[Openstack] boot from ISO

Michaël Van de Borne michael.vandeborne at cetic.be
Thu Dec 1 16:34:24 UTC 2011


That's right, it's a Xen*Server* only feature. I insist on XenServer 
because it's been implemented only inside the xenapi.
If you wish to manage VMs using KVM or Xen hypervisor (the community 
hypervisor packaged in Linux distributions), this will utilize the 
libvirt API, and not XenAPI.

So, one needs to use XenServer (btw, openstack works great with 
XenServer 6.0 even if documentation claims that the supported release is 
5.5 
<http://docs.openstack.org/diablo/openstack-compute/admin/content/hypervisors.html>) 
in order for the XenAPI to be used.

I made use of this documentation 
<http://wiki.openstack.org/XenServerDevelopment> in order to set up the 
environement. What is missing is that, in order to activate the "Boot 
 From ISO <http://wiki.openstack.org/bootFromISO>" feature, the SR 
elements on XenServer host must be configured that way:

1. create an ISO-typed SR, such as an NFS ISO library, for instance. For 
this, using XenCenter is pretty easy. You need to export an NFS volume 
from a remote NFS server. Make sure it is exported in RW mode.
2. on the host, find the uuid of this ISO SR:
# xe host-list
write the uuid down
3. # xe sr-list content-type=iso
locate the uuid of the NFS ISO library
4. # xe sr-param-set uuid=<iso sr uuid> 
other-config:i18n-key=local-storage-iso
Even if an NFS mount point isn't local storage, you must specify 
"local-storage-iso".
5. # xe pbd-list sr-uuid=<iso sr uuid>
make sure the host-uuid from "xe pbd-list" equals the uuid of the host 
you found at step 2

then apply the rest of the tutorial 
<http://wiki.openstack.org/XenServerDevelopment#Configure_SR_storage> 
and publish an ISO image this way:
glance add name=fedora_iso disk_format=iso container_format=bare < 
Fedora-16-x86_64-netinst.iso
nova boot test_iso --flavor <flavor ID> --image <image ID>

I've posted this in the bug you filed, Anne.

By the way, I'm going to work on porting this feature on libvirt API and 
VMWare API (if nobody works on it yet).

Is the config drive yet available for Diablo??

cheers,

michaël

<http://wiki.openstack.org/XenServerDevelopment>

Michaël Van de Borne
R&D Engineer, SOA team, CETIC
Phone: +32 (0)71 49 07 45 Mobile: +32 (0)472 69 57 16, Skype: mikemowgli
www.cetic.be, rue des Frères Wright, 29/3, B-6041 Charleroi


