OpenStack Compute (nova)

Unable to install package nova-compute-xen

Asked by Fredric M

Hello All,

I am running Xen 4.1 with Ubuntu 11.10 as Dom0. I run OpenStack Nova Diablo on Dom0 but have problems launching VM instances through Nova. That might be because I have not been able to install the nova-compute-xen package, as it depends on the xen-linux-system, which is not detected by the install system, and according to it is not installable (synaptic).

Interestingly I found this, which mentions that a dependency to xen-linux-system should have been be removed for the 11.10 integration:

"[zulcss] Dropped xen-linux-system from depends: DONE"

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/server-o-openstack

Have I missed something in my setting up, or is this a bug in not having removed the dependency to xen-linux-system?

Thanks,
Fredric

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Todd Deshane (todd-deshane) said : 		#1

This particular problem is a nova package dependency problem. However, the approach you are taking is not a common or well supported one. Xen + libvirt + OpenStack is not a common path or well-supported.

The focus instead is on XenAPI-based hypervisors (for good reason - see dicussion at http://wiki.openstack.org/XenAPI)

I'll outline your options.

You can use XCP 1.1, which released today and has all the bit to do OpenStack properly. There are some clouds coming up on it.

You can start testing Kronos (currently on debian):
http://blog.xen.org/index.php/2011/07/22/project-kronos/

We have work in progress to have Ubuntu packages as well as Debian packages. We'll put the Ubuntu packages in a PPA as soon as they are ready.

You could you Citrix XenServer 6

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Fredric M (fredric-m) said : 		#2

Hello Todd,

and thanks for the clarification. I will not proceed with the Xen + libvirt approach then, although it would be good to clarify the actual status of that combination since it formally is supported by OpenStack.

Re. the nova package dependency problem, I expect that to be an issue also in XCP etc. then.
On my current Xen 4.1 install, I did resolve the dependency issue by faking the presence of xen-linux-system with equivs.

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Todd Deshane (todd-deshane) said : 		#3

XCP is different. It is a pre-packages Xen distribution. Setting up OpenStack on XCP is done like: http://wiki.openstack.org/XenServerDevelopment (by putting Nova in a VM).

I am working on some clarification text that we end up in the admin manual for nova soon. Work in progress is here: http://etherpad.openstack.org/openstack-xen

There are also two recent presentations that cover Xen+OpenStack here:

http://blog.xen.org/index.php/2011/10/07/xen-openstack-design-summit/
http://blog.xen.org/index.php/2011/10/11/a-glimpse-of-the-future-xen-openstack-conference/

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Fredric M (fredric-m) said : 		#4

Hello again Todd,

it is the case then that it does not work to manage the basic Xen 4.x hypervisor from OpenStack via the XenAPI?
Is it possible to make that work? If yes, that would currently be an attractive option for us.

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Todd Deshane (todd-deshane) said : 		#5

This is basically the goal of Project Kronos:
http://blog.xen.org/index.php/2011/07/22/project-kronos/

We have it working on Debian:
http://wiki.xen.org/xenwiki/XAPI_on_debian