Virtualization Server - oVirt

English Virtualization
#1

Hi everyone,

I been looking around for the rigth setup for implementing a Virtualization Host, environment, at home. The simplest implementation that would work perfect, I guess, would just be installing the KVM related packages, however I would like to be able to browse manage the gust systems, combined with CLI access.

Below I have listed those projects or products I have been looking into… I have added a few coments on recommend distros and features.

KaresansuiKaresansui Project - Xen/KVM Virtualization Management Application

  • Webgui
  • CentOS

oVirt.org
oVirt

  • Webgui
  • Fedora 18+

Archipel
Archipel - Home

  • Webgui
  • Seems to require a few physical servers, and I one have one :frowning:

VMWare Server / vSphere
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi5&lp=default

  • I have skipped this for now, as I would like to go with a open solution

OpenStack (and flavors)
Home

  • webgui
  • “my comment”: Super perfect project/product, works awesome… but to me it seems completly overkill for a home solution, to many compontens, configuration and requirements for a home solution. But there are guides out there, with instructions on how to install it on one machine. I have tried it, and it works, but again I think it’s too complicated for home use.
  • seems to be available in the OpenSUSE reps. – have anyone any experiences installing it on one host?

So why this posting on the forum, see I would like to know, ask, if there was a virtualization project that was super perfect for OpenSUSE, that at the sametime provided me with a web based management interface, that some one could recommend?

Currently I’m on (Fedora) planing to try out the oVirt, as it seems to be just what I’m looking for… would have loved to have installed it on OpenSuse, but can’t find any instructions or reps :frowning:

So to sum up:

  1. OpenStack on OpenSuSE - has anyone experiences in installing it on one host, running SuSE?
  2. Have I missed out a super perfect project for doing virtualization, with web management support, on SuSE?
  3. Does anyone know, if oVirt are support on OpenSuSE … yet? or do we have a build project :slight_smile: ?
#2

Not into this, but did you have a look at software.opensuse.org: Search

#3

See I have indeed found those, but it’s not like they match anything I have found in the installation guide on oVirt, which makes me guess that those might work, but are not the latest builds etc :S. But thanks :slight_smile:

#4

oVirt 3.2.1 works on .el6 (RHEL/CentOS) as well.
would be great if you can help make it work on SuSE as well (there is some work on making it owrk on Gentoo and ubuntu already).
good place to start is probably:
OVirt Engine Development Environment

#5

Yes, I would be great if oVirt was ported to OpenSuSE/SUSE… I have found the following ‘build’ project and have asked for an update, might be that they are almost ready with the porting activities…

Link:
https://build.opensuse.org/project/show?project=Virtualization%3AoVirt

#6

that seems to be an old effort, ovirt-node only.
if you are interested, i suggest you start from trying to launch the devel environment and report issues on ovirt mailing list for help.

#7

OpenStack has a very promising future.
But for the moment (today) there is serious bug in the OpenStack Quiickstart Demo (Folsom) Setup that crashes (silently) the web Dashboard. Until it’s fixed, it’s SOL unless you’d like to look at everything else. Maybe <today> the best advice is to deploy the previous version (Essex) on 12.2, that works fine for me.

When the Quickstart Demo is fixed (have been waiting over a month now), I’ll update my page installing in LXC (with minor modifications similar instructions to run on any virtual machine or on bare metal) The page will change because nspawn (and chroot) cannot work due to the networking implementation incompatibility so the link will change, but what I have posted for now still might be helpful

Remember, don’t implement OpenStack with chroot or nspawn, only deploy in LXC, or any virtualization of your choice like VMware, KVM, QEMU, Virtualbox, etc
https://en.opensuse.org/User:Tsu2/chroot-nspawn-OpenStack

If you’re talking as a small, non-Enterprise User, have you looked at simply using YAST and libvirt (vm manager and** vm install**)? They work fantastic for simple stuff like creating, distroying, start/stop/pause, create and manage virtual networking. Libvirt supports KVM, Xen, and LXC (somewhat. I prefer YAST LXC instead but even that is lacking in desired features). I consider the KVM documentation supporting libvirt mostly excellent (although lacking in various networking I’ve been exploring recently), and from one box you can manage VMs on both the local and remote machines.

