Last Hackweek I created a rescue system that is composed of a SUSE Linux kernel in an NSS (Named Saved System) and an xip2fs file system in a DCSS (Dis-Continguous Save Segment). This allows any Linux guest on a z/VM system to say "#cp ipl rescue" and have a fully functional SUSE Linux Enterprise system come up to allow them to fix what ever is wrong with the guest.
This Hackweek I want to try to figure out a way to take those two components and package them so that our customers could download them and put them on their z/VM system, using only typical z/VM tools. The rescue system is the output of a Kiwi build in the internal Build Service, which means it can be easily updated as needed.
This project is part of:
Hack Week 14
Activity
Comments
Be the first to comment!
Similar Projects
terraform-provider-feilong by e_bischoff
Project Description
People need to test operating systems and applications on s390 platform.
Installation from scratch solutions include:
- just deploy and provision manually (with the help of
ftpboot
script, if you are at SUSE) - use
s3270
terminal emulation (used byopenQA
people?) - use
LXC
from IBM to start CP commands and analyze the results - use
zPXE
to do some PXE-alike booting (used by theorthos
team?) - use
tessia
to install from scratch using autoyast - use
libvirt
for s390 to do some nested virtualization on some already deployed z/VM system - directly install a Linux kernel on a LPAR and use
kvm
+libvirt
from there
Deployment from image solutions include:
- use
ICIC
web interface (openstack
in disguise, contributed by IBM) - use
ICIC
from theopenstack
terraform
provider (used byRancher
QA) - use
zvm_ansible
to controlSMAPI
- connect directly to
SMAPI
low-level socket interface
IBM Cloud Infrastructure Center (ICIC
) harnesses the Feilong API, but you can use Feilong
without installing ICIC
, provided you set up a "z/VM cloud connector" into one of your VMs following this schema.
What about writing a terraform Feilong
provider, just like we have the terraform
libvirt
provider? That would allow to transparently call Feilong
from your main.tf files to deploy and destroy resources on your system/z.
Other Feilong-based solutions include:
- make
libvirt
Feilong-aware - simply call
Feilong
from shell scripts withcurl
- use
zvmconnector
client python library from Feilong - use
zthin
part of Feilong to directly commandSMAPI
.
Goal for Hackweek 23
My final goal is to be able to easily deploy and provision VMs automatically on a z/VM system, in a way that people might enjoy even outside of SUSE.
My technical preference is to write a terraform provider plugin, as it is the approach that involves the least software components for our deployments, while remaining clean, and compatible with our existing development infrastructure.
Goals for Hackweek 24
Feilong provider works and is used internally by SUSE Manager team. Let's push it forward!
Let's add support for fiberchannel disks and multipath.
Goals for Hackweek 25
- Finish support for fiberchannel disks and multipath
- Fix problems with registration on hashicorp providers registry