Hi all,
Me and Joep Piscaer are planning on doing some Cobbler + ESX/vCenter integration. We'd like to be able to deploy virtuals like we can on xen/kvm using Koan. However, we're not going to be able to run a tool like Koan on a vCenter server, so we'd have to talk to VMware through some sort of API from another host.
Keeping this in mind, how much sense does it make to still implement this in Koan? Wouldn't Cobbler be a better place for this piece of code to live?
I'd like some input on this. :)
Cheers, Jasper
Jasper Capel wrote:
Hi all,
Me and Joep Piscaer are planning on doing some Cobbler + ESX/vCenter integration. We'd like to be able to deploy virtuals like we can on xen/kvm using Koan. However, we're not going to be able to run a tool like Koan on a vCenter server, so we'd have to talk to VMware through some sort of API from another host.
Keeping this in mind, how much sense does it make to still implement this in Koan? Wouldn't Cobbler be a better place for this piece of code to live?
I'd like some input on this. :)
I'm currently working on a cobbler system deploy method that will have deployment modules. If VMware gives you an api to talk to, you could simply write a deployment module to talk to it. I would think that is the best way to go.
On 04/03/2009 05:12 PM, Scott Henson wrote:
I'm currently working on a cobbler system deploy method that will have deployment modules. If VMware gives you an api to talk to, you could simply write a deployment module to talk to it. I would think that is the best way to go.
We'll figure out the steps required to create a VM on VMware and have it PXE-boot from our Cobbler server automatically, and we'll wait for the deployment stuff to implement it in a deployment module. Sounds like the way to go yeah, thanks! :)
-Jasper
We'll figure out the steps required to create a VM on VMware and have it PXE-boot from our Cobbler server automatically, and we'll wait for the deployment stuff to implement it in a deployment module. Sounds like the way to go yeah, thanks! :)
if only someone would do this for Xen Enterprise ;)
its a bit beyond me a think
Tom Brown wrote:
We'll figure out the steps required to create a VM on VMware and have it PXE-boot from our Cobbler server automatically, and we'll wait for the deployment stuff to implement it in a deployment module. Sounds like the way to go yeah, thanks! :)
if only someone would do this for Xen Enterprise ;)
its a bit beyond me a think _______________________________________________ cobbler-devel mailing list cobbler-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler-devel
Xen Enterprise doesn't support libvirt APIs. I also expect that it has very little share in the virtualization space.
I don't think making that work in libvirt would be worth it.
--Michael
Scott Henson wrote:
Jasper Capel wrote:
Hi all,
Me and Joep Piscaer are planning on doing some Cobbler + ESX/vCenter integration. We'd like to be able to deploy virtuals like we can on xen/kvm using Koan. However, we're not going to be able to run a tool like Koan on a vCenter server, so we'd have to talk to VMware through some sort of API from another host.
Keeping this in mind, how much sense does it make to still implement this in Koan? Wouldn't Cobbler be a better place for this piece of code to live?
I'd like some input on this. :)
I'm currently working on a cobbler system deploy method that will have deployment modules. If VMware gives you an api to talk to, you could simply write a deployment module to talk to it. I would think that is the best way to go.
++
There are Perl APIs, at least, for VMware.
The idea of "cobbler system deploy --name=foo --onhost=bar"and "cobbler systemdeploy --name=foo --in-virtual-group=baz" is definitely goodness.
It may have only one choosable deployment module per cobbler install initially, though I could see that being configurable in settings based on the name of the virtual group.
--Michael
On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Michael DeHaan mdehaan@redhat.com wrote:
Scott Henson wrote:
Jasper Capel wrote:
Hi all,
Me and Joep Piscaer are planning on doing some Cobbler + ESX/vCenter integration. We'd like to be able to deploy virtuals like we can on xen/kvm using Koan. However, we're not going to be able to run a tool like Koan on a vCenter server, so we'd have to talk to VMware through some sort of API from another host.
Keeping this in mind, how much sense does it make to still implement this in Koan? Wouldn't Cobbler be a better place for this piece of code to live?
I'd like some input on this. :)
I'm currently working on a cobbler system deploy method that will have deployment modules. If VMware gives you an api to talk to, you could simply write a deployment module to talk to it. I would think that is the best way to go.
++
There are Perl APIs, at least, for VMware.
Would it be possible to write support for vmware perl apis into libvirt? Like yum install libvirt-vmware-esx && service libvirtd restart or something? I've used the VMWare perl API before but never looked at the license on their API reference. Someone might be able to pull that off and stay out of hot water. Obviously this would be a "community" thing though.
I have some pretty good experience with the api. I have code to do the following tasks.
