provisioning virtual machines

[Arindam Choudhury]

Hi,

I am trying to provision virtual machines  to create a virtual machine
cluster. If I try to transfer a pre-build virtual machine, its too time
consuming and hard on network. So the idea of using bootstrap or kickstart
seems better. Can any body point a good tutorial how to do this?

Actually I have a master image and I have to copy it on all the nodes and
create virtual machines. Is there any other way to do it?

Regards,
Arindam

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:41:06PM +0200, Arindam Choudhury wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to provision virtual machines  to create a virtual machine
>    cluster. If I try to transfer a pre-build virtual machine, its too time
>    consuming and hard on network. So the idea of using bootstrap or kickstart
>    seems better. Can any body point a good tutorial how to do this?
>
> Actually I have a master image and I have to copy it on all the nodes and
>    create virtual machines. Is there any other way to do it?

A bit old but:
http://wiki.xen.org/xenwiki/Fedora13Xen4Tutorial

The stuff about installing VMs still applies to current Fedora versions.

-- Pasi

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 02:45:02PM +0300, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:41:06PM +0200, Arindam Choudhury wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am trying to provision virtual machines  to create a virtual machine
> >    cluster. If I try to transfer a pre-build virtual machine, its too time
> >    consuming and hard on network. So the idea of using bootstrap or kickstart
> >    seems better. Can any body point a good tutorial how to do this?
> >
> > Actually I have a master image and I have to copy it on all the nodes and
> >    create virtual machines. Is there any other way to do it?
>
> A bit old but:
> http://wiki.xen.org/xenwiki/Fedora13Xen4Tutorial
>
> The stuff about installing VMs still applies to current Fedora versions.

Oh, and of course you can pass a kickstart script for the domU installer so the installation is automatic.

-- Pasi

[Arindam Choudhury]

Thanks for your kind reply.

What will be the packages I should install to create a minimal fedora
system which i will be able to run sun jdk.

I never used kick-start so a bit confused.

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 1:45 PM, Pasi Kärkkäinen  wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 02:45:02PM +0300, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:41:06PM +0200, Arindam Choudhury wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I am trying to provision virtual machines  to create a virtual
>
> machine
> > > cluster. If I try to transfer a pre-build virtual machine, its too
>
> time
> > > consuming and hard on network. So the idea of using bootstrap or
>
> kickstart
> > > seems better. Can any body point a good tutorial how to do this?
> > >
> > > Actually I have a master image and I have to copy it on all the
>
> nodes and
> > > create virtual machines. Is there any other way to do it?
> >
> > A bit old but:
> > http://wiki.xen.org/xenwiki/Fedora13Xen4Tutorial
> >
> > The stuff about installing VMs still applies to current Fedora versions.
>
> Oh, and of course you can pass a kickstart script for the domU installer
> so the installation is automatic.
>
> -- Pasi

[Bill Davidsen]

Arindam Choudhury wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to provision virtual machines  to create a virtual machine 
> cluster. If I try to transfer a pre-build virtual machine, its too time 
> consuming and hard on network. So the idea of using bootstrap or kickstart 
> seems better. Can any body point a good tutorial how to do this?
>
> Actually I have a master image and I have to copy it on all the nodes and 
> create virtual machines. Is there any other way to do it?

Not having done such a thing with xen, I can only say that you can do it with 
kvm, starting with a base image and making multiple copy on write (COW) machines 
which pretty much create instantly and take only as much disk space as the 
changed data. I would hope the xen tools would support a similar approach, but I 
can't tell you how to do it. Roll out of a name machine is five minutes or so, 
start the new VM with a fresh MAC address so your DHCP server gives it a unique 
IP, set the name and services and go.

I present this since you asked, not as a recommendation to do it the way I do...
> Regards,
> Arindam
>
> --
> xen mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xen

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:15:52PM -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> Arindam Choudhury wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am trying to provision virtual machines  to create a virtual
> > machine cluster. If I try to transfer a pre-build virtual machine,
> > its too time consuming and hard on network. So the idea of using
> > bootstrap or kickstart seems better. Can any body point a good
> > tutorial how to do this?
> >
> > Actually I have a master image and I have to copy it on all the
> > nodes and create virtual machines. Is there any other way to do
> > it?
>
> Not having done such a thing with xen, I can only say that you can
> do it with kvm, starting with a base image and making multiple copy
> on write (COW) machines which pretty much create instantly and take
> only as much disk space as the changed data. I would hope the xen
> tools would support a similar approach, but I can't tell you how to
> do it. Roll out of a name machine is five minutes or so, start the
> new VM with a fresh MAC address so your DHCP server gives it a
> unique IP, set the name and services and go.
>
> I present this since you asked, not as a recommendation to do it the way I do...

Yes there are many ways to do it.
You could use qemu qcow image files, or LVM snapshots, or whatever really..

-- Pasi
> > Regards,
> > Arindam
> >
> > --
> > xen mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xen
>
> -- 
> Bill Davidsen 
>   We are not out of the woods yet, but we know the direction and have
> taken the first step. The steps are many, but finite in number, and if
> we persevere we will reach our destination.  -me, 2010
>
> --
> xen mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xen

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 05:25:22PM +0300, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:15:52PM -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> > Arindam Choudhury wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I am trying to provision virtual machines  to create a virtual
> > > machine cluster. If I try to transfer a pre-build virtual machine,
> > > its too time consuming and hard on network. So the idea of using
> > > bootstrap or kickstart seems better. Can any body point a good
> > > tutorial how to do this?
> > >
> > > Actually I have a master image and I have to copy it on all the
> > > nodes and create virtual machines. Is there any other way to do
> > > it?
> >
> > Not having done such a thing with xen, I can only say that you can
> > do it with kvm, starting with a base image and making multiple copy
> > on write (COW) machines which pretty much create instantly and take
> > only as much disk space as the changed data. I would hope the xen
> > tools would support a similar approach, but I can't tell you how to
> > do it. Roll out of a name machine is five minutes or so, start the
> > new VM with a fresh MAC address so your DHCP server gives it a
> > unique IP, set the name and services and go.
> >
> > I present this since you asked, not as a recommendation to do it the way I do...
>
> Yes there are many ways to do it.
> You could use qemu qcow image files, or LVM snapshots, or whatever really..

.. with Xen.

-- Pasi
> > > Regards,
> > > Arindam
> > >
> > > --
> > > xen mailing list
> > > [e-mail]
> > > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xen
> >
> > -- 
> > Bill Davidsen 
> >   We are not out of the woods yet, but we know the direction and have
> > taken the first step. The steps are many, but finite in number, and if
> > we persevere we will reach our destination.  -me, 2010
> >
> > --
> > xen mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xen
>
> --
> xen mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xen