Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – Updated v1.1

Due to some changes effected in the latest update of UEC packages on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, we have updated the Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide to reflect those changes. Thus we have Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – Version 1.1. We’re also working on the Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide on Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. Stay tuned to the blog to stay informed. Feedback is welcome.

Click the following link to download the book:

https://cssoss.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/eucalyptus-beginners-guide-uec-edition1-1.pdf

Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – UEC 10.10 & Eucalyptus 2.0-Image Management

We have noticed a few changes in the way Eucalyptus 1.6 (UEC on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx) and 2.0 (UEC on Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat) launch instances. These changes have an impact on the bundling procedure. This article takes these changes into account and may be helpful for users of UEC on Ubuntu 10.10 and Eucalyptus 2.0

Eucalyptus Machine Image(EMI)

A Eucalpyptus Machine Image(EMI) is a combination of a virtual disk image(s), kernel and ramdisk images as well as an xml file containing meta data about the image. These images reside on WS3 and used as templates for creating instances on UEC. Each Linux EMI is a combination of the following:

• An XML file with a name like “jaunty.img.manifest.xml” with information about one or more hard disk images, a kernel image and a ram disk image (id – emi-65440E7E)
• An XML file with a name like “vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-server.manifest.xml” with information about the corresponding kernel image(id – eki-39FC1244)
• An XML file with a name like “initrd.img-2.6.28-11-server.manifest.xml” with information about the corresponding ramdisk image(id – eri-71ED1322)

Each of these images has its own ID that can be used while running the instances. More on this in the chapter on “Managing Instances”

PDF version of Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – UEC Edition

We have just released the PDF version of “Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – UEC Edition, V1.0″ and you can download it from https://cssoss.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/book_eucalyptus_beginners_guide_uec_edition1.pdf.  Please help us enhance the book by posting your suggestions as comments here.

The latest version of the pdf will also be availble from http://www.csscorp.com/enterprise-it-support/open-source-services.php .

Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – UEC Edition

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to UEC and its components
2. Installation & Configuration
3. Web Interface
4. Image Management
5. Instance Management
6. Storage Management
7. Network Management
8. Security
9. Troubleshooting
10. Euca Commands
11. Hacks

This is a live book and will be updated on an ongoing basis based on your feedback and comments.

[Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – UEC edition] Chapter 7 – Network Management

Chapter 6 Storage Management

Chapter 8 Security

Eucalyptus Networking

System

In System mode, CC generates and assigns a random MAC address to the VM instance while requesting NC to bring up the instance. NC attaches the VM instance’s virtual NIC to the physical NIC on the node through a bridge. This mode requires that the Nodes are connected to the enterprise network directly. Instances obtain an IP address using DHCP, just as physical machines on the network do.

This mode is very easy to setup as it does not have any additional prerequisites in terms of networking, except for a running DHCP server on enterprise network, and is a good way to get started with Eucalyptus, particularly if you want to set it up on your laptop/desktop to get a basic understanding.

This mode of networking is similar to “Bridged Networking” that hypervisors like VMware, VirtualBox etc. offer or like “tap” networking offered by KVM/Qemu.

[Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – UEC edition] Chapter 2 – Installation & Configuration

Chapter 1 Introduction to UEC and its components

Chapter 3 Web Interface

The following sections describe how to install and configure a basic UEC setup spanning 3 servers. 2 Servers(Server1 and Server2) will run Lucid 64-bit server version and the third server will run Lucid Desktop 64-bit version(Client1). We have decided on installing the Desktop version on Client1 so that we can use Firefox or other browsers to access the web interface of UEC and also to use RDP/VNC clients during the image creation process.

What we have used as a sample setup is a typical minimal Eucalyptus setup. Client1 above need not be a dedicated machine. If you need to setup Eucalyptus on a single server, you can refer to UEC: CC and NC on a single machine . However, such a setup will not support Managed and Managed-NOVLAN modes of networking.

[Eucalyptus Beginner’s Guide – UEC edition] Chapter 4 – Image Management

Chapter 3 Web Interface

Chapter 5 Instance Management

Eucalyptus Machine Image(EMI)

A Eucalpyptus Machine Image(EMI) is a combination of a virtual disk image(s), kernel and ramdisk images as well as an xml file containing meta data about the image. These images reside on WS3 and used as templates for creating instances on UEC. Each Linux EMI is a combination of the following:

• An XML file with a name like “karmic.img.manifest.xml” with information about one or more hard disk images, a kernel image and a ram disk image (id – emi-65440E7E)
• An XML file with a name like “vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-server.manifest.xml” with information about the corresponding kernel image(id – eki-39FC1244)
• An XML file with a name like “initrd.img-2.6.28-11-server.manifest.xml” with information about the corresponding ramdisk image(id – eri-71ED1322)

Each of these images has its own ID that can be used while running the instances. More on this in the chapter on “Managing Instances”