How to Deploy Openstack on RHEL6 using Foreman

Introduction

Purpose

The intent of this document is to provide the Open Source and Red Hat communities with a guide to deploy OpenStack infrastructures using Puppet/Foreman system management solution.

We are describing how to deploy and provision the management system itself and how to use it to deploy OpenStack Controller and OpenStack Compute nodes.

Note
This information has been gathered from a OpenStack lab project using the latest data available at the time of writing.

Assumptions

Upstream OpenStack based on Folsom (2012.2) from EPEL6
The Operating System is Red Hat Enterprise Linux - RHEL6.4+. All machines (Virtual or Physical) have been provisioned with a base RHEL6 system and up to date.
The system management is based on Foreman 1.1 from the Foreman Yum Repo and Puppet 2.6.17 from the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 (EPEL6)/
Foreman provides full system provisioning, meanwhile this is not covered here, at least for now.
Foreman Smart-proxy runs on the same host as Foreman. Please adjust accordingly if running on a separate host.

Conventions

All the code examples unless specified otherwise, are to be run as root
The URL provided must be replaced with corresponding host name of the targeted environment

Definitions

Name	Description
Host Group	Foreman definition grouping environment, Puppet Classes and variables together to be inherited by hosts.
OpenStack Controller node	Server with all OpenStack modules to manage OpenStack Compute nodes
OpenStack Compute node	Server OpenStack Nova Compute and Nova Network modules providing OpenStack Cloud Instances
RHEL Core	Base Operation System installed with standard RHEL packages and specific configuration required by all systems (or hosts)

Architecture

The idea is to have a Management system to be able to quickly deploy OpenStack Controllers or OpenStack Compute nodes.

OpenStack Components

An Openstack Controller Server regroups the following OpenStack modules:

OpenStack Nova Keystone, the identity server
OpenStack Nova Glance, the image repository
OpenStack Nova Scheduler
OpenStack Nova Horizon, the dashboard
OpenStack Nova API
QPID the AMQP Messaging Broker
Mysql backend
An OpenStack-Compute

An OpenStack Compute consists of the following modules:

OpenStack Nova Compute
OpenStack Nova Network
OpenStack Nova API
Libvirt and dependant packages

Environment

The following environment has been tested to validate all the procedures described in this document:

Management System: both physical or virtual machine
OpenStack controller: physical machine
OpenStack compute nodes: several physical machines

Note
Each physical machine has two NICs, respectively for the public and private networks. That is not required for the Management host.

This is important

In a production environment we recommend a High Availability solution for the OpenStack Controllers
OpenStack modules could be used on virtual machines but we have not tested it yet.
One NIC per physical machine with simulated interfaces (VLANs or alias) should work but has not been tested.

High level work-flow

The goal is to achieve the OpenStack deployment in four steps:

Deploy the system management solution Foreman
Prepare Foreman for OpenStack
Deploy the RHEL core definition with Puppet agent on participating OpenStack nodes
Manage each OpenStack node to be either a Controller or a Compute node

RHEL Core: Common definitions

The Management server itself is based upon the RHEL Core so we define it first.

In the rest of this documentation we assume that every system:

Is using the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 6.x. We have tested with RHEL6.4.
Be registered and subscribed with an Red Hat account, either RHN Classic or RHSM. We have tested with RHSM.
Has been updated with latest packages
Has the been configured with the following definitions

This is a tip
IPV6 is not required. Meanwhile for kernel dependencies and performance reasons we recommend to not deactivate the IPV6 module unless you know what you're doing.

Time

The NTP service is required and included during the deployment of OpenStack components.

Meanwhile for Puppet to work properly with SSL, all the physical machines must have their clock in sync.

Make sure all the hardware clocks are:

Using the same time zone
On time, less than 5 minutes delay from each others

Yum Repositories

Activate the following repositories:

RHEL6 Server Optional RPMS
EPEL6

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
yum-config-manager --enable rhel-6-server-optional-rpms
yum clean all

We need the Augeas utility for manipulating configuration files:

yum -y install augeas

SELinux

SELinux is a requirement for our projects, meanwhile at the time of writing, SELinux has not been fully validated for:

Foreman
OpenStack

Note
if you plan do to the manual installation of the management server (further down) then you can skip this.

In the meantime activate SELinux in permissive mode:

setenforce 0

And make it persistent in /etc/selinux/config file:

SELINUX = permissive
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

FQDN

Make sure every host can resolve the Fully Qualified Domain Name of the management server is defined in available DNS or alternatively use the /etc/hosts file.

