KVM

Introduction

OpenStack is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform that allows you to create and manage virtual environments. Chameleon provides an installation of OpenStack Xena using the KVM virtualization technology at the KVM@TACC site. Since the KVM hypervisor is used on this cloud, any virtual machines you upload must be compatible with KVM.

This documentation provide basic information about how to use the OpenStack web interface and provides some information specific to using OpenStack KVM on Chameleon. The interface is similar to the bare metal sites CHI@TACC and CHI@UC. However, the resources that you are using are virtual, rather than being tied to physical nodes. Familiarity with some concepts, such as Key Pairs are also required for KVM.

Work with KVM using the GUI

An easy way to use OpenStack KVM on Chameleon is via the GUI, which is similar to the GUIs for CHI@TACC and CHI@UC. You log into the web interface using your Chameleon username and password.

After a successful log in, you will see the Overview page as shown below. This page provides a summary of your current and recent usage and provides links to various other pages. Most of the tasks you will perform are done via the menu on the lower left and will be described below. One thing to note is that on the left, your current project is displayed. If you have multiple Chameleon projects, you can change which of them is your current project. All of the information displayed and actions that you take apply to your current project. So in the screen shot below, the quota and usage apply to the current project you have selected and no information about your other projects is shown.

Managing Virtual Machine Instances

One of the main activities you’ll be performing in the GUI is management of virtual machines, or instances. Go to Project > Compute > Instances in the navigation sidebar. For instances that you have running, you can click on the name of the instance to get more information about it and to access the VNC interface to the console. The dropdown menu to the right of the instance lets you perform a variety of tasks such as suspending, terminating, or rebooting the instance.

Launching Instances

To launch an Instance, click the Launch Instance button. This will open the Launch Instance dialog.

On the Details tab, provide a name for this instance (to help you identify instances that you are running).

Next, go to the Source tab to select media to launch.

Select the Boot Source of the instance, which is either an Image, an Instance Snapshot (an image created from a running virtual machine), a Volume (a persistent virtual disk that can be attached to a virtual machine), or a “Volume Snapshot”. If you select “Image” as the Boot Source, the Image Name dropdown presents a list of virtual machine images that we have provided, that other Chameleon users have uploaded and made public, or images that you have uploaded for yourself. If you select Boot from snapshot, the Instance Snapshot dropdown presents a list of virtual machine images that you have created from your running virtual machines.

Go to the Flavor Tab and select the amount of resources (Flavor) to allocate to the instance.

Flavors refer to the virtual machine’s assigned memory and and disk size. Different images and snapshots may require a larger Flavor. For example, the CC-CentOS7 image requires at least an m1.small flavor.

Tip

If you select different flavors from the Flavor dropdown, their characteristics are displayed on the right.

When you are finished with this step, go to the Key Pair Tab.

Select an SSH keypair that will be inserted into your virtual machine. You will need to select a keypair here to be able to access an instance created from one of the public images Chameleon provides. These images are not configured with a default root password and you will not be able to log in to them without configuring an SSH key.

Then, go to the Security Groups Tab.

If you have previously defined Security Groups, you may select them here. Alternatively, you can configure them later.

Set up network using Network tab.

Select which network should be associated with the instance. Click the Up arrow next to your project’s private network (PROJECT_NAME-net), not ext-net.

Now you can launch your instance by clicking on the Launch button and the Instances page will show progress as it starts.

Associating a Floating IP Address

You may assign a Floating IP Address to your Instance by selecting Associate Floating IP in the dropdown menu next to your Instance on the Instances page.

This process is similar to Associate a Floating IP on CHI@TACC and CHI@UC bare metal sites.

Key Pairs

You will need to import or create SSH Key Pairs. This process is similar to the process performed on CHI@TACC and CHI@UC bare metal sites.

Security Groups

Security Groups allow you to specify what inbound and outbound traffic is allowed or blocked to Instances. Unlike the CHI@TACC and CHI@UC bare metal sites, KVM@TACC observes Security Groups for Instances.

Note

By default, all inbound traffic is blocked to KVM@TACC Instances, including SSH. You must apply a Security Group that allows TCP port 22 inbound to access your instance via SSH.

To create a Security Group, click Projects > Network > Security Groups in the navigation side bar.

Click the +Create Security Group button to open the Create Security Group page.

Enter a Name for your Security Group, and optionally provide a Description. Then click the Create Security Group button. Now, you should see your Security Group listed on the Access and Security page.

Click the Manage Rules button in the Action column to open the Manage Security Group Rules page.

