[Users] so, what do you want next in oVirt?

[Itamar Heim]

On 09/05/2013 10:30 AM, noc wrote:
>>> On 08/21/2013 12:11 PM, Itamar Heim wrote:
>>>> On 08/21/2013 02:40 AM, Joop van de Wege wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> What I would like to see in the ! next version is pxe boot of the
>>>>> nodes.
>>>>> Probably not easy to achieve because of dependency on dhcp.
>>>>
>>>> Hi Joop,
>>>>
>>>> can you please give a bit more information on the use case / how you
>>>> envision this?
>>>>
>>>> current thinking around bare metal provisioning of hosts is to extend
>>>> the functionality around the foreman provider for this, but you may
>>>> have other suggestions?
>>>
>>> I think Joop means to be able to add hosts (nodes) to a cluster by
>>> adding their MAC address to the dhcp list for PXE boot into ovirt-node
>>> and thus join the cluster. This would make it easy to add new physical
>>> nodes without any spinning disks or other local storage requirements.
>>
>> we started adding foreman integration in 3.3:
>> http://www.ovirt.org/Features/ForemanIntegration
>>
>> adding ohad and oved for their thoughts on this.
>>
>>>
>>> I suppose this may not be easy with complex network connections (bonds
>>> on mgmt network, mgmt network on a tagged vlan, etc), but it should be
>>> possible if the management network interface is plain and physical.
>>>
>>> /Simon
>>>
>>> PS, Perhaps Joop can confirm this idea, we've talked about it IRL.
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>>
> This isn't about provisioning with Foreman. Its about having the compute
> nodes NOT having any spinning disks. So the only way to start a node is
> to pxeboot it and then let it (re)connect with the engine. Then it will
> be identified by engine as either a new node or a reconnecting node and
> it will get its configuration from the engine. For reference: thats how
> VirtualIron works. It has a managment network, just like ovirt, and on
> that it runs a tftp and dhcp server. Nodes are plugged into the
> managment network, without disk, and then pxe booted after which they
> appear in the webui as new unconfigured nodes. You then can set various
> settings and upon rebooting the nodes will recieve these settings
> because it is recognised by its mac address. The advantage of this
> construct is that you can place a new server into a rack, cable it,
> power on and go back to you office where you'll find the new node
> waiting to be configured. No messing around with CDs to install an OS,
> not being in the datacenter for hours on end, just in and out.
>
> Yes, disks are cheap but they brake down, need maintenance, means
> downtime and in general more admin time then when you don't have them. (
> its a shame to have a raid1 of 2 1Tb disk just to install an OS of less
> then 10G)

just wondering, how do they prevent a rogue node/guest from masquerading 
as such a host, getting access/secrets/VMs to be launched on such an 
untrusted node (they could easily report a different mac address if the 
layer 2 isn't hardened against that)?

other than that, yes. we actually used to have this via the 
AutoApprovePatterns config option, which would have the engine approve a 
pending node as it registers (I admit i don't think anyone used this 
last several years, and it may be totally broken by now).

please note this doesn't solve the need for a disk, just the 
auto-registration part (if it still works)