Le 01/12/11 16:29, Anne Gentle a écrit :
> Thanks for the info! I've logged bug 898682 [1] to ensure it gets
> added to the documentation. Based on this note, is this a solution for
> Xen only?
>
> Is this the same as using a config drive? I had heard a config drive
> works on KVM but not Xen.
>
>   If someone who's familiar with this area could work on the docs that
> would be great.
>
> Thanks,
> Anne
>
> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/openstack-manuals/+bug/898682
>
> On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Michaël Van de Borne
> <michael.vandeborne at cetic.be>  wrote:
>> It finally works. The problem was the flag checks while looking for the ISO
>> SR.
>>
>> inside the find_iso_sr method (in nova/virt/xenapi/vm_utils.py), I found
>> that the ISO SR must have these settings:
>> content type: iso
>> other-config:i18n-key=local-storage-iso
>>
>> As far as I know, this wasn't documented anywhere. Hope this can be useful
>> for people from the future.
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>> michaël
>>
>>
>> Michaël Van de Borne
>> R&D Engineer, SOA team, CETIC
>> Phone: +32 (0)71 49 07 45 Mobile: +32 (0)472 69 57 16, Skype: mikemowgli
>> www.cetic.be, rue des Frères Wright, 29/3, B-6041 Charleroi
>>
>>
>> Le 29/11/11 23:10, Donal Lafferty a écrit :
>>
>> Off the top of my head, I’d look to see if the compute node can see that ISO
>> SR.
>>
>>
>>
>> DL
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Michaël Van de Borne [mailto:michael.vandeborne at cetic.be]
>> Sent: 29 November 2011 18:15
>> To: Donal Lafferty; openstack at lists.launchpad.net
>> Subject: Re: [Openstack] boot from ISO
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Donal, hi all,
>>
>> I'm trying to test the Boot From ISO feature. So I've set a XenServer host
>> and installed a Ubuntu 11.10 PV DomU in it.
>>
>> Then I used the following commands but, as you can see in the attached
>> nova-compute log excerpt, there was a problem.
>>
>> glance add name=fedora_iso disk_format=iso<
>> ../Fedora-16-x86_64-Live-LXDE.iso
>> ID: 4
>> nova boot test_iso --flavor 2 --image 4
>>
>> I can see the ISO images using "nova list" but not using "glance index".
>>
>> The error seems to be: 'Cannot find SR of content-type ISO'. However, I've
>> set a NFS ISO Library using XenCenter, so that there is an actual ISO
>> content-typed SR. How to tell OpenStack to use this SR for the ISO images I
>> post using glance?
>>
>> Any clue? I feel I'm rather close to make it work.
>>
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> michaël
>>
>>
>>
>> Michaël Van de Borne
>>
>> R&D Engineer, SOA team, CETIC
>>
>> Phone: +32 (0)71 49 07 45 Mobile: +32 (0)472 69 57 16, Skype: mikemowgli
>>
>> www.cetic.be, rue des Frères Wright, 29/3, B-6041 Charleroi
>>
>>
>> Le 22/11/11 00:18, Donal Lafferty a écrit :
>>
>> Hi Michaël,
>>
>>
>>
>> “Boot from ISO” should be ISO image agnostic.  The feature overcomes
>> restrictions placed on the  distribution of modified Windows’ images.
>> People can use their ISO instead, but they may still need to use dedicated
>> hardware.
>>
>>
>>
>> You should have no problem with a Linux distribution.
>>
>>
>>
>> However, I wrote it for XenAPI, so we need someone to duplicate the work for
>> KVM and VMWare.
>>
>>
>>
>> DL
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: openstack-bounces+donal.lafferty=citrix.com at lists.launchpad.net
>> [mailto:openstack-bounces+donal.lafferty=citrix.com at lists.launchpad.net] On
>> Behalf Of Michaël Van de Borne
>> Sent: 21 November 2011 17:28
>> To: openstack at lists.launchpad.net
>> Subject: Re: [Openstack] boot from ISO
>>
>>
>>
>> up? anybody?
>>
>>
>> Le 14/11/11 14:44, Michaël Van de Borne a écrit :
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm very interested in the "Boot From ISO" feature described here:
>> http://wiki.openstack.org/bootFromISO
>>
>> In a few words, it's about the ability to boot a VM from the CDROM with an
>> ISO image attached. A blank hard disk being attached to install the OS files
>> in it.
>>
>> I've got some questions about this:
>> 1. Is the feature available today using a standard Diablo install? I've seen
>> the code about this feature is stored under nova/tests and glance/tests.
>> Does this mean it isn't finished yet and could only be tested under specific
>> conditions? Which ones?
>> 2. the spec tells about a Windows use case. Why just Windows? What should I
>> do to test with a Linux distribution?
>> 3. I can see here that the Xen hypervisor only has been impacted by the
>> source code changes. Are KVM and VMWare planned to be supported in the
>> future? May I help/be helped to develop KVM and VMWare support for this
>> 'Boot From Iso' feature?
>>
>> Any help appreaciated
>>
>> thank you,
>>
>>
>> michaël
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Michaël Van de Borne
>>
>> R&D Engineer, SOA team, CETIC
>>
>> Phone: +32 (0)71 49 07 45 Mobile: +32 (0)472 69 57 16, Skype: mikemowgli
>>
>> www.cetic.be, rue des Frères Wright, 29/3, B-6041 Charleroi
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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