.yaml
3. Open generated-server-list.txt for the IP adresses of the created machines
4. Navigate to https://an-IP-address and ignore the security warning

Example

export OS_USERNAME="my-openstack-user-name"
export OS_PASSWORD="my-openstack-secret-pw"
export OS_DOMAIN_NAME="default"
export OS_AUTH_URL="http://openstack-controller-hostname:5000/v3"
export OS_PROJECT_NAME="my-project"

export ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=False 

export NODE_COUNT=1
export NODE_PASSWORD="bla"
export IMAGE="Ubuntu Server 18.04 64bit (29.05.2018)"
export NODE_FLAVOR="m1.medium"
export NODE_SEC_GROUP="default"
export KEY="my-laptop-ssh-key"
export EXT_NET="ext-network"
export FLOATING_IP_POOL="ext-network"

ansible-playbook deploy.yaml

Usage (Docker, image farberg/edsc-openstack-studentnodes)

1. Directory where to store the file with IP adresses of the created machines

• Create directory on your local machine
• Mount this diretory using -v /your/absolute/path/to/some/dir:/data

1. Set the required environment variables (see table below)
   • Requires multiple --env "NAME=VALUE" parameters
   • Make sure to set GENERATED_SERVER_LIST to a file in /data/ (e.g., GENERATED_SERVER_LIST=/data/generated-server-list.txt)
2. Make your ssh keys available
   • Requires mounting them as /root/.ssh/ using -v /your/absolute/path/to/.ssh/:/root/.ssh/
3. Create a single command from the values above
4. See /your/absolute/path/to/some/dir/generated-server-list.txt for the IP adresses of the created machines
5. Open https://IP-address and ignore the security warning

Example

docker run --rm -ti \
  -v "/your/absolute/path/to/some/dir:/data" \
  -v "/your/absolute/path/to/.ssh/:/root/.ssh/" \
  --env "NAME=VALUE" \
  --env "GENERATED_SERVER_LIST=/data/generated-server-list.txt" \
  farberg/edsc-openstack-studentnodes

Environment Variables

Specific to this project:

Name	Required	Description	Example
NODE_COUNT		Number of nodes to creates	1
NODE_PASSWORD	x	Password to set for user ubuntu	blablubb
NODE_NAME		Prefix for hostnames	demo-lecture
IMAGE	x	Name of the OS image to use	"Ubuntu Server 18.04 64bit (29.05.2018)"
NODE_FLAVOR	x	Name of the machine flavor to use	m1.medium
NODE_SEC_GROUP	x	Security group to use	default
KEY	x	Name of the SSH key to use	my-laptop-ssh-key
EXT_NET	x	Name of the external network	ext-network
FLOATING_IP_POOL	x	Name of the floating IP pool	ext-network
DNS_SERVER_1		DNS server #1 (defaults to 8.8.8.8)	8.8.8.8
DNS_SERVER_1		DNS server #2 (defaults to 8.8.8.8)	8.8.8.8
GENERATED_SERVER_LIST		Path of the file to store the list of machine IPs	/data/generated-server-list.txt

For default values, see group_vars/all.yaml

Required by Openstack:

Name	Required	Description	Example
OS_AUTH_URL	x		http://openstack-controller-hostname:5000/v3
OS_USERNAME	x		my-openstack-user-name
OS_PASSWORD	x		my-openstack-secret-pw
OS_PROJECT_NAME	x		my-project
OS_DOMAIN_NAME	x		default

Build Docker image

Build the image

• docker build -t farberg/edsc-openstack-studentnodes .

Run a container

• docker run --rm -ti farberg/edsc-openstack-studentnodes