From bare metal to virtualized Kubernetes cluster with just Salt and Redfish
a project by joachimwerner
Updated over 3 years ago. 1 hackers ♥️. 1 follower.

My goal is build on Alberto's work on "yomi" and the new Salt-based virtualization management features that Cedric has contributed, then combine them with a Redfish prototype to do the following from one (ideally idempotent) Salt state (orchestration state if required):

  • mount the installation media via Redfish
  • power-cycle the machine via Redfish as needed
  • use yomi to install the virtualization host
  • use yomi and Salt virtualization states to deploy a bunch of VMs that will be our Kubernetes nodes
  • use yomi and/or skuba to create a Kubernetes cluster

The goal isn't to get this done perfectly well, but to learn about the potential challenges, especially with the end-to-end integration into Salt.

Join this project

Looking for hackers with the skills:

salt saltstack yomi kubernetes

This project is part of:

Hack Week 18

Activity

  • over 5 years ago: joachimwerner liked this project.
  • over 5 years ago: joachimwerner added keyword "yomi" to this project.
  • over 5 years ago: joachimwerner added keyword "kubernetes" to this project.
  • over 5 years ago: joachimwerner added keyword "salt" to this project.
  • over 5 years ago: joachimwerner added keyword "saltstack" to this project.
  • over 5 years ago: joachimwerner started this project.
  • over 5 years ago: joachimwerner originated this project.


    • Comments

    • joachimwerner
      over 5 years ago by joachimwerner | Reply

      First day results aren't that great. While I can communicate fine with my Redfish test system, I've learned that hard way that the one thing Redfish can't do well out of the box is exactly what I was planning to do: Mount a remote ISO to boot from it. There are vendor-specific extensions in some of the very latest Redfish implementations, but this really sucks a bit. :-(

    Similar Projects

    Saline (state deployment control and monitoring tool for SUSE Manager/Uyuni) by vizhestkov

    Project Description

    Saline is an addition for salt used in SUSE Manager/Uyuni aimed to provide better control and visibility for states deploymend in the large scale environments.

    In current state the published version can be used only as a Prometheus exporter and missing some of the key features implemented in PoC (not published). Now it can provide metrics related to salt events and state apply process on the minions. But there is no control on this process implemented yet.

    Continue with implementation of the missing features and improve the existing implementation:

    • authentication (need to decide how it should be/or not related to salt auth)

    • web service providing the control of states deployment

    Goal for this Hackweek

    • Implement missing key features

    • Implement the tool for state deployment control with CLI

    Resources

    https://github.com/openSUSE/saline

    Testing and adding GNU/Linux distributions on Uyuni by juliogonzalezgil

    Join the Gitter channel! https://gitter.im/uyuni-project/hackweek

    Uyuni is a configuration and infrastructure management tool that saves you time and headaches when you have to manage and update tens, hundreds or even thousands of machines. It also manages configuration, can run audits, build image containers, monitor and much more!

    Currently there are a few distributions that are completely untested on Uyuni or SUSE Manager (AFAIK) or just not tested since a long time, and could be interesting knowing how hard would be working with them and, if possible, fix whatever is broken.

    For newcomers, the easiest distributions are those based on DEB or RPM packages. Distributions with other package formats are doable, but will require adapting the Python and Java code to be able to sync and analyze such packages (and if salt does not support those packages, it will need changes as well). So if you want a distribution with other packages, make sure you are comfortable handling such changes.

    No developer experience? No worries! We had non-developers contributors in the past, and we are ready to help as long as you are willing to learn. If you don't want to code at all, you can also help us preparing the documentation after someone else has the initial code ready, or you could also help with testing :-)

    The idea is testing Salt and Salt-ssh clients, but NOT traditional clients, which are deprecated.

    To consider that a distribution has basic support, we should cover at least (points 3-6 are to be tested for both salt minions and salt ssh minions):

    1. Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
    2. Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap scritp, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)
    3. Package management (install, remove, update...)
    4. Patching
    5. Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
    6. Salt remote commands
    7. Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
    8. Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)
    9. Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)
    10. Bonus point: testsuite enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/tree/master/testsuite)

    If something is breaking: we can try to fix it, but the main idea is research how supported it is right now. Beyond that it's up to each project member how much to hack :-)

    • If you don't have knowledge about some of the steps: ask the team
    • If you still don't know what to do: switch to another distribution and keep testing.

    This card is for EVERYONE, not just developers. Seriously! We had people from other teams helping that were not developers, and added support for Debian and new SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE Leap versions :-)

    Pending

    FUSS

    FUSS is a complete GNU/Linux solution (server, client and desktop/standalone) based on Debian for managing an educational network.

    https://fuss.bz.it/

    Seems to be a Debian 12 derivative, so adding it could be quite easy.

    • [W] Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
    • [W] Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap script, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator) --> Working for all 3 options (salt minion UI, salt minion bootstrap script and salt-ssh minion from the UI).
    • [W] Package management (install, remove, update...) --> Installing a new package works, needs to test the rest.
    • [I] Patching (if patch information is available, could require writing some code to parse it, but IIRC we have support for Ubuntu already). No patches detected. Do we support patches for Debian at all?
    • [W] Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
    • [W] Salt remote commands
    • [ ] Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement

    Learn enough Golang and hack on CoreDNS by jkuzilek

    Description

    I'm implementing a split-horizon DNS for my home Kubernetes cluster to be able to access my internal (and external) services over the local network through public domains. I managed to make a PoC with the k8s_gateway plugin for CoreDNS. However, I soon found out it responds with IPs for all Gateways assigned to HTTPRoutes, publishing public IPs as well as the internal Loadbalancer ones.

