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Build Your Own Cloud with Eucalyptus

Issue 195

From Issue #195
July 2010

Aug 31, 2010  By Bill Childers
 in
Got lots of systems? Make them into a cloud computing cluster with Eucalyptus!

Virtualization Extensions—Make Sure They're Enabled!

Eucalyptus requires that the CPU on the node controllers have Virtualization Extensions (VT) enabled. Do yourself a favor and go into your BIOS and check that it is enabled. Simply grepping for “vmx” in /proc/cpuinfo isn't enough. The BIOS support must be enabled as well. When preparing to write this article, I burned up several days in testing to learn this fact. The virtual machine appeared to start, then terminated immediately with an obscure message in the nc.log file on the node controller like [EUCAERROR ] libvirt: Domain not found: no domain with matching name 'i-427C0881' (code=42). Simply flipping the BIOS switch that enabled Virtualization Extensions allowed the virtual machine to start properly. Verify your BIOS settings before installation!

What's the Walrus—CooCooCaChoo?

Eucalyptus includes a service known as the walrus. The walrus service is a storage service that emulates Amazon's S3 storage. This article covers the default installation of Eucalyptus that runs the walrus service on the same system as the cloud controller. If you have a server with a lot of disk space, it's entirely possible to split the walrus service out and export hunks of disk space as volumes to the virtual machines. In other words, it's a free implementation of a virtual SAN for your virtual machines. Unfortunately, getting into the specifics of the walrus goes beyond what can be covered here.

DHCP Issues

The Eucalyptus cloud controller does run a DHCP server that will respond to requests from cloud instances. However, if you have a DHCP server on your LAN, it may be possible that your instances could receive a DHCP address from your other DHCP server rather than the cloud controller's DHCP server. You may want to tell your main DHCP server to ignore requests sent from the MAC addresses of the cloud instances. All of the cloud instances have MAC addresses that begin in d0:0d. On my DHCP server running dnsmasq, all I had to do was add a line to the dnsmasq.conf file that said dhcp-host=d0:0d:*,ignore.

Resources

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEC

Ubuntu Server 9.10 Download: www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-server

Eucalyptus Home Page: open.eucalyptus.com

Installing UEC Using the Installer CD: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEC/CDInstall

Installing UEC Using the Package-Based Install: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEC/PackageInstall

Bundling Your Own UEC Images: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEC/BundlingImages

Using the Walrus Storage Controller: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEC/StorageController

Bill Childers is an IT Manager in Silicon Valley, where he lives with his wife and two children. He enjoys Linux far too much, and he probably should get more sun from time to time. In his spare time, he does work with the Gilroy Garlic Festival, but he does not smell like garlic.

______________________

Bill Childers is the Virtual Editor for Linux Journal. No one really knows what that means.

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