On 07/06/2012 01:04 AM, Chiradeep Vittal wrote:
On 7/5/12 11:58 AM, "David Nalley" <da...@gnsa.us> wrote:
Right now you have to download this weird qcow2 from the CS website, but
that should be different I think:
You set up CloudStack, configure your zone and then it will ask you to
provide the System VM template.
We can still provide a System VM template we build from scratch and put
the image online somewhere, but users also have the freedom to upload
their own.
+1. A default systemvm template is very important. In fact for
regression
tests, smoke tests etc, this would be used.
Also, most *users* of cloudstack would have very little idea on how to
roll their own systemvm.
So the issue with a default systemVM is that Apache CloudStack can't
distribute it. (unless we move to a BSD). Or at least - in their
current form, Apache CloudStack can't distribute the systemVMs. Soooo
what do we do?
Like Wido said, we ask for the location of this template at install time.
Where the template is hosted is not necessarily Apache, just like a lot of
the libraries we use are not hosted at Apache.
What I meant:
1. A user can upload his/her homebrew version of the System VM image
2. A user can upload a pre-build System VM image
While .debs and .rpms are not necessarily mandates - what would we
ship? We essentially can't ship a linux-based VM.
There's a shell script that builds the debian template. That's in the
patches directory. Today that takes the scripts / config files in there
and bundles it into the template after building the base image. So, the
repo will have the build script, the scripts and packaging scripts to
package the scripts into deb and rpm.
The Debs and RPM's would just package the stuff.
A user could do:
1. Set up a simple Debian VM with a 2GB disk
2. Add the CloudStack APT repo
3. apt-get install cloud-systemvm
4. Shut down the VM
5. Convert the disk to QCOW2
6. Upload it into CloudStack as a System VM template
In this you can replace apt by yum ofcourse and Debian by Fedora or even
RHEL.
A System VM is nothing more (or less) then a Debian installation with
Apache, nfs-common and the agent running inside.
With the proper packages and tutorial anyone can create a image for the
System VM.
We obviously need to write a design document specifying the contract for
the system vm so that interested parties can build / offer / distribute
their own systemvms. But a default one is necessary IMO. Otherwise the
out-of-the-box experience for first-timers is going to be very very iffy.
Correct! Due to licensing we are however not allowed to distribute it in
the official releases. But we can always write a script:
$ cloud-download-and-install-systemvm /srv/my-secondary-storage <url>
If URL is not specified it will download the image from a default location.
This way we also make it much easier for people to create their own
System VM's. Some people might prefer hardening them futher or stripping
them down.
Wido