    To remedy this issue, a simple filtering mechanism has to be implemented.

    Goals

    • Learn an acceptable amount of Golang
    • Implement GatewayClass (and IngressClass) filtering for k8s_gateway
    • Deploy on homelab cluster
    • Profit?

    Resources

    EDIT: Feature mostly complete. An unfinished PR lies here. Successfully tested working on homelab cluster.

    SUSE AI Meets the Game Board by moio

    Use tabletopgames.ai’s open source TAG and PyTAG frameworks to apply Statistical Forward Planning and Deep Reinforcement Learning to two board games of our own design. On an all-green, all-open source, all-AWS stack!
    A chameleon playing chess in a train car, as a metaphor of SUSE AI applied to games

    Results: Infrastructure Achievements

    We successfully built and automated a containerized stack to support our AI experiments. This included:

    A screenshot of k9s and nvtop showing PyTAG running in Kubernetes with GPU acceleration

    ./deploy.sh and voilà - Kubernetes running PyTAG (k9s, above) with GPU acceleration (nvtop, below)

    Results: Game Design Insights

    Our project focused on modeling and analyzing two card games of our own design within the TAG framework:

    • Game Modeling: We implemented models for Dario's "Bamboo" and Silvio's "Totoro" and "R3" games, enabling AI agents to play thousands of games ...in minutes!
    • AI-driven optimization: By analyzing statistical data on moves, strategies, and outcomes, we iteratively tweaked the game mechanics and rules to achieve better balance and player engagement.
    • Advanced analytics: Leveraging AI agents with Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and random action selection, we compared performance metrics to identify optimal strategies and uncover opportunities for game refinement .

    Cards from the three games

    A family picture of our card games in progress. From the top: Bamboo, Totoro, R3

    Results: Learning, Collaboration, and Innovation

    Beyond technical accomplishments, the project showcased innovative approaches to coding, learning, and teamwork:

    • "Trio programming" with AI assistance: Our "trio programming" approach—two developers and GitHub Copilot—was a standout success, especially in handling slightly-repetitive but not-quite-exactly-copypaste tasks. Java as a language tends to be verbose and we found it to be fitting particularly well.
    • AI tools for reporting and documentation: We extensively used AI chatbots to streamline writing and reporting. (Including writing this report! ...but this note was added manually during edit!)
    • GPU compute expertise: Overcoming challenges with CUDA drivers and cloud infrastructure deepened our understanding of GPU-accelerated workloads in the open-source ecosystem.
    • Game design as a learning platform: By blending AI techniques with creative game design, we learned not only about AI strategies but also about making games fun, engaging, and balanced.

    Last but not least we had a lot of fun! ...and this was definitely not a chatbot generated line!

    The Context: AI + Board Games

    Technical talks at universities by agamez

    Description

    This project aims to empower the next generation of tech professionals by offering hands-on workshops on containerization and Kubernetes, with a strong focus on open-source technologies. By providing practical experience with these cutting-edge tools and fostering a deep understanding of open-source principles, we aim to bridge the gap between academia and industry.

    For now, the scope is limited to Spanish universities, since we already have the contacts and have started some conversations.

    Goals

    • Technical Skill Development: equip students with the fundamental knowledge and skills to build, deploy, and manage containerized applications using open-source tools like Kubernetes.
    • Open-Source Mindset: foster a passion for open-source software, encouraging students to contribute to open-source projects and collaborate with the global developer community.
    • Career Readiness: prepare students for industry-relevant roles by exposing them to real-world use cases, best practices, and open-source in companies.

    Resources

    • Instructors: experienced open-source professionals with deep knowledge of containerization and Kubernetes.
    • SUSE Expertise: leverage SUSE's expertise in open-source technologies to provide insights into industry trends and best practices.

    Multi-pod, autoscalable Elixir application in Kubernetes using K8s resources by socon

    Description

    Elixir / Erlang use their own solutions to create clusters that work together. Kubernetes provide its own orchestration. Due to the nature of the BEAM, it looks a very promising technology for applications that run in Kubernetes and requite to be always on, specifically if they are created as web pages using Phoenix.

    Goals

    • Investigate and provide solutions that work in Phoenix LiveView using Kubernetes resources, so a multi-pod application can be used
    • Provide an end to end example that creates and deploy a container from source code.

    Resources

    https://github.com/dwyl/phoenix-liveview-counter-tutorial https://github.com/propedeutica/elixir-k8s-counter

    Extending KubeVirtBMC's capability by adding Redfish support by zchang

    Description

    In Hack Week 23, we delivered a project called KubeBMC (renamed to KubeVirtBMC now), which brings the good old-fashioned IPMI ways to manage virtual machines running on KubeVirt-powered clusters. This opens the possibility of integrating existing bare-metal provisioning solutions like Tinkerbell with virtualized environments. We even received an inquiry about transferring the project to the KubeVirt organization. So, a proposal was filed, which was accepted by the KubeVirt community, and the project was renamed after that. We have many tasks on our to-do list. Some of them are administrative tasks; some are feature-related. One of the most requested features is Redfish support.

    Goals

    Extend the capability of KubeVirtBMC by adding Redfish support. Currently, the virtbmc component only exposes IPMI endpoints. We need to implement another simulator to expose Redfish endpoints, as we did with the IPMI module. We aim at a basic set of functionalities:

    • Power management
    • Boot device selection
    • Virtual media mount (this one is not so basic add-emoji )

    Resources