Automatic System Installations And Change Management. with FAI

Transcription

1 Automatic System Installations And Change Management with FAI

2 Speaker

3 Henning Sprang

4

5 OpenSource consultant, developer, author

6 Interests

7 Systems management Software development QA and testing Virtualization

8 FAI Team member

9 About system installations

10 Do You...

11 ...use FAI already?

12 Another auto-installer or config management tool?

13 wonder how to rebuilt/restore configurations?

14 manually tinkered and tweaked over long time

15 Exactly, really

16 quick

17 Disk images

18 Create templates from ``proper'' installations

19 Copy when needed and adjust them as needed

20 Pros

21 low learning cost Simple and fast implementation: cp/rsync/tar/dd

22 Cons

23 Inflexible - the smallest change requires rebuilding the image Still manual work needed to get a installed system Storage cost linear to number of different configurations

24 Configuration with shell scripts

25 Manual work replaced by shell scripts

26 Pros

27 Much lower storage cost Higher flexibility Tailor made

28 Cons

29 Full-blown development project (you'll realize after a while) You solve every problem on your own, instead of reusing work of others

30 Use available Auto-Installer

31 Anaconda / Kickstart: Fedora-based

32 Autoyast: SuSE-based

33 Nlite/Unattend: Windows in many flavours

34 FAI: Debian-based, Fedora-based, SuSE-based, Windows experimental, Solaris possible

35 Others: Solaris Jumpstart RedHat Cobbler/Koan

36 About FAI

37 Why FAI?

38 Shellscript-based Simple, Flexible, easy to extend

39 Community support by seasoned "`Installers"'

40 Diverse client- and serverdistributions

41 Multiple installation types and system updates

42 Can be used for real hardware and virtualization systems

43 One-Step-Install bare metal to fully working system

44 Easily integrate other tools CFEngine Puppet Custom scripts

45 History

46 Started 1999 by Thomas Lange at the University of cologne

47 Base idea: structured and planned installation

48 Plan your installation, and FAI installs your plan

49 Part of the Debian Distribution

50 Today about 10 active developers, small but nice community

51 Since 2005 softupdates from Henning Glawe included

52 Who is using it for what?

53 EDF uses FAI (with GOSA) for some research clusters

54 LiMux in Munich: installs/updates 400(to be 14000) clients/servers

55 Multiple top 500 High Performance Clusters

56 Small home networks starting from 2 systems

57 GRML admin live CD built with FAI

58 Functionality

59 Overview

60 FAI classes

61 A class defines system properties and actions to be taken

62 Class-assignment with simple texfile, database, or scripts

63 Systems can be assigned to multiple classes combined at will

64 Server-distribution:

65 Debian-based Dependencies: Perl, NFS, TFTP, debootstrap So, easy to port!

66 Target-distributions:

67 Debian, Redhat, Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva

68 Different installation types (networked, CD/USB, chroot)

69 Integrated versioning with subversion, CVS, git

70 System updates

71 Installation types

72 Network installation with central install server

73 Client/Server architecture

74 Directly calling dirinstall for chroots (Can be easy integrated into xen-tools, ganeti,...)

75 With grml-live: Live-CD generation!

76 The installation/update process

77 Most important FAI "tasks" (steps of installation)

78 defclass: Class definition(assignment) for the target system

79 partition: guess what?! :)

80 extrbase: Unpack a minimal base image

81 debconf: apply Debconf preseedings

82 instsoft: Software package installation

83 Configure: Run configuration scripts

84 savelog: Push logfiles on the install Server

85 Usage details

86 Considerations and Planning

87 Installation

88 Decide the matching install type (net/cd/dirinstall)

89 Plan your installation

90 Use cases Network and environment Software-packages Additional files and config adjustments Acess control, Identity Management,...

91 Using mirrors of Internet software repositories

92 Updates

93 How and when should which patches be applied?

94 Testing processes how do I know the effect of a patch/update?

95 Mirrors of security update repositories?

96 Automatic (scheduled, timebased) or manually started?

97 Setup and configuration

98 Installation on Debian: apt-get install fai-quickstart

99 Adjust install server setup in /etc/fai

100 fai.conf: LOGUSER=fai, LOGPROTO=ssh (for Logging via ssh) apt/sources.list: use local mirror if available make-fai-nfsroot.conf: local mirror for debootstrap

101 FAI server is configured! Now create NFSroot: fai-setup / make-fai-nfsroot

102 For PXE-Boot: fai-chboot to set boot-kernel, -options

103 Without PXE / Installation from CD: fai-cd

104 Infrastructure services for network install

105 DNS entry for server and clients

106 DHCP config: Host/IP/MAC as usual

107 some FAI-specific stuff: option root-path "/srv/fai/nfsroot..." server-name "faiserver"; # boot-server next-server ; # tftp server: kernel filename "pxelinux.0";

