Section 4: Installation
From The FluidVM Wiki
Contents |
4.1 Installing the base operating system
A base operating system needs to be installed on all of the physical nodes that are used as part of your virtual infrastructure. Please refer to Table-III to see what operating system and version you need to install on each of the nodes. This section provides you with instructions for installing the base operating system on to the physical nodes.
4.1.1 Base OS installation for the Management Server
4.1.1.1 OS Configuration
There are no special instructions for this, except that during package selection, do not install GUI based components like GNOME, KDE or the X-Windows System. Follow the same steps that are usually followed for any server class system.
4.1.1.2 Disabling the firewall and SELinux
Once you install your operating system and reboot into the newly installed system, a first-time only configuration system is launched automatically for you.
From here you can setup several important aspects of the system. The one we will be interested in now is the “Firewall Configuration” part. Select it with the arrow keys and press the “Tab” key till the “Run Tool” button is highlighted. Now press the return key. This will show the Firewall and security configuration screen. Please refer to Figure “Firewall and SELinux Configuration”.
Set the “Security Level” to “Disabled” and “SELinux” to “Disabled” as shown in the figure. Once done, select “OK” and press the return key. If you miss this configuration the first time around, it can directly be invoked by entering the command “system-config-securitylevel-tui” as the root user. To launch the setup agent shown in Figure “Setup Agent”, enter the command “setup” as the root user.
4.1.2 For the Containers based Physical Server
Install the recommended based operating system as usual, making changes as noted here.
4.1.2.1 Partitioning and Layout
In the partition layout selection screen, select the “Create custom layout” option.
You may be prompted with a warning dialog that asks for confirmation to initialize the whole hard
disk. All the contents on the hard drive will be erased. Make sure you don't have any important
information on it. The FluidVM Management Server requires a dedicated system for its functioning.
Remove all existing partitions
You need to first start out by removing all the existing partitions. The layout needed by FluidVM is
very simple to create and you will be presented with the steps in detail. If you have LVM based
volumes, you will need to remove them first before you can remove the partition that holds them.
Creating the Layout used by FluidVM
Please note that this layout is used only for compute nodes. The FluidVM Management Server
does not need any particular/specialized layout. Here is what the partition layout should look like:
| Partition | Size |
|---|---|
| / - The root partition must be the size of largest VM disk + 20 GB |
Swap – The swap partition 1 GB minimum |
| /bk – Internally managed by FluidVM | Rest of the space on local storage |
WARNING: Before you create any partitions, make sure that you have backed up all your data and have removed all partitions from the local storage. This is very important.
Adding the “/” (root) partition
Click on “New” button in the partition layout screen. A dialog box like the one shown in Figure
“Adding the root partition” will appear. Enter “Mount Point” as “/”, specify the partition size as
“10240”, which is 10 GB.
Adding a swap partition
Click on “New” button in the partition layout screen. A dialog box like the one shown in Figure
“Adding a swap partition” will appear. Select “swap” from “File System type”, specify the partition
size as “1024”, which is 1.0 GB.
Adding the “/bk” partition
Click on “New” button in the partition layout screen. A dialog box like the one shown in Figure
“Adding the /bk partition” will appear. Enter “Mount Point” as “/bk”, select the option “Fill to
maximum allowable size”. This will cause the “/bk” partition to be alloted the remaining free
space.
The final layout of the partitions should look something like in the figure “Partition Layout”. Of course the hard disk size on your server may differ. This example uses a relatively small 20 GB hard drive.
4.1.2.2 Networking
You must use static IPs for the FluidVM Management Server and the other Compute Nodes. You will need to manually specify the IP address during the base OS installation.
4.1.2.3 Package Selection
You can safely un-check everything except the “Clustering” and “Storage Clustering” package groups.
Except for the instructions mentioned for the Partitioning, Networking and Package Selection parts, there is nothing special to be done for FluidVM Services installation. Continue and finish the installation and reboot into the newly installed system. Later on, follow the instructions in the “FluidVM Services Installation” section.
4.1.3 Base OS installation for the FullVM based Physical Server
Install the recommended based operating system as usual, making changes as noted here:
4.1.3.1 Partitioning and Layout
The partitioning scheme for FullVM based physical servers is the same as it is for Containers based physical servers. Please see section 4.1.2.1.