Puppet Agent

The puppet agent must be installed on every host and be configured in order to:

Point to the Puppet Master which is our Management server
Have Puppet plug-ins activated

The following commands make that happen:

PUPPETMASTER="puppet.example.org"
yum install -y puppet

# Set PuppetServer
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/agent/server $PUPPETMASTER

# Puppet Plugins
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/main/pluginsync true

Afterwards, the /etc/puppet/puppet.conf file should look like this:

[main]
# The Puppet log directory.
# The default value is '$vardir/log'.
logdir = /var/log/puppet

# Where Puppet PID files are kept.
# The default value is '$vardir/run'.
rundir = /var/run/puppet

# Where SSL certificates are kept.
# The default value is '$confdir/ssl'.
ssldir = $vardir/ssl

pluginsync=true

[agent]
# The file in which puppetd stores a list of the classes
# associated with the retrieved configuratiion. Can be loaded in
# the separate ``puppet`` executable using the ``--loadclasses``
# option.
# The default value is '$confdir/classes.txt'.
classfile = $vardir/classes.txt

# Where puppetd caches the local configuration. An
# extension indicating the cache format is added automatically.
# The default value is '$confdir/localconfig'.
localconfig = $vardir/localconfig

server=puppet.example.org

Installing the Management Server

Let's get started with how to deploy Puppet-Foreman application suite in order to manage our OpenStack infrastructure.

We describe two installation methods for the Management application:

Automated Installation: This is the easiest and recommended approach.
Manual Installation: Walks you through components deployments. Helpful for other OpenStack architecture scenarios and also for troubleshooting.

Please note

The manual installation doesn't describe Apache/SSL/Passenger components yet.
Foreman uses Sqlite by default. Meanwhile it's recommended to use Mysql or Posgresql for production and/or large scale environments.
- To use Mysql backend, follow the "Optional Mysql backend" section described further below.
- Postgresql integration is not covered here.

Automated Installation

The Automated installation of the Management server provides:

Puppet Master
HTTPS service with Apache SSL and Passenger
Foreman Proxy (Smart-proxy) and Foreman
No SELinux

Before starting, make sure the "RHEL Core: Common definitions" described earlier have been applied.

To get the management suite installed, configured and running, we use puppet itself.

The following commands to be executed on the Management machine:

# Get some packages
yum install -y puppet git policycoreutils-python

# Get foreman-installer modules
git clone --recursive https://github.com/theforeman/foreman-installer.git \ /root/foreman-installer

# Install
puppet -v --modulepath=/root/foreman-installer -e "include puppet, \ puppet::server, passenger, foreman_proxy, foreman"

Note
policycoreutils-python will be needed in the future for SELinux.

Foreman should then be accessible at https://host1.example.org.

You will be prompted to sign-in: use default user “admin” with the password “changeme”.

Manual Installation

The manual installation provides:

Puppet Master
HTTP service with Webrick
Foreman Proxy (Smart-proxy) and Foreman
SELinux

Before starting, make sure the Common Core definitions described earlier have been applied.

Puppet Master

Once the core components must have prepared, the we can install the Puppet master and Git. Git will be used to get the Puppet modules specific for OpenStack:

yum install -y git puppet-server policycoreutils-python

Initial Puppet Master configuration

We need to customise the Puppet Master configuration file /etc/puppet/puppet.conf.

First we activate puppet plugins (modules custom types & facts)

augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/main/pluginsync true

Then we add Puppet a default Production environment. You might want to extend it by adding other environments such as development, test, staging.

mkdir -p /etc/puppet/modules/production
mkdir /etc/puppet/modules/common
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/production/modulepath \ /etc/puppet/modules/production:/etc/puppet/modules/common

The Puppet autosign feature allows to filter whose certificate requests will automatically be signed:

augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/autosign \$confdir/autosign.conf { mode = 664 }

SELinux

In order to have SELinux enforced on the Management host, we need to:

Set the SELinux type for /etc/puppet:

semanage fcontext -a -t puppet_etc_t '/etc/puppet(/.*)?'

Make sure the configuration files type gets applied when file are touched:

echo “/etc/puppet/*” >> /etc/selinux/restorecond.conf

Allow Puppet Master to use the Database:

setsebool -P puppetmaster_use_db true

Foreman Installation

Get Foreman packages from the yum repo:

yum install -y http://yum.theforeman.org/rc/el6/x86_64/foreman-release-1.1RC5-1.el6.noarch.rpm
yum install -y foreman foreman-proxy foreman-mysql foreman-mysql2 rubygem-redcarpet

External Node Classification

For Puppet ENC we rely on github.com/theforeman project and fetch the node.rb script from it:

git clone git://github.com/theforeman/puppet-foreman.git /tmp/puppet-foreman
cp /tmp/puppet-foreman/templates/external_node.rb.erb /etc/puppet/node.rb

We need to edit the variables defined at the head of the file, /etc/puppet/node.rb.