1. Power control 2. Change portgroup 3. Find and change guest Id given cobbler profile name 4. Cloning 5. Create VM
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 3, 2009, at 12:08 PM, Jeff Schroeder jeffschroed@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Michael DeHaan mdehaan@redhat.com wrote:
Scott Henson wrote:
Jasper Capel wrote:
Hi all,
Me and Joep Piscaer are planning on doing some Cobbler + ESX/ vCenter integration. We'd like to be able to deploy virtuals like we can on xen/kvm using Koan. However, we're not going to be able to run a tool like Koan on a vCenter server, so we'd have to talk to VMware through some sort of API from another host.
Keeping this in mind, how much sense does it make to still implement this in Koan? Wouldn't Cobbler be a better place for this piece of code to live?
I'd like some input on this. :)
I'm currently working on a cobbler system deploy method that will have deployment modules. If VMware gives you an api to talk to, you could simply write a deployment module to talk to it. I would think that is the best way to go.
++
There are Perl APIs, at least, for VMware.
Would it be possible to write support for vmware perl apis into libvirt? Like yum install libvirt-vmware-esx && service libvirtd restart or something? I've used the VMWare perl API before but never looked at the license on their API reference. Someone might be able to pull that off and stay out of hot water. Obviously this would be a "community" thing though.
-- Jeff Schroeder
Don't drink and derive, alcohol and analysis don't mix. http://www.digitalprognosis.com _______________________________________________ cobbler-devel mailing list cobbler-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler-devel
On 04/03/2009 06:25 PM, Corey Osman wrote:
I have some pretty good experience with the api. I have code to do the following tasks.
- Power control
- Change portgroup
- Find and change guest Id given cobbler profile name
- Cloning
- Create VM
Cool! The obvious question here is: would you be willing to share this (GPL), so we can try integrating it? :)
Jasper
The Api comes with some good tools already
I already submitted a patch for power control and portgroup change to cobbler during 1.5 release.
The guest Id change module that I wrote is owned by Racemi who just layed me off on Monday so I would have to rewrite it before giving it up to gpl. I still have all the source code but I cannot open source it. It basically finds the correct guestid from the host and matches it with the supplied profile/distro being installed by cobbler. This is important because some distros do not install correct if using a different guestid.
Since I hate perl, I will probably redo all my vmware modules in Jython.
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-5770
Its pretty easy once you understand the Vmware API.
What do you guys thing about using jython for controlling vmware instead of perl in koan or libvirt?
Corey
On Apr 3, 2009, at 12:29 PM, Jasper Capel capel@stone-it.com wrote:
On 04/03/2009 06:25 PM, Corey Osman wrote:
I have some pretty good experience with the api. I have code to do the following tasks.
- Power control
- Change portgroup
- Find and change guest Id given cobbler profile name
- Cloning
- Create VM
Cool! The obvious question here is: would you be willing to share this (GPL), so we can try integrating it? :)
Jasper _______________________________________________ cobbler-devel mailing list cobbler-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler-devel
Corey Osman wrote:
The Api comes with some good tools already
I already submitted a patch for power control and portgroup change to cobbler during 1.5 release.
The guest Id change module that I wrote is owned by Racemi who just layed me off on Monday so I would have to rewrite it before giving it up to gpl. I still have all the source code but I cannot open source it. It basically finds the correct guestid from the host and matches it with the supplied profile/distro being installed by cobbler. This is important because some distros do not install correct if using a different guestid.
Since I hate perl, I will probably redo all my vmware modules in Jython.
I'm hoping that was a typo and you meant "Python" :)
I'd recommend trying to get your VMware tools packaged for Fedora first -- this may hit problems with making those available seeing they do not work for OSS tech. Provided that gets packaged, we can probably move forward with this.
This could also probably be done as an outside "koan like" script that gathers data from Cobbler and just makes things happen. That way we could link to the Cobbler page and wouldn't have to worry about the packaging guidelines (because we wouldn't be packaging this... it would be a script that works with Cobbler).
--Michael
Hey,
No, Jython was not a typo.
Jython is python code compiled with java instead of C. After doing some research it looks like its more trouble than its worth because jython only support python v2.2. In addition some python modules written in C cannot be used with jython. If your familiar with IronPython (python for .NET/mono) its the same concept. I think the better approach is to use the the vmware open source API (BSD license) and 100% java to control vmware. There are more examples using JAVA than perl. Not to mention perl sucks.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vijava
So basically we can package the open source vmware api with cobbler and then just rely on JRE 1.6 being installed.
I have no clue where this would fit in cobbler/koan. Maybe it would be easier to create a generic interface to vmware and then let koan call that interface with very few parameters. I would love to do this if anybody wants to employ/pay me. I lost my job monday so I kinda have lots of time on my hand for certain things.
Corey On Apr 3, 2009, at 2:19 PM, Michael DeHaan wrote:
Corey Osman wrote:
The Api comes with some good tools already
I already submitted a patch for power control and portgroup change to cobbler during 1.5 release.