4.1.3.2 Networking
Networking settings for FullVM based physical servers are the same as they are for Containers based physical servers. Please see section 4.1.2.2.
4.1.3.3 Package Selection
You can safely un-check everything except the “Virtualization”, “Clustering” and “Storage Clustering” package groups. Please refer to the figure “Package Selection for FullVMs”.
4.2 Installing FluidVM Components
Once you have installed the base operating system, you are ready to install the FluidVM components on the physical machines. Please refer to Table-III and Table-IV to see the hardware and software requirements for the different FluidVM components.
4.2.1 Installing the FluidVM Management Server
Log into the freshly installed physical server designated as the FluidVM Management Server as root and copy the BK_vkarma_backend-x.x.tar.bz2 file you downloaded from the FluidVM web site on to the system. The 'x.x' in the file name denotes the version number of the file you downloaded. Installing the FluidVM Management Server is a simple process consisting of un-taring the installer and running it the “install.py” script. The commands for installing are listed below:
# tar xjf BK_vkarma_backendx.x.tar.bz2 # cd BK_vkarma_backendx.x # ./install.py
Please note that the installer will not continue unless you are logged in or run the installer as the
super-user, root. The installer will ask you simple questions. You will also need to have Internet
connectivity, since packages may be downloaded from the Internet to solve dependencies in the
packages being installed.
Reboot the system and remember to update FluidVM by running the command "update_fluidvm.py" as ROOT user. The FluidVM Management Server's services would be restarted once again and it would be back online.
4.2.2 Installing the FluidVM FullVM Services
Log into the freshly installed physical server designated as a FullVM Server as root and copy the BK_xen_services-x.x.tar.bz2 file you downloaded from the FluidVM web site on to the system. The 'x.x' in the file name denotes the version number of the file you downloaded. Installing the FluidVM FullVM Services is a simple process consisting of un-taring the installer and running it the “install.py” script. The commands for installing are listed below:
# tar xjf BK_xen_servicesx.x.tar.bz2 # cd BK_xen_servicesx.x # ./install.py
Please note that the installer will not continue unless you are logged in or run the installer as the
super-user, root. The installer will ask you simple questions. You will also need to have Internet
connectivity, since packages may be downloaded from the Internet to solve dependencies in the
packages being installed.
You will be prompted for a “Node Password”. This is used to secure your node. This is not the
same as the root password. When you add this node to FluidVM management from the FluidVM
GUI, you will be prompted for this password. You will need to provide the same password you
provide during this installation process.
Reboot the system. This will bring up the FluidVM FullVM Server's services. You have to make sure
you boot into the right kernel. You may also need to edit your boot loader's configuration file to
automatically boot into the FullVM hypervisor every time your server reboots. As of now, only Xen
is supported as FuildVM's FullVM hypervisor.
4.2.3 Installing the FluidVM Container Services
Log into the freshly installed physical server designated as a Container Server as “root” and copy the BK_openvz_services-x.x.tar.bz2 file you downloaded from the FluidVM web site on to the system. The 'x.x' in the file name denotes the version number of the file you downloaded. Installing the FluidVM Container Services is a simple process consisting of un-taring the installer and running it the “install.py” script. The commands for installing are listed below:
# tar xjf BK_openvz_servicesx.x.tar.bz2 # cd BK_openvz_servicesx.x # ./install.py
Please note that the installer will not continue unless you are logged in or run the installer as the
super-user, “root”. The installer will ask you simple questions. You will also need to have Internet
connectivity, since packages may be downloaded from the Internet to solve dependencies in the
packages being installed.
You will be prompted for a “Node Password”. This is used to secure your node. This is not the
same as the root password. When you add this node to FluidVM management from the FluidVM
GUI, you will be prompted for this password. You will need to provide the same password you
provide during this installation process.
The only container solution supported as of now is OpenVZ and the OpenVZ kernel is installed as
part of the FluidVM Container Services installation process. Also, OpenVZ tools are installed
automatically. You however, will need to install extra pre-cached templates if you want. Please see Appendix-A for details on dealing with template caches.
Reboot the system. This will bring up the FluidVM Containers Server's services. You have to make
sure you boot into the right kernel. You may also need to edit your boot loader's configuration file
to automatically boot into the Container kernel every time your server reboots. As of now, only
OpenVZ is supported as FuildVM's Container system.