We are doing this using “sed” command in order to script it for later:

sed -i "s/<%= @foreman_url %>/http:\/\/$(hostname):3000/" \ /etc/puppet/node.rb
sed -i 's/<%= @puppet_home %>/\/var\/lib\/puppet/' /etc/puppet/node.rb
sed -i 's/<%= @facts %>/true/' /etc/puppet/node.rb
sed -i 's/<%= @storeconfigs %>/false/' /etc/puppet/node.rb
chmod 755 /etc/puppet/node.rb

Anyway the result should look like this (extract of the modified section):

SETTINGS = {
:url => "http://host1.example.org:3000",
:puppetdir => "/var/lib/puppet",
:facts => true,
:storeconfigs => true,
:timeout => 3,

Finally we tell Puppet Master to use ENC:

augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/external_nodes /etc/puppet/node.rb
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/node_terminus exec

Foreman Reports

We use the foreman report form github.com/theforeman project downloaded earlier:

cp /tmp/puppet-foreman/templates/foreman-report.rb.erb \ /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/puppet/reports/foreman.rb
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/reports foreman

Enable Foreman-proxy features

sed -i -r 's/(:puppetca:).*/\1 true/' /etc/foreman-proxy/settings.yml
sed -i -r 's/(:puppet:).*/\1 true/' /etc/foreman-proxy/settings.yml

Activate & run services

chkconfig foreman-proxy on
service foreman-proxy start
chkconfig foreman on
service foreman start

Foreman should be accessible at http://host1.example.org:3000.

Note
The default user is “admin” and with the password “changeme”.

Optional Mysql Backend

Let's get the DBMS and active the service by default:

yum install -y mysql-server
chkconfig mysqld on
service mysqld start

Then we initialise the mysql database:

MYSQL_ADMIN_PASSWD='mysql'
/usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root password "${MYSQL_ADMIN_PASSWD}"
/usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root -h $(hostname) password "${MYSQL_ADMIN_PASSWD}"

Puppet database

We need to create a Puppet database and grant permission to it's user, “puppet”:

The following command will do that for us.

Note
Change the MYSQL_PUPPET_PASSWD variable to assign the password of your choice.

Note
The command will prompt for the MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWD we set-up earlier.

MYSQL_PUPPET_PASSWD='puppet'
echo "create database puppet; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON puppet.* TO puppet@localhost IDENTIFIED BY '$MYSQL_PUPPET_PASSWD'; commit;" | mysql -u root -p

Finally we adjust the /etc/puppet/puppet.conf file for mysql.

Note
We reuse here the MYSQL_PUPPET_PASSWD assigned before.

augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/storeconfigs true
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/dbadapter mysql
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/dbname puppet
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/dbuser puppet
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/dbpassword \ $MYSQL_PUPPET_PASSWD
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/dbserver localhost
augtool -s set /files/etc/puppet/puppet.conf/master/dbsocket \ /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

Foreman database

First off we need the mysql gems for foreman:

yum -y install foreman-mysql*

We need to configure foreman to make good use of our Mysql Puppet database.

Modify the /etc/foreman/database.yml file so the production section looks like this:

production:
adapter: mysql2
database: puppet
username: puppet
password: puppet
host: localhost
socket: "/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock"

And then foreman to populate the database:

cd /usr/share/foreman && RAILS_ENV=production rake db:migrate

Mysql Optimisation

For optimisation, the following which is optional, should be done only once puppet database has been created and populated.

Run the following create index command, you'll be prompted for the MYSQL_PUPPET_PASSWD password specified earlier:

echo “create index exported_restype_title on resources (exported, restype, title(50));” | mysql -u root -p -D puppet

Set-up Foreman

Smart-Proxy

Once Foreman, Foreman-proxy service are up and running, we need to link them together.

First, let's log into Foreman GUI:

Then select “More -> Configuration -> Smart Proxies” in the menu located on the top end right. And select the “New Proxy” button. Add the definitions for a new proxy.

The name is only a description
The URL should match your FQDN management host and the smart-proxy port 8443. Use https or http depending if SSL is configured. By default SSL is configured in the automated installation and is not for the manual installation.

Then select the “Submit” button to validate. For example:

Import OpenStack Puppet Modules

We need to download the Opentstack Puppet modules from the github project. All the OpenStack components are installed from those modules:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/gildub/puppet-openstack.git /etc/puppet/modules/production

Along with the nova-compute and nova-controller installer:

git clone https://bitbucket.org/gildub/trystack.git

We import the Puppet modules into Foreman using either:

The GUI: Select “More -> Configuration -> Puppet classes” and click “Import from <your_smart_proxy>” button:

Command line:

cd /usr/share/foreman && rake puppet:import:puppet_classes RAILS_ENV=production

Note
To use with scripts, you can add the “batch” option to the rake import command:

rake puppet:import:puppet_classes[batch]

