MAAS

Problem starting up nodes/ Juju Bootstrap/ etc.

Asked by Anton Coleman

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

Scenario:

I am trying to get a private cloud running in a test environment with the use of virtual box, there have been a number of sites I have seen where this is a possibility. If this test is successful it's a real possibility that my organization would deploy this in a true production environment.

5 - VirtualBox VM's (I realize I will need to add two more nodes before I can truly use openstack, but I need one working node before I start anything else....
Servernames:
1. server-maas1 (Maas master)
2. server-maas2
3. server-maas3
4. server-maas4
5. server-maas5

I have manually booted each VM node with 12.04 iso, and selected ubuntu with maas, followed the normal steps, and enlist with server-maas1 (which it does discover server-maas1) Once selected it sigkills and shutdowns. (This I gathered is normal) Server-maas1 updates to display the node declared (I have done this on the other 3 nodes as well) So server-maas1 indicates I have 4 nodes, but never seen. I proceed to accept and commission each node, as well as change to wake-on-lan. Note: I am not using maas-dhcp, as there is a dhcp server running on my current network. All nodes are in a "commissioning" state. None of the node detail pages contains a "start node" button to try to PXE boot these VMs. All of these VirtualBox VMs are in fact using bridged adapter (and Pomiscuous mode set to Allow All, Boot Order indicates Network boot first, Adapter type (Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM).
At this stage I am pretty much stuck. So moving forward a few steps:
JuJu installation:
Juju is running on server-maas1
/.juju/environments.yaml settings:
evironments:
 maas:
   type: maas
   maas-server: 'http://172.16.41.12:80/MAAS'
   maas-oauth: 'My API Key'
   admin-secret: 'nothing'
   default-series: precise

I get a 409 error after trying to bootstrap this. I assume this is a because of more than one reason. DNS settings of some sort? Nodes are not working with MAAS correctly etc etc.

If anyone can offer some incite of what I might do to move this further along that would be great. Thanks :)

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Anton Coleman (anton-coleman) said : 		#1

I believe I've probably answered my juju question, but actually reading another post...So juju isn't going to run until I have some nodes in ready state. So I guess my main focus is how I can achieve a ready state on my nodes. Is there something else I need to install on my Maas master? Dnsmasq or something. Does having a dhcp server already running on my network create major issues?

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Anton Coleman (anton-coleman) said : 		#2

More information:

I believe most of my problems are caused by not running maas-dhcp, but I do not have the luxury to run maas-dhcp on this environment. According to this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/MAAS - Under -

Installation and initial set-up
How you install and run MAAS depends largely on whether you have control of the network you're using.

In this guide, we'll look at two common scenarios:

You own the network: you own the network you're connecting to and you're happy to let MAAS own that network's DHCP.
You're experimenting while using someone else's network: you can't allow MAAS to own the network's DHCP.
We'll look at both of these ways to run MAAS.

Well the "You're experimenting while using someone else's network:" is never explained. Is this not an option right now? Please advise. Thanks.

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Syed Ahsan Shamim Zaidi (ahsanmohsin04) said : 		#3

i have the same problem that my nodes are stuck on commisioning :s

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Anton Coleman (anton-coleman) said : 		#4

More information:

Yes, I have restarted this VMs after they were enlisted, but they did not auto restart on their own, and after reboot it never receives the ephemeral image to help it go into a ready state. Thanks.

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Julian Edwards (julian-edwards) said : 		#5

Hi there

To answer the booting question: You can't use WoL for virtual machines, you have to configure something else to start them up. MAAS supports "virsh" at the moment but I don't know if this works for Virtualbox.

The DHCP question: Yes you *have* to configure a DHCP server on your network because it tells the hardware how to PXE boot (simulated PXE on VMs). If you look at the files in /etc/cobbler you'll see templates for dhcp (for the isc and dnsmasq servers) which should give you a hint on how to set it up but basically the DHCP server needs to set the "filename" (which is the pxelinux.0 image) and the "next-server" which is the location of the TFTP server. next-server should be the same as your MAAS box.

When commissioning is finished, the VMs will "power off" and they'll be marked "ready" in MAAS and you can then "juju bootstrap" which will allocate one node, start it up and install a new OS.

Hope this helps.

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