vmdeploy

This playbook is used to deploy vm quickly on Qemu/KVM with a minimal ip/dns setup to allow further configuration via ansible. It uses cloud images with NoCloud as datasource. No metadata server is used. Data are injected into image before booting.

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Features

• latest distro cloud images (amd64 family).
• Verify gpg signature and image checksum.
• use cloud-init.
• build with virt-install.
• extract kernel and initrd files from image to boot in kernel context.
• provide root access to user (via sudo and ssh key).
• allow deployment on remote compute.

Inputs

• vm name
• disk sizing
• static ip/dns with one network interface (eth0 ipv4 only).
• user + ssh key
• additional interfaces allowed.
• remote KVM host.

Problems

Cloud-init is not fully supported by all distros and support varies from version to version. Centos still uses an old version of cloud-init (0.7.5) which is buggy on this platform. As a result, dns support is incomplete. Debian does not allow static IP. Cirros image allows to setup the hostname only.

The playbook attempts to fix bugs and provides missing features.

Tested on

• ubuntu20.04 with ansible:2.9.6, python:3.8.2 (standard packages) Programs requirements

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ansible gpg xz guestfish qemu-img virt-install xmlstarlet

Notes

• If you want to use virt-manager as console, remember to install xauth.
• On remote deployment, you have to provide an account which is member of the 'libvirt' group.

Create the facts directory: mkdir /etc/ansible/facts.d

Add a standard bridge br0 on the hypervisor and no nat. See also virt-install in the bootstrap role.

Ansible deps

• python3-libvirt
• python3-netaddr

Supported systems

• ubuntu 14 16 17 20 22
• debian 9 10 ¹
• Centos 7
• Rocky 8
• cirros ¹ :)

¹ note :

• debian 10 is deployed as debian 9 (see osinfo-query os)
• cirros is deployed as 0.3.5

Usage

ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook_install.yml [ -t tags ] [ -e debug=1 ]

debug=1 :
- keep working directory
- set password for root and nadmin

tags:
- setup : download image and all related stuff.
- bootstrap : build instance and launch it.


ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook_install.yml -e update_facts=1

Update facts about distrib if removed.

To check deployment

ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook_check.yml [ -e debug=1 ]

debug=1 :
- display inventory host facts.

Next step ?

Use your playbooks for configuration...