Parameters

We must provide all the parameters required by the OpenStack puppet modules in order to configure the different components with those values. Here is the list of all the parameters to be defined into Foreman:

Name	Value
nova_db_password	changeme
verbose	true
mysql_root_password	changeme
keystone_db_password	changeme
glance_db_password	changeme
nova_db_password	changeme
keystone_admin_token	secret
admin_email	admin@example.org
admin_password	changeme
glance_user_password	changeme
nova_user_password	changeme
glance_user_password	changeme
private_interface	em1*
public_interface	em2*
fixed_network_range	10.100.10.0/24
floating_network_range	8.21.28.128/25
horizon_secret_key	secret
controller_node_public	10.100.0.2

*
Adjust those values according to your network configuration

Using Foreman GUI, go to “More -> Configuration -> Global Parameters” and “Add Parameter” in order to create all parameters described in the previous table:

Hosts Groups

Host Groups are an easy way to group Puppet class modules and parameters. A host, when attached to a Host Group automatically inherits those definitions. We manage the two OpenStack types of server using Foreman Host Groups.

So, we need to create two Host Groups:

OpenStack-Controller
OpenStack Compute Nodes

To create a Host Group:

Select the menu entry “More -> Configuration -> Host Groups”
Provide:
- The name
- The environment: Production is the default
- The smart-proxy: Use the one created previously

So we create the first Host Group, "openstack-controller" and validate by selecting the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page:

We repeat the same operation to create the second Host Group, "openstack-compute":

Finally, we need to associate the OpenStack Controller and the OpenStack Compute classes respectively to the two Host Groups we have created.

OpenStack Controller

To define the OpenStack Controller Host Group, Edit the OpenStack-Controller Host Group and use the “Puppet Classes” tab and select the "TryStack class". Activate the trystack and trystack::controller classes by clicking on the "+" icon.

OpenStack Compute

To define the OpenStack Compute Host Group, Edit the openStack-compute Host Group and activate the trystack and trystack::compute classes:

Manage a Host

To make a system part of our OpenStack infrastructure we have to:

Make sure the host follows the Common Core definitions – See RHEL Core: Common definitions section above
Have the host's certificate signed so it's registered with the Management server
Assign the host either the openstack-controller or openstack-compute Host Group

Register Host Certificates

Using Autosign

With autosign option, the hosts can be automatically registered and visible from Foreman by adding the hostnames to the /etc/puppet/autosign.conf file.

Signing Certificates

If you're not using the autosign option then you will have to sign the host certificate, using either:

Foreman GUI

Get on the Smart Proxies window from the menu "More -> Configuration -> Smart Proxies". And select the "Certificates" from the drop-down button of the smart-proxy you created:

From there you can manage all the hosts certificates and get them signed.

The Command Line Interface

Assuming the Puppet agent (puppetd) is running on the host, the host certificate would have been created on the Puppet Master and will be waiting to be signed: From the Puppet Master host, use the “puppetca” tool with the command “list” to see the waiting certificates, for example:

# puppetca list
"host3.example.org" (84:AE:80:D2:8C:F5:15:76:0A:1A:4C:19:A9:B6:C1:11)

To sign a certificate, use the “sign” command and provide the hostame, for example:

puppetca sign host3.example.org

Assign a Host Group

Display the hosts using the “Hosts” button at the top Foreman GUI screen.

Then select the corresponding “Edit Host” drop-down button on the right side of the targeted host.

Assign the right environment and attach the appropriate Host Group to that host in order to make it a Controller or a Compute node.

Save by hitting the “Submit” button.

Deploy OpenStack Components

We are done!

The OpenStack components will be installed when the Puppet agent synchronises with the Management server. Effectively, the classes will be applied when the agent retrieves the catalog from the Master and runs it.

You can also manually trigger the agent to check with the puppetmaster, to do so deactivate the agent on the targeted controller node run:

service puppet stop

And run it manually:

puppet agent –verbose --no-daemonize

Search

How to Deploy Openstack on RHEL6 using Foreman

Introduction

Purpose

Assumptions

Definitions

Architecture

OpenStack Components

Environment

High level work-flow

RHEL Core: Common definitions

Time

Yum Repositories

SELinux

FQDN

Puppet Agent

Installing the Management Server

Automated Installation

Manual Installation

Puppet Master

Initial Puppet Master configuration

SELinux

Foreman Installation

External Node Classification

Foreman Reports

Enable Foreman-proxy features

Activate & run services

Optional Mysql Backend

Puppet database

Foreman database

Mysql Optimisation

Set-up Foreman

Smart-Proxy

Import OpenStack Puppet Modules

Parameters

Hosts Groups

OpenStack Controller

OpenStack Compute

Manage a Host

Register Host Certificates

Using Autosign

Signing Certificates

Assign a Host Group

Deploy OpenStack Components