[openstack-dev] [Nova] Is there a way for the VM to identify that it is getting booted in OpenStack

Vijay Venkatachalam Vijay.Venkatachalam at citrix.com
Wed Nov 27 01:48:29 UTC 2013


Hi,
                Is there a way for the VM to identify that it is getting booted in OpenStack?
                As said in the below mail, once the VM knows it is booting in OpenStack it will alter the boot sequence.

                AWS provides signatures in the BIOS strings.

PS:
Changed the title to be more friendly.

Thanks,
Vijay V.


From: Vijay Venkatachalam [mailto:Vijay.Venkatachalam at citrix.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:58 PM
To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [Nova] Are BIOS strings configured in Hyper-V & ESX similar to KVM instantiated VMs?

It is basically used to tailor the boot sequence if the VM gets booted in OpenStack. For ex. it could do the following


1.       Get IP through DHCP if booted in OpenStack

2.       Read config drive or contact metadata service and init the system if booted in OpenStack


Thanks,
Vijay V.

From: Bob Ball [mailto:bob.ball at citrix.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 7:25 PM
To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [Nova] Are BIOS strings configured in Hyper-V & ESX similar to KVM instantiated VMs?

It's not certain that this will be implemented for the XenAPI driver.

Our view is that the BIOS strings shouldn't be relied upon - the hypervisor can clearly set them to anything so it's not really a reliable way to configure the application.  Also note that in some scenarios, such as PV guests in Xen clouds, you will not have any BIOS to query.  Finally we're not clear on the use case here - What's the use case for needing to know whether you VM is running under OpenStack or not?

Bob

From: Vijay Venkatachalam [mailto:Vijay.Venkatachalam at citrix.com]
Sent: 26 November 2013 01:44
To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org<mailto:openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org>)
Subject: [openstack-dev] [Nova] Are BIOS strings configured in Hyper-V & ESX similar to KVM instantiated VMs?

Hi,

In a KVM instantiated VM the following signature is present in the BIOS of the VM
The 'Manufacturer ' field in 'System Information' group is set to "OpenStack Foundation"



This helps the VM to identify that it is getting used in an OpenStack environment.



As far as I know XenServer is planning to set the BIOS Strings in IceHouse release.



Is this functionality available in other Hypervisors, especially Hyper-V & ESX?



Thanks,

Vijay V.
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