Devstak 1st Experience

Spending nearly 14 years in core telecom, I was surrounded by terms as RNC, MME, VoLTE, IMS, Bearers, CDRs etc.. I was totally disconnected with terms as Linux, Ubuntu, Sudo, Python, REST etc…

But as Cloud is coming to Telecom, it was essential for me to upgrade my skill to maintain my marketability.

So I entered into world of Openstack. I am sharing my first experience in deploying Devstack on by old Pantium Laptop with 60 GB harddisk and 3GB RAM.

 

About  DEVSTACK

From https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/DevStack , “ DevStack's mission is to provide and maintain tools used for the installation of the central OpenStack services from source (git repository master, or specific branches) suitable for development and operational testing. DevStack is an opinionated script to quickly create an OpenStack development environment……” ..

So what I understand is Devstack is development framework for Openstack. If you want hands-on experience in Openstack, install Devstack in laptop and do some hands-on exercises.

What confused me is word opinionated script..   So when in doubt --- > Google.. One has to be avid  Google searchers to learn coding.

After reading few blogs (God bless those authors !!), I found that software can be opinionated or un-opinionated. Opinionated software have defined workflows/execution steps, e.g Devstack has defined installation steps 1) install git 2) git clone Devstack 3) configure localRc 4) run stack.sh..

If you stick to these steps, your life will be easy otherwise, you will face roadblocks in Devstack deployment.

Infra Requirements

1)     Need Ubuntu 12.04 or newer ( devstack works with other Oss as well)

2)     Need 3GB (minimum ) or more(8 GB is cool ) RAM

3)     We need 10 GB of storage

4)     If Devstack is  installed on VM, Oracle virtual box is good option ( at least 3 GB of RAM for VM)

Linux requirements

1)     User need Sudo( Sudo is superuser with admin rights) authority to deploy Devstack

2)     Internet connectivity and Proxies should allow downloading of Ubuntu’s  git-client and  websites as git.openstack.org and pypl.python.org websites ( if proxy setting are troubling, use Unset Proxy command)

Detailed Workflow

1)      Start Ubuntu ( on standalone node or VM)

2)      Open  Terminal( If you are totally new to Ubuntu, find Terminal in Search option)

3) Log into Terminal 

  4) Write following commands:

a.      Sudo apt-get update –y

We use Sudo because we need admin right to install/update packages. APT stands for Advanced packaging tool.. Our command updates index of installed Ubuntu package.

b. Sudo apt-get install git   - >>We are installing Git client from Ubuntu website

About GIT

Version control systems allow  to keep track changes, revert to previous stages, and branch to create alternate versions of files and directories.Git is one of the most populate version control system, developped by Linus Torvalds. Many projects maintain their files in a git repository, and sites like GitHub and Bitbucket for sharing and contributing code. We need to install Git clint to use Git repository.

5) Execute Git clone

We download (git clone) Devstack files from https://github.com/openstack -dev/devstack.git and we want icehouse branch.

Type command: git clone ‘https://github.com/openstack-dev/devstack.git’ –b stable/icehouse

6)      Configure LocalRC



Once copying (cloning) is done, we need to visit localRC file.

We make local configurations such as timezone, Wifi access point, user password.. etc. while installing  windows/Ubuntu. Similarly Devstack gives user option to configure certain Local parameters stored in Local.Conf file. If we don’t do any config change, defaults values will be taken.  Its good to know about. Local.conf file as we might need to change floating IP ranges, module passwords.. and many more things.

I used CP command but learnt that CP is mostly used to copy file. CP command did not worked to open LocalRC file.

Finally I found Nano command. Nano Command will trigger text editor. I used “Nano Local.Conf” to edit Local.conf file. Nano editor will open.

7)       Change the local.conf file.

I added two lines to store log file and capture screen session, for study purpose.

Type command at end of file: 

LOGFILE =/opt/vadan/logs/stack.sh.log # logging file location

USE_SCREEN=True  

 

8)     Run ./ Stack.sh

Type : ./ stack.sh (under devstack directory)

Now we are ready to run  ./stack.sh. It installs and configures various combinations of Ceilometer, Cinder, Glance, Heat, Horizon, Keystone, Nova, Neutron, and Swift. Its like .exe file. It. Successful run of Stack.sh means devstack is deployed.

Developer can make any changes in Openstack modules (ceilometer, Cider, Nova..etc) and run Stack.sh. Successful run of stack.sh will deploy Devstack with updated code. Stack.sh will ask for password for database and other modules.

9)     Bump 1:  Oslo.Middleware Error

During stack.sh run, I encountered Oslo MiddleWare Requirement Error.







I had no clue about this error.  I learnt that Oslo code produce set of python libraries. I assumed that may be my editing of Local.Conf file is not good. So decided to use local.conf default values.

I deleted my comments from step 7) and re-ran stack.sh.

10)     Bump 2: Permission Error

After correcting local.conf file, my Oslo error went away. But I landed up in another Permission  error. Mysql permission issue. My account (vadan) did not had permission to deploy Mysql dB.



After i googling I found (God bless Bloggers) that, I need to add my name under Sudoer’s List. And add No Password command.Type Visudo in editor..

Visudo will open following screen. I added following commands in Visudo screen,

#under User Privilege specification:

vadan  ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL # This is to give all previledges to user vadan

# includedir  /etc/sudoers.d

vadan ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL # This is to remove passwords restrictions

11)     Successful Stack.sh

Finally Stack.sh ran successfully J  J J J It ended with providing IP address of Horizon dashboard.

12)     Launching Horizon Dashboard

I logged into Horizon from Firefox by using IP address, user name and password, mentioned at Stack.sh, to access horizon Dashboard. If you are using VM, than use Firefox of VM, not from host

13)     Launch Exercise.sh

I ran exercise.sh.We can see the one Virtual Machine spawned in Horizon.

Deploying Devstack on personal laptop was wonderful experience. It has connected to world of Cloud management and orchestration. Happy Stacking :)