Provisioning a Cluster Using Vagrant and OpenStack

Vagrant has become very popular for provisioning virtual machines for development. Usually it’s used in combination with VirtualBox on a local machine. But Vagrant supports multiple other visualization providers, in fact one can build a custom provider as needed. If the local machine is not sufficient for the needs of development moving to the cloud seems like a reasonable thing to do using AWS, Rackspace, or OpenStack.

Getting Started

To get started with Vagrant OpenStack you need to install the plugin first.

Vagrant expects a box to be provisioned which is in case of a cloud not really present. Therefor a dummy box is installed an later referenced in the Vagrantfile.

You can now configure OpenStack in you Vagrantfile accordingly. There are a few basic and needed settings like the API, user, and password. Some optional parameters help in fine tuning the setup.

require 'vagrant-openstack-plugin'

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
    config.vm.box = "dummy"   
    # Make sure the private key from the key pair is provided
    config.ssh.private_key_path = "~/.ssh/openstack_rsa"
    
    config.vm.provider :openstack do |os|
        os.username     = "hkropp"                       # e.g. "#{ENV['OS_USERNAME']}"
        os.api_key      = "passw"                        # e.g. "#{ENV['OS_PASSWORD']}"
        os.flavor       = /m3.medium/                    # Regex or String
        os.image        = /centos-6.4/                   # Regex or String
        os.endpoint     = "http://172.24.74.252:5000"    # e.g. "#{ENV['OS_AUTH_URL']}/tokens"
        os.keypair_name = "openstack_rsa"                # as stored in Nova
        os.ssh_username = "root"                         # login for the VM
    end
end

Optional parameters:

os.metadata  = {"key" => "value"}                      # optional
os.user_data = "#cloud-confignmanage_etc_hosts: True" # optional
os.network            = "YOUR NETWORK_NAME"            # optional
os.networks           = [ "internal", "external" ]     # optional, overrides os.network
os.address_id         = "YOUR ADDRESS ID"              # optional (`network` above has higher precedence)
os.scheduler_hints    = {
   :cell => 'australia'
}                                          # optional
os.availability_zone  = "az0001"           # optional
os.security_groups    = ['ssh', 'http']    # optional
os.tenant             = "YOUR TENANT_NAME" # optional
os.floating_ip        = "33.33.33.33"      # optional (The floating IP to assign for this instance)
        
os.orchestration_stack_name = 'stack01'             # optional
os.orchestration_cfn_template_file = '/tmp/cfn_heat_template.json'  # optional
os.orchestration_cfn_template_parameters = {            # optional
   'NetworkName' => 'net_01'
}

List of settings:

• api_key – The API key for accessing OpenStack.
• flavor – The server flavor to boot. This can be a string matching the exact ID or name of the server, or this can be a regular expression to partially match some server flavor.
• image – The server image to boot. This can be a string matching the exact ID or name of the image, or this can be a regular expression to partially match some image.
• endpoint – The keystone authentication URL of your OpenStack installation.
• server_name – The name of the server within the OpenStack Cloud. This defaults to the name of the Vagrant machine (via config.vm.define), but can be overridden with this.
• username – The username with which to access OpenStack.
• keypair_name – The name of the keypair to access the machine.
• ssh_username – The username to access the machine. This can also be configured using the standard config.ssh.username configuration value.
• metadata – A set of key pair values that will be passed to the instance for configuration.
• network – A name or id that will be used to fetch network configuration data when configuring the instance. NOTE: This is not compliant with the vagrant network configurations.
• networks – An array of names or ids to create a server with multiple network interfaces. This overrides the network setting.
• address_id – A specific address identifier to use when connecting to the instance. network has higher precedence. If set to :floating_ip, then the floating IP address will be used.
• scheduler_hints – Pass hints to the open stack scheduler, see --hint flag in OpenStack filters doc
• availability_zone – Specify the availability zone in which the instance must be created.
• security_groups – List of security groups to be applied to the machine.
• tenant – Tenant name. You only need to specify this if your OpenStack user has access to multiple tenants.
• region – Region Name. Specify the region you want the instance to be launched in for multi-region environments.
• proxy – HTTP proxy. When behind a firewall override this value for API access.
• ssl_verify_peer – sets the ssl_verify_peer on the underlying excon connection – useful for self signed certs etc.
• floating_ip – Floating ip. The floating IP to assign for this instance. If set to :auto, then this assigns any available floating IP to the instance.
• orchestration_stack_name – Name for orchestration stack. Mandatory parameter when creating new stack. One of parameters for template should be set with this parameter.
• orchestration_stack_destroy – If stack created by vagrant should be deleted when destroy action is invoked. Default value is false.
• orchestration_cfn_template – AWS CloudFormation Template specified as a string.
• orchestration_cfn_template_file – AWS CloudFormation Template file path accessible for vagrant.
• orchestration_cfn_template_url – AWS CloudFormation Template URL.
• orchestration_cfn_template_parameters – AWS CloudFormation Template parameters specified in ruby hash (take a look at example Vagrantfile). This parameter is optional.