108 System configurations

109 Configurations for installation are stored in FAI configspace

110 Simple text files and scripts

111 requirements from installation plan are reflected here

112 Example included in /usr/share/doc/fai/examples/simple

113 Default location: /srv/fai/config

114 Contents of configspace

115 class disk_config basefiles debconf package_config scripts files hooks

116 Adjust configspace: class

117 class contains class- and variable definitions/assignments

118 Simplest way: assign classes based on hostnames

119 Some sample classes: FAISERVER, GNOME, DEMO, XORG

120 Any script can be used to assign classes

121 E.G.: check specific hardware, MAC or IP, disk size,...

122 Adjust configspace: basefiles

123 Minimal base images for non-debian distributions and special uses

124 Task "extrbase" checks this directory for matching images

125 Images named by classes

126 You could also put an image here and skip the rest :)

127 Adjust configspace: disk_config

128 detailed control over partitions and mounting

129 new tool includes lvm and raid setups

130 hard sizes or ranges

131 # example of new config file for setup-storage # # <type> <mountpoint> <size> <fs type> <mount options> <misc options> disk_config disk1 disklabel:msdos primary / 250 ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro logical swap swap rw logical /var ext3 rw createopts="-m 5" \ tuneopts="-c 0 -i 0" logical /tmp 100-1G ext3 rw createopts="-m 0" \ tuneopts="-c 0 -i 0" logical /usr 1G-8G ext3 rw logical /home % ext3 rw,nosuid createopts="-m 1" \ tuneopts="-c 0 -i 0"

132 Adjust configspace: debconf

133 Presets for package install scripts

134 Only for dpkg-based distributions

135 Works analog to Debian Installer

136 Adjust configspace: package_config

137 Contents: files named by class names

138 Purpose: Define packages to be installed

139 Supports many installation methods:

140 install (apt-get) aptitude taskinst (Debian tasks=package collections) urpmi (mandriva) yumi (Fedora) y2i (SuSE y2pmsh) yast (SuSE yast -i)

141 Example package_config/demo from simple examples: PACKAGES aptitude fortune-mod fortunes rstat-client #rstatd rusers rusersd # only when also class XORG is defined PACKAGES aptitude XORG bb frozen-bubble xpenguins

142 Adjust Configspace: scripts #!/bin/bash #!/bin/perl #!/usr/bin/cfagent

143 scripts to be executed after package installation

144 Usually shell-, Perl- and cfengine-scripts

145 Need for others? just install Interpreter in the NFS-Root

146 Naming scheme: <CLASSNAME>/<NUMBER>-<SCRIPTNAME>

147 Number defines order of execution

148 SCRIPTNAME arbitrary just for readability

149 scripts example:. -- AMD64 `-- 99-discover-bug -- DEMO misc `-- 30-demo -- FAIBASE misc interface `-- 40-misc -- FAISERVER conffiles `-- 20-copy-mirror -- GRUB `-- 10-setup `-- LAST `-- 50-misc

150 Adjust configspace: files

151 Structure of a filesystem, starting with /

152 classbased copy/unpack

153 For usage with fcopy/ftar

154 Copy single files explicitly, or recursive from /

155 ftar unpacks an archive

156 Target file=directory

157 actually copied source file=classname

158 sample: -- etc -- X11 -- xorg.conf -- ATI -- NVIDIA -- apache2 -- conf.d -- debian-mirror.conf --FAISERVER -- fai -- fai.conf -- FAISERVER -- FAI_SOFTUPDATE_CLIENT

159 Adjust configspace: hooks

160 Naming scheme: <TASKNAME>.<CLASSNAME>[.source]

161 Execution before the according task

162 Examples: partition.xenu instsoft.faibase savelog.last.source

163 Do the installation

164 Depending on chosen install type

165 Boot via PXE Bootfloppy install-cd USB Stick

166 fai dirinstall <TARGETDIR> into mounted blockdevice

167 Call dirinstall from xen-tools, Ganeti,...

168 Run grml-live

169 Depending on number of packages it takes 3-30 minutes

170 (automatic)restart with production configuration

171 Functionality tests

172 Advanced stuff Outlook

173 Support stuff for more distributions: fai-distributions

174 GOSA as LDAP and FAI GUI

175 Automatic Tests of the installed systems

176 hooks/scripts could check files and configurations Crucible Test Framework

177 No LDAP? Management-Tool/lightweight GUI without GOSA

178 better configspace layout

179 Comparison with Puppet

180 LIMITED VALIDITY

181 I Only scratched Puppet's surface yet!

182 But I try to be unbiased

183 I actually like puppet quite well

184 The Points

185 Puppet has data encryption functionality! can distribute secrets!

186 FAI has a simpler file copying structure Could be emulated with some code in puppet.

187 Puppet: only "configuration" FAI: also partition and base install

188 FAI has multiple specific logs Puppet logs into syslog

189 FAI: config files + scripts Puppet: everything is a script (most config-filish - found some strange syntax skimming through)

190 Puppet: advanced client/server config push FAI: (scripted) ssh into amanged host, additional tool

191 FAI is a bit more mature - no youth problems

192 Puppet has some more advanced distribution abstractions

193 FAI is still lacking a nice Logo and website :)

194 BOTH: cool tools that you should use!

195 Can work together well and easy

196 Conclusions

197 FAI is a powerful tool for

198 Automatic installation

199 System-Change-Management

200 Structured approach required

201 Expect some learning curve on the way

202 The Big Reward: less worries about...

203 getting a config cloned setting up new machines restoring after a crash changing configs on multiple systems

204 Further information: IRC-Channel #fai at OFTC-Network linux-fai-users and linux-fai-devel mailing list Commercial Support: multiple companies and freelancers

205 ADVERTISEMENT: to learn more or implement CALL ME! :)

206 Contact

207 THANKS FOR LISTENING!

208 QUESTIONS?