OpenStack Compute (nova)

nova-api service vs. nova-manage?

Asked by Rajesh Mohan

I'm new to openstack and got confused by several "services" in openstack.
nova-manage is cli interfaces to nova computing. Through which, we can create project, user and network. However, in admin manual's architecture figure, there are several services like nova-compute, nova-network, nova-api. My understanding is that all the request needs to goto nova-api first then being directed to other services.

In the manual, I didn't see any example using nova-api service. Instead of using "nova-manage" cli interface, can we do all those operations with nova-api service? If so, is there any example which I can refer to?

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Anne Gentle (annegentle) said : 		#1

Hi Rajesh -
The nova-api service passes API requests (either OpenStack API or EC2 API) through so that the rest of the services can respond. As you have surmised, the nova-manage command is a command-line tool, not really a service. So, not all requests go through nova-api, only API requests do. You typically send API requests via XML or JSON through a tool that can transmit and receive HTTP requests and responses. From the command line for testing purposes, you can use curl. http://curl.haxx.se/

If you want to find a description of each command for the OpenStack API, refer to the Developer Guides. Version 1.1, which is experimental, can be found at:
http://docs.openstack.org/cactus/openstack-compute/developer/openstack-compute-api-1.1/content/index.html

Here's a link to version 1.0 showing List Server commands:
http://docs.openstack.org/cactus/openstack-compute/developer/openstack-compute-api-1.0/content/ch04s01s01.html

Hopefully this is helpful, feel free to keep asking questions.

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Everett Toews (everett-toews) said : 		#2

nova-manage is used to run administrative commands on your cloud. The
official docs on it at
http://docs.openstack.org/cactus/openstack-compute/admin/content/managing-the-cloud.htmlare
a bit thin. You'll find more detail in the developer docs at
http://nova.openstack.org/runnova/nova.manage.html

nova-manage generally interacts directly with the nova database.

Everett

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Rajesh Mohan <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> New question #160389 on OpenStack Compute (nova):
> https://answers.launchpad.net/nova/+question/160389
>
> I'm new to openstack and got confused by several "services" in openstack.
> In the architecture figure, there are several services like nova-compute,
> nova-network, nova-api. My understanding is that all the request needs to
> goto nova-api first then being directed to other services.
> But to create project, user and network, we use "nova-manage". It seems not
> a "service". And when we do "nova-manage network create", we seems not using
> any api service either.
>
> In the administration manual, I didn't see any example using nova-api
> service. Can anyone help to clarify this?
>
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are an answer
> contact for OpenStack Compute (nova).
>

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