[et-mgmt-tools] Cobbler and Koan for _my_ needs

[Matthias Saou]

Hi,

I hope this won't seem like a selfish request, I'll just try to explain
how cobbler and koan could much better fit my needs, and possibly those
of others!

My setup : I run Xen PV guests. LOTS of them. What I do to ease their
management is use unpartitioned LVM logical volumes from the host as
block devices, one for "/" and the other for swap. I don't let any
tools create the guest config files, I create them myself "by hand"
once, then deploy them through an rpm package to all the Xen hosts I
have available. This way I have a central location to check for all
guest configuration and MAC addresses.

The initial guest install is where I'd like to use cobbler and koan in
order to save time. I currently extract and modify a pre-existing RHEL5
install, but that's another story ;-)

Problem : Koan wants to create the Xen guest configuration files for me.
I'd like it to be able to use an existing file and have koan extract the
settings it needs from there.

Here is an example Xen guest config file I use :

---
# Xen Configuration File
name   = "cobbler"
memory = "512"
maxmem = "512"
disk   = [ 'phy:/dev/data/cobbler,xvda,w',
           'phy:/dev/data/swapcobbler,xvdb,w' ]
vif    = [ 'mac=00:16:3e:5f:76:6e, bridge=xenbr0',
           'mac=00:16:3e:5f:76:6f, bridge=xenbr1' ]
uuid   = '5f766eef-8cf3-c287-1635-115e103561d0'

bootloader = '/usr/bin/pygrub'
vcpus = 2
on_reboot = 'restart'
on_crash = 'restart'
---

I generate the uuid myself (md5sum of the full host name), then use the
6 first characters in the eth0 mac address, increment it for the eth1
mac address.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to tell koan to use this existing
"cobbler" file and use xenbr1 for everything it needs to do (since
dhcpd and cobbler are only listening on that "private" network), then
wait, and get a working "cobbler" system up and running :-)

Is this something that could be achieved? Am I the only one to have
multiple block devices, multiple network interfaces, and like having
fixed MAC addresses for my Xen guests?

Currently, koan might be useful to me, but once I get the guest
running, I'd still need to move stuff around block devices and change
bits and pieces of configuration to get things into place as I want
them.

Matthias

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