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

[noc]

On 6-9-2013 10:12, Itamar Heim wrote:
> 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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>>>> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>> 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)?
>
They would need physical access to your rack which ofcourse is locked, 
you would need to powerdown/up which would trigger an alert, switch port 
down/up would trigger an alert, so probably you're notified that 
something not quite right is happening.  I haven't gone through the 
source to see if there is more then just the mac address check.

> 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)
What I would like is to have the ovirt Node pxe booting and getting its 
config from engine or autoregister. I know there is a script which 
converts the iso into a huge pxeboot kernel but don't know how to solve 
or if its solved the config part.

@karli:
If you run your cluster in Memory Optimization=None then you won't need 
swap. Have been doing that for years and haven't had a single problem 
attributed to that. I just would like to have the choice, pxe boot the 
node and know that you don't have swap. Run with disks if you really 
need overprovisioning.

Regards,

Joop