Cloubed

Cloubed is both a utility and a python library that intends to help you create and manage virtual testbeds. Cloubed basically stands for « CLOUd testBED ».

The big picture is: programmable Vagrant on KVM.

Cloubed embraces all the power of libvirt for managing the whole infrastructure of your virtual testbed (storage pools, disks, networks, events) through a simple YAML file to describe your distributed setup.

The API of the library lets you write simple scripts to automate the management of the KVM virtual machines in your testbed.

Licence

Cloubed is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3.

Usage

Utility

Here are somes examples of the usage of cloubed command.

• Show the current status of all resources declared in YAML file:

cloubed status

• Generate the file named pxe of domain test in YAML file using its template:

cloubed gen --domain=test --filename=pxe

• Boot the domain test with different optional parameters:

cloubed boot --domain=test
cloubed boot --domain=test --overwrite-disks=debian-vol
cloubed boot --domain=test --overwrite-disks=yes --recreate-networks=yes
cloubed boot --domain=test --bootdev=network

• Wait for the domain test to be stopped:

cloubed wait --domain=test --event=shutdown:stopped

• Destroy all resources:

cloubed cleanup

Try cloubed --help for more information about the usage of this command.

Library

There is no real documentation yet on how-to use Cloubed library at this time. It is planned to publish one soon though. In the meantime, it is advised to have a look at the available examples in examples/* directories as a starting point.

Requirements

It only works on GNU/Linux systems with KVM.

• Python >= 2.6
• libvirt with its python binding >= 0.9.12
• PyYAML >= 3.10
• netaddr >= 0.7.7 (optional but highly recommanded)

Installation

Please refer to the installation guide in Cloubed online documentation for all installation instructions.

Troubleshooting

• dnsmasq: permission denied

If you encounter the following error message when running Cloubed:

internal error Child process (/usr/sbin/dnsmasq
--conf-file=/var/lib/libvirt/dnsmasq/net.conf) unexpected exit status 3:
dnsmasq: TFTP directory /path/to/tftp/dir inaccessible: Permission denied

It actually means that dnsmasq daemon automatically launched by Libvirt for TFTP and DHCP services is not able to access the pxe>tftp_dir specified in your YAML file. The dnsmasq daemon is generally executed with UID nobody. Try to chmod your directory (and recursively all its parents) so this process can access your files.

Disclaimer

Cloubed is not ready for production use since its user base is still very small. But please open a new issue if you encounter any problem or if you think a great feature is missing

Please note that both the API and YAML file format are likely to change in future releases of Cloubed.