[et-mgmt-tools] cobbler system add

[Michael DeHaan]

drew einhorn wrote:
> I hoping that Real Soon Now it will create a VM to order with lots of
> custom vmware settings  via ks_meta variables.

Very cool.
   
It seems like you'd really benefit from using the XMLRPC API (see 
cobblerd.py for details) instead then.   This way you could
install VMware on any machine, not just the machine that ran the Cobbler 
server.

https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/cobbler/wiki/CobblerXmlrpc

Particularly, you'd want to use functions like 
get_system_for_koan(system_name) -- which still returns a 
hash/dictionary like
the local API does.    Not only does the XMLRPC API work remotely, but 
it also makes sure that all of the cobbler objects are
blended together just like they would be if used from koan or PXE.   
Calling the local API does not ensure this, which means
you'd just get the metadata about the system, but not the profile or 
distro object.

koan is an example of an application using the Cobbler XMLRPC API and 
the source of that app could be useful.

>
> At the moment I'm hung up on VMware API problems, so it doesn't do
> anything useful yet.  The APIs either won't install or puke
> after they are installed.  I can generate .vmx files to order, but
> scp and ssh commands to install them on the VMware server,
> either require permanently granting too much access to the server or
> you have to authenticate yourself several times.
>
> Pretty sure I understand most of the values you python script
> prints out.
>
> But what are:  parent, depth, virt_type, and virt_path?

parent/depth are related to the ability to inherit profiles.   'parent' 
can be set on a profile
to mean that the profile should take any unspecified settings from 
another profile.   For instance, "rhel5webserver"
might inherit from "rhel5server".  This is documented as "--parent" in 
the manpage.  

Depth is just an internal variable used for being able to make "cobbler 
list"  formatting of the cobbler object graph look correct.
It is not really useful in any context other than trying to render/sort 
the object graph -- something most apps don't need
to do.

Again, if you're writing a client of cobbler, usage of the XMLRPC API 
and using the *_for_koan
functions is the best way to go.   It's simpler -- and it's also usable 
remotely (and without the need for root access).

>
>
>
> On 8/6/07, *Michael DeHaan* < mdehaan at redhat.com 
> <mailto:mdehaan at redhat.com>> wrote:
>
>     drew einhorn wrote:
>     >
>     >
>     > On 7/30/07, *Michael DeHaan* <mdehaan at redhat.com
>     <mailto:mdehaan at redhat.com>
>     > <mailto: mdehaan at redhat.com <mailto:mdehaan at redhat.com>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >     drew einhorn wrote:
>     >
>     >     > I think it won't be too difficult to use VMperl to create
>     >     scripts to
>     >     > make an appropriate dhcp reservations, or create a VM to
>     order.
>     >     > Will let you know when I have something more concrete than
>     plans.
>     >     Excellent.
>     >
>     >
>     > Been making progress.
>     >
>     > What I need now is a python incantation to retrieve ks metadata,
>     > and virt info from a cobbler profile, so I can fill in line
>     arguments
>     > on shell commands my script is issuing.
>     >
>     >
>
>     This might help get you started...  what does the script do?
>
>
>     import cobbler.api as cobbler_api
>
>     api = cobbler_api.BootAPI()
>
>     for x in api.profiles():
>         print x.to_datastruct()
>
>
>
>
>
>
>     >
>     > --
>     > Drew Einhorn
>     >
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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>
>
> -- 
> Drew Einhorn
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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