The default Security Group allows outbound IPv4 and IPv6 traffic for Any IP Protocol and Port Range. If no entry for Ingress, no inbound traffic will be allowed. You may add an additional rule by clicking on the +Add Rule to open the Add Rule dialog.

In this dialog, you can specify Custom TCP Rule (or Custom UDP Rule or Custom ICMP Rule), a Direction (Ingress for inbound traffic to your Instance or Egress for outbound traffic) and a Port. Alternatively, you can use a pre-defined rule in the Rule dropdown, such as SSH. when you are finished, click Add.

Adding a Security Group to an Instance

Once you have defined a Security Group, you may apply it to an Instance by clicking Project > Compute > Instances in the navigation sidebar and clicking the Edit Security Groups option in the Actions dropdown.

The Security Groups tab in the Edit Instance dialog will pop up.

You may click the + button next to the Security Group you wish to apply in the All Security Groups list on the left. Once you are finished, click Save to finish the process.

Load Balancer as a Service

Available on KVM@TACC is the OpenStack Octavia Load Balancer as a Service (LBaas). This service allows a single IP address to be used to distribute connections among a number of virtual machine instances. For the following description, it is assumed that there are already several virtual machines running an HTTP server on port 80, serving a page at the root path. To create a Load Balancer, click on Project > Network > Load Balancers in the navigation sidebar, then the Create Load Balancer button. This will open the Create Load Balancer dialog.

Give your load balancer a name, and select the subnet that corresponds to the one used by the virtual machines. Click Next, or Listener Details.

The listener is the port that will accept incoming connetions. Select the appropriate protocol for the service, in this case HTTP. If selecting TCP or UDP also provide the desired port. Click Next or Pool Details.

Choose the desired load balancing algorithm. This will determine the way in which the load balancer will select which VM receives incoming requests. Click Next or Pool Members.

Here you will select the virtual machines that will participate in the load balacing. Click the Add button next to the instances, after which their IP address and subnet will be added to the Allocated Members list at the top. You will need to provide the port number for the hosted service for each member. For our HTTP servers, it is port 80. This does not need to match the port of the load balancer’s listener.

Once you’ve selected the pool members, click Next or Monitor Details. Here you will configure how the load balancer monitors the servies on the virtual machines to ensure that they are ready to receive traffic. In our example, selecting HTTP adds configuration options for HTTP Method, Expected Codes, and URL path. Since the HTTP services on the VMs in the pool members are configured to serve a page on the root path, the default values will work. Click Create Load Balancer

While the load balancer is being created, the dashboard will show a Provisioning Status of Pending Create . Once the process is complete, the status should be Active, and Operating Status should be Online. An Operating Status of “Offline” or “Error” indicates that the load balancer cannot satisfy the service check specified in Monitor Details. Ensure that the services are running on each VM, and that they return the expected status.

You can assign a Floating IP address to the load balancer by clicking on the down arrow button next to Edit Load Balancer, and selecting Associate Floating IP. This process is similar to associatig af Floating IP to a virtual machine instnace. Making changes to the various components of the load balancer by clicking on the blue-colord name of the load balancer in the list. From here, the listeners, pools, and health monitors can be updated, if needed.

To learn more about how to use the Octavia Load Balancer, refer to the Basic Load Balancing Cookbook on the official OpenStack documentation

Work with KVM using the CLI

For general information on CLI authentication and use, please see the command-line-interface section.

Uploading qcow2 images to raw format for better instance launch performance

KVM images are stored on our Ceph cluster, which is able to serve raw images much faster than qcow2 for instance launches. Openstack includes the experimental command Glance image-create-via-import, which allows uploading of images in various standard formats including qcow2 to then be automatically converted to raw in the backend.

In order to use this method, authenticate to KVM using the OpenStack RC script downloaded from the KVM@TACC site as described in The OpenStack RC Script.

Next, issue the following command:

glance image-create-via-import --container-format bare --disk-format qcow2 --file </path/to/image> --name <image name>

Details and other options for this command are available via the Glance image-create-via-import documentation.

Attention

Glance image-create-via-import is currently unable to handle conversion of iso images to raw.

Alternatively, you may convert qcow2 images to raw format before upload. qemu-img is one tool that is able to this with the following command:

qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O raw <original.qcow2> <converted.img>

Once converted, use glance to upload the image:

openstack image create --file </path/to/converted.img> --disk-format raw <image-name>

Details and other options for this command are available within Openstack documentation.