Puppet vKick Module

Define KVM virtual machines and the guest's OS setup

• Combine KVM definition and Kickstart OS setup in a single module declaration.
• Create virtual machines in a centralized way with full OS setup from your Puppet master.
• Simply define which Linux flavor to install by pointing to the right HTTP mirror.
• Can be faster than bootstrapping an image, especially if you want an up to date OS.
  

Examples

node 'host1.domain.com' {
  include vkick::host
}

You can modify the libvirt image path or bridge device name by assigning those parameters to the vkick:host class in your node classification.

You'll find 3 main groups to define a virtual machine: network, partitioning and packages. The simplest definition will only need network settings and will create a CentOS 6.5 VM with 2 vcpu, 2GB of RAM and a 40GB disk image:

node 'host1.domain.com' {
  include vkick::host

  vkick::guest { 'instance1.domain.com':
       root_intial_passwd => '$5$random_salt$cZtPYSe77B7/NJHzUSHr1AEOMnQQpIbLWPmIboI2nG3',
       ipaddress          => "173.255.197.131",
       subnetmask         => "255.255.255.0",
       broadcast          => "173.255.197.255",
       gateway            => "173.255.197.254"
 }
}

To define a bigger Fedora 20 VM with a LAMP stack, download and install PuppetLabs repo meta then finally install the Puppet client:

node 'host1.domain.com' {
  include vkick::host

  vkick::guest { 'instance2.domain.com':
    vcpu                      => 4,
    ram                     => 16384,
    disk_size             => 120,
    os_variant            => 'fedora16',
    http_mirror           => 'http://fedora.mirrors.ovh.net/linux/releases/20/Fedora/x86_64/os/',
    http_updates          => 'http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/linux/updates/20/x86_64/',
    timezone                => 'Europe/London',
    packages              => ['httpd', 'mariadb-server', 'MySQL-python']
    packages_to_download  => ['http://yum.puppetlabs.com/puppetlabs-release-pc1-fedora-20.noarch.rpm'],
    packages_post_install => ['puppet-agent'],
    pass_algorithm        => 'sha512',
    root_intial_passwd    => '$6$random_salt$TNrwyNX0/aJaE8Ee/.dchDiGLxINLMiRTX.DX0SpGzYXE9MDgCq8qYsEBqBe5pPUKtPTUxoTXJyIgdsWQ1Csp0',
    ipaddress             => "173.255.197.131",
    subnetmask            => "255.255.255.0",
    broadcast             => "173.255.197.255",
    gateway               => "173.255.197.254"
  }
}

Adapt HTTP mirrors to a server nearby and serving the right version for your CPU architecture. The CPU architecture is inherited from, the host's CPU, there for only the number of vcpu/thread is left to assign. Without specifying a partition scheme, the follow settings will be used:

• An ext4 /boot partition of 512MB.
• 2GB of swap.
• 10GB for an ext4 / partition as part of a LVM volume.
• 4GB for an ext4 /home partition as part of a LVM volume.
• All remaining space of the specified disk size will be used for a /var ext4 partition as part of a LVM volume.

Password encryption:

To improve security, especially when Puppet configuration is hosted in a repository off-premise, the root password injected via Kickstart with this module should be encrypted. To obtain the hashed version of your password, you can use these commands:

• sha256:

python -c 'import crypt; print crypt.crypt("5hould8eReplaced", "$5$random_salt")'

• sha512:

python -c 'import crypt; print crypt.crypt("5hould8eReplaced", "$6$random_salt")'

Hiera

If you want to define VMs via Hiera, add the following in you site.pp:

$vkick_guests = hiera_hash('vkick_guests', {})
create_resources('::vkick::guest', $vkick_guests)

Then in your Hiera configuration for a node:

vkick_guests:
  'instance1.domain.com':
    root_intial_passwd: '$5$random_salt$cZtPYSe77B7/NJHzUSHr1AEOMnQQpIbLWPmIboI2nG3'
    ipaddress: '173.255.197.131'
    subnetmask: '255.255.255.0'
    broadcast: '173.255.197.255'
    gateway: '173.255.197.254'
    packages:
      - 'httpd'
      - 'mariadb-server'
      - 'MySQL-python'

Requirements

• A working network bridge defined on the host.
• A CPU with support for virtualization via KVM.
• An access to the internet from the guest's IP or a local HTTP mirror.
• A version of python-virtinst equal or superior to 0.500.4-1 to support injecting Kickstart definition without local ISO or floppy installation image.

Known Limitations

• Only works for guest OS supporting Kickstart files such as RedHat, CentOS, Fedora and Ubuntu (would need custom Kickstart template to, among other things, use apt-get rather than yum).
• Requires a guest setup with static IP, either public or private if a gateway or local mirror is available.
• Doesn't create other user accounts than root on a guest.

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