The guest Id change module that I wrote is owned by Racemi who just layed me off on Monday so I would have to rewrite it before giving it up to gpl. I still have all the source code but I cannot open source it. It basically finds the correct guestid from the host and matches it with the supplied profile/distro being installed by cobbler. This is important because some distros do not install correct if using a different guestid.
Since I hate perl, I will probably redo all my vmware modules in Jython.
I'm hoping that was a typo and you meant "Python" :)
I'd recommend trying to get your VMware tools packaged for Fedora first -- this may hit problems with making those available seeing they do not work for OSS tech. Provided that gets packaged, we can probably move forward with this.
This could also probably be done as an outside "koan like" script that gathers data from Cobbler and just makes things happen. That way we could link to the Cobbler page and wouldn't have to worry about the packaging guidelines (because we wouldn't be packaging this... it would be a script that works with Cobbler).
--Michael
cobbler-devel mailing list cobbler-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler-devel
Corey Osman wrote:
Hey,
No, Jython was not a typo.
Jython is python code compiled with java instead of C. After doing some research it looks like its more trouble than its worth because jython only support python v2.2.
Yeah, I know what Jython is. It's a problem for exactly that reason -- being so horribly behind.
In addition some python modules written in C cannot be used with jython. If your familiar with IronPython (python for .NET/mono) its the same concept. I think the better approach is to use the the vmware open source API (BSD license) and 100% java to control vmware. There are more examples using JAVA than perl. Not to mention perl sucks.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vijava
So basically we can package the open source vmware api with cobbler and then just rely on JRE 1.6 being installed.
I have no clue where this would fit in cobbler/koan. Maybe it would be easier to create a generic interface to vmware and then let koan call that interface with very few parameters. I would love to do this if anybody wants to employ/pay me. I lost my job monday so I kinda have lots of time on my hand for certain things.
I'd say make this a seperate tool that uses the Cobbler XMLRPC apis to find what parameters to use to create the VMware guest. We can then link to it on the Cobbler Wiki. I really don't care what language it is in in that case, though ideally it would work with openjdk if it was java.
Something koan like, but not koan-proper.
It wouldn't ship with koan, but then VMware users can still find it and use it, and use Cobbler to centrally manage all the data.
Sound good?
--Michael
Corey On Apr 3, 2009, at 2:19 PM, Michael DeHaan wrote:
Corey Osman wrote:
The Api comes with some good tools already
I already submitted a patch for power control and portgroup change to cobbler during 1.5 release.
The guest Id change module that I wrote is owned by Racemi who just layed me off on Monday so I would have to rewrite it before giving it up to gpl. I still have all the source code but I cannot open source it. It basically finds the correct guestid from the host and matches it with the supplied profile/distro being installed by cobbler. This is important because some distros do not install correct if using a different guestid.
Since I hate perl, I will probably redo all my vmware modules in Jython.
I'm hoping that was a typo and you meant "Python" :)
I'd recommend trying to get your VMware tools packaged for Fedora first -- this may hit problems with making those available seeing they do not work for OSS tech. Provided that gets packaged, we can probably move forward with this.
This could also probably be done as an outside "koan like" script that gathers data from Cobbler and just makes things happen. That way we could link to the Cobbler page and wouldn't have to worry about the packaging guidelines (because we wouldn't be packaging this... it would be a script that works with Cobbler).
--Michael
cobbler-devel mailing list cobbler-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler-devel
cobbler-devel mailing list cobbler-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler-devel
Jeff Schroeder wrote:
On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Michael DeHaan mdehaan@redhat.com wrote:
Scott Henson wrote:
Jasper Capel wrote:
Hi all,
Me and Joep Piscaer are planning on doing some Cobbler + ESX/vCenter integration. We'd like to be able to deploy virtuals like we can on xen/kvm using Koan. However, we're not going to be able to run a tool like Koan on a vCenter server, so we'd have to talk to VMware through some sort of API from another host.
Keeping this in mind, how much sense does it make to still implement this in Koan? Wouldn't Cobbler be a better place for this piece of code to live?
I'd like some input on this. :)
I'm currently working on a cobbler system deploy method that will have deployment modules. If VMware gives you an api to talk to, you could simply write a deployment module to talk to it. I would think that is the best way to go.
++
There are Perl APIs, at least, for VMware.
Would it be possible to write support for vmware perl apis into libvirt? Like yum install libvirt-vmware-esx && service libvirtd restart or something? I've used the VMWare perl API before but never looked at the license on their API reference. Someone might be able to pull that off and stay out of hot water. Obviously this would be a "community" thing though.
I would doubt libvirt has interest in managing proprietary virt types.
Nor do I really think it belongs there.
In general, we'd /much/ rather see people using OSS virt.
--Michael
cobbler-devel@lists.fedorahosted.org
-
Corey Osman -
Jasper Capel -
Jeff Schroeder -
Michael DeHaan -
Scott Henson -
Tom Brown