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ALP Test Env

This repo provides a framework for bringing up one of more ALP VMs, via libvirt, in a repeatable fashion.

Ensuring that a viable version of Ansible is available

To be able to use these tools you will need a recent version of Ansible, based upon ansible-core 2.13.x (Ansible 6.x) or newer.

If needed, you can use the bin/create-venv helper script to create a Python venv with the latest version of Ansible that is compatible with your system's Python version, which will make all of the Ansible commands available under the bin/ directory.

The example commands, shown below, assume that the venv is being using, so the Ansible commands will be prefixed by bin/; remove this if you have an appropriate Ansible version already available.

Quick Start

Assuming you have an appropriate version of Ansible available, with the relevant Ansible collections installed (see below for the Ansible requirements) to quickly get started you can create an ALP test env by running the ansible/test_env_create.yml playbook, like so:

$ bin/ansible-playbook ansible/test_env_create.yml

Doing so will automatically setup the vms.yml and vnets.yml files under the settings/ directory using the corresponding example files and fail, asking you to re-run the playbook.

When you re-run the playbook, as requested, it should create, all going well, a Libvirt managed ALP VM, called alptestvm, on the local system, with the Ansible workload for ALP installed, that you can log in to using the generated SSH config file, ssh/config, as follows:

$ ssh -F ssh/config alptestvm

Re-running the ansible/test_env_create.yml playbook will destroy and recreate the configured VMs and associated networks.

If you want to completely cleanup all of these resources you can run the ansible/test_env_cleanup.yml playbook as follows:

$ bin/ansible-playbook ansible/test_env_create.yml

See below for further details on requirements, using a remote Libvirt host, and customising the test env that will be deployed.

Requirements

Ansible

It is recommended to use an Ansible Core >= 2.13, which corresponds to version 6 or later of the Ansible meta package.

NOTE: The Ansible commands must have viable Python Libvirt support.

Tested with Ansible installed in a virtualenv (see below):

  • Ansible meta package version 6.7.0
  • Ansible core version 2.13.7

Ansible Virtualenv

A helper script, bin/create-venv is available that can be used to create a Python virtualenv with an appropriate version of Ansible, Ansible Lint, and their dependent packages installed. The virtualenv is created with access to host site packages enabled so that it can leverage the system Python Libvirt integration support.

The bin/create-venv also creates symlinks under the bin directory for all of the Ansible commands provided by the virtualenv, allowing those commands to be run by simply prefixing them with bin/ when cd'd to the top-level directory of this repo.

Ansible Collection Requirements

Additional collections may be required, beyond those that are provided by the ansible.builtin collection. The list of required collections are specified in ansible/requirements.yml file, and can be installed by running the ansible-galaxy command as follows:

$ ansible-galaxy collection install -r ansible/requirements.ym

Libvirt host

The VMs will be created on the specified Libvirt host, defaulting to the local system. Please ensure that the system has been appropriately setup and is ready to use.

If using a remote Libvirt host, please ensure that SSH access to the system works for the current user to connect to the required account on the Libvirt host.

Getting Started

See the example files in settings/ for available configuration settings. Example configuration files are provided with comments explaining what options are available.

It is highly recommended to at least create the vnets.yml and vms.yml files under settings/.

NOTE: If you run the test_env_create.yml playbook without having created the required settings files, the example versions will be used to create these files automatically but those example settings could potentially conflict with other network resources so please check they are correct.

Ansible

If you don't already have a suitable version of Ansible available, you can run bin/create-venv to create an appropriatlely setup virtualenv, with all of the relevant Ansible commands symlinked under the bin directory.

Remote Libvirt host

Setup the libvirt_host.yml if you want to use a remote Libvirt host. The default is to use the local system as the Libvirt host.

Configuring Workloads to be setup

To customise the workloads that will be installed, you can copy the settings/workloads.yml.example to settings/workloads.yml and modify the example list, which, by default, specifies the ansible workload to be installed. These settings match the defaults that will be used if no workloads are specified.

The configured workloads will automatically be installed when bringing up the test env, but if you configure additional workloads after having created a test-env, you can run the ansible/setup_alp_workloads.yml playbook to install them without having to recreate the entire test env.

Support for runlabels

It is expected that any workload container images specified will have labels defined that provide 'install' and 'uninstall' capabilities, though the actual names used can be customised.

Creating a Test Env

Run bin/ansible-playbook ansible/test_env_create.yml to create the VMs, and associated libvirt networking infrastructure, on the target Libvirt host, as specified by the configured settings/*.yml files.

Cleaning up a Test Env

Run bin/ansible-playbook ansible/test_env_cleanup.yml to cleanup any previously created VMs and associated resources.

SSH Access to Test Env VMs

As part of bringing up any test VMs for the first time an SSH key pair, of type ed25519, will be created under the ssh directory.

This generated key's public value, along with any others that may have been specified via ssh_pub_keys in the settings/config.yml, will be added to the authorized_keys files of both the root and test env user accounts, via th Ignition config settings, when bringing up the VMs, and will be used by Ansible to access the VMs.

Additionally ssh/config will be generated, with appropriate config settings, such as ProxyCommand directives when using a remote Libvirt host, allowing direct access to the created VMs.

For example, assuming default VM config settings, you could SSH to the alptestvm VM, running locally or on a remote Libvirt host as follows:

% ssh -F ssh/config alptestvm
Last login: Thu Feb 16 20:45:09 UTC 2023 from 192.168.187.1 on ssh
Have a lot of fun...
testenv@alptestvm:~>

Contributing

The code should pass validation with bin/ansible-lint (version 6.14 as of writing), noting that 'yaml[comments]' are explicitly ignored for the settings/*.yml files that may have been created.

Some rules explicitly ignored in code

Some # noqa ... comment markers exist in the code to explicitly ignore certain rules, such as complaints that handlers should be used for actions that run because something has changed.

Future Enhancements

TODO:

  • Finish off support for kvm_encrypted VM type.
  • After bringing up ALP VMs mount extra disks on specified mount points