When you’re talking about virtualization management, you’re talking about a fast-moving, hotly discussed area of virtualization, there are solutions that fit all. To decide what fits you best you need to create your own desired features list before exploring, eg

Basic functions
stop/start/pause
create/destroy
storage management
Minimal performance

Then start building your list of **optional features **which might not be found in most managers, eg
remote machine management
cloning
snapshots
advanced virtual network confiuration
automatic network services, eg DHCP, address spaces, DNS, firewalling, IP forwarding and filtering
runtime migration
Identity (Security based on tokens, certs, etc)
Hybrid networks (ie Integratin Public and Private)
Multiple virtualization technologies
Migrating between virt technologies
More detailed performance metrics
More advanced dashboards
Support for shared file systems, particularly between different type OS
Types of virtualization, eg paravirtualized vs full emulation
Types of storage, eg raw file systems, backing files, more
Device management

As noted, oVirt is a technology I’ve avoided, I prefer to implement LXC instead although I will use oVirt images for LXC (and UML and others).

HTH,
TSU

#8

Hi TSU,

Thanks for the update…

I have chosen to use KVM on my server, and then do some testing in VMs on OpenStack, etc… As I said, I was hoping a nice package, e.g. oVirt or OpenStack, but for now it seems too much, at least for my home setup.

When and if OpenStack or oVirt get to work on OpenSuse, I would then consider implementing one of them as the basis for my home visualization environment…

#9

Unless you’re investigating datacenter or large corporate virtualization management (hundreds of Guest VMs), OpenStack and similar is major overkill.

For most home, SMB users who manage maybe up to 50 or so GuestVMs (possibly up to a hundred or so), IMO installing and using the libvirt packages should be sufficient to manage basic functions (as I described earlier).

play around with it, it should make your life much easier

zypper in libvirt libvirt-client

TSU

#10

After looking into oVirt it looks absolutely fantastic. Might look into seeing if I can help with porting this to openSUSE

What kind of work is involved in the porting of the application like this?

Cheers
William

#11

Last time I looked at oVirt (a couple years ago), there wasn’t active integration and support for openSUSE even then. My attention for this type of virtualization has then moved on to LXC which I encourage you to also look into.

Although there are a number of rough edges, IMO LXC works very well for “onesy-twosy” instances.
Just install the LXC packages plus the YAST applet.

Although not organized specifically as a “How to” I’ve written a few articles about how to do things in LXC at my wiki
User:Tsu2/systemd-1 - openSUSE

If you’re <really> interested in doing the work for integrating oVirt and know how to do it, just start doing it. Publicize it. You can use OBS and/or create your own openSUSE wiki, or deploy on github.

And, where you lead others may follow…
:slight_smile:

TSU

#12

Im in no way an expert but I have got something started! I created a project on OBS (just in my home) and started trying to hack the spec file together to see if I can get the engine working first of all. Got to start somewhere! There is already some work been done on porting over the node software and the agent here

I have looked at containers, but really would like to start using KVM with a proper management interface (not virt-manager) that has an API. And oVirt fits the bill nicely! Even has a python API :slight_smile:

#13

Hello William,

There are two major components of oVirt, a management server and a hypervisor agent.

For the hypervisor agent there is on going work to make it more portable, first effort is for ubuntu.

The management server is already ported to Gentoo, so it can probably port to any other environment.

The steps required are:

  1. Port otopi[1] services to support a new environment.

  2. Package otopi[2], ovirt-host-deploy[3], jboss[4], and other dependencies which may be missing at suse.

  3. Package ovirt-engine[5], this requires the most work. You have reference spec[6], and reference Gentoo packaging[7]

There are some challenges in packaging this package as:

a. it uses maven which tend to violate distro packaging by downloading its own dependencies and such.

b. it uses a lot of java dependencies, some may missing from distribution, so if you want avoid using the maven provided jars it takes a lot of effort to package these.

c. per implementation it relays on yum versionlock plugin to inhibit package upgrade without explicitly running upgrade utility as the product is incompatible with its previos version database by definition, this behavior was not ported to Gentoo for example.

You can also have it up and running in non root environment using development environment setup[8], it may be decent solution for starters… this why you can start fast without packaging anything.

If you are interested please join engine-devel@ovirt.org list.

I hope you find this helpful,
Alon Bar-Lev

[1] gerrit.ovirt Code Review - otopi.git/tree - src/plugins/otopi/services/
[2] gerrit.ovirt Code Review - otopi.git/summary
[3] gerrit.ovirt Code Review - ovirt-host-deploy.git/summary
[4] JBoss Application Server Downloads - JBoss Community
[5] http://gerrit.ovirt.org/gitweb?p=ovirt-engine.git
[6] gerrit.ovirt Code Review - ovirt-engine.git/blob - ovirt-engine.spec.in
[7] https://github.com/alonbl/ovirt-overlay/blob/master/app-emulation/ovirt-engine/ovirt-engine-9999.ebuild
[8] gerrit.ovirt Code Review - ovirt-engine.git/blob - README.developer