Revision History | ||
---|---|---|
Revision 1.0 | April 7, 2006 | MLH |
Initial draft. | ||
Revision 1.1 | July 19, 2006 | MLH |
Add development environment. | ||
Revision 1.2 | August 18, 2006 | TPT |
Review section on configuration and introduce plc-config-tty. Present implementation details last. |
Abstract
This document describes the design, installation, and administration of MyPLC, a complete PlanetLab Central (PLC) portable installation contained within a chroot jail. This document assumes advanced knowledge of the PlanetLab architecture and Linux system administration.
Table of Contents
MyPLC is a complete PlanetLab Central (PLC) portable installation contained within a chroot jail. The default installation consists of a web server, an XML-RPC API server, a boot server, and a database server: the core components of PLC. The installation is customized through an easy-to-use graphical interface. All PLC services are started up and shut down through a single script installed on the host system. The usually complex process of installing and administering the PlanetLab backend is reduced by containing PLC services within a virtual filesystem. By packaging it in such a manner, MyPLC may also be run on any modern Linux distribution, and could conceivably even run in a PlanetLab slice.
The myplc package comes with all required node software, rebuilt from the public PlanetLab CVS repository. If for any reason you need to implement your own customized version of this software, you can use the myplc-devel package instead, for setting up your own development environment, including a local CVS repository; you can then freely manage your changes and rebuild your customized version of myplc. We also provide good practices, that will then allow you to resync your local CVS repository with any further evolution on the mainstream public PlanetLab software.
myplc and myplc-devel were designed as chroot jails so as to reduce the requirements on your host operating system. So in theory, these distributions should work on virtually any Linux 2.6 based distribution, whether it supports rpm or not.
However, things are never that simple and there indeed are some known limitations to this, so here are a couple notes as a recommended reading before you proceed with the installation.
As of 17 August 2006 (i.e myplc-0.5-2) :
The software is vastly based on Fedora Core 4. Please note that the build server at Princeton runs Fedora Core 2, togother with a upgraded version of yum.
myplc and myplc-devel are known to work on both Fedora Core 2 and Fedora Core 4. Please note however that, on fc4 at least, it is highly recommended to use the Security Level Configuration utility and to switch off SElinux on your box because :
myplc requires you to run SElinux as 'Permissive' at most
myplc-devel requires you to turn SElinux Off.
In addition, as far as myplc is concerned, you need to check your firewall configuration since you need, of course, to open up the http and https ports, so as to accept connections from the managed nodes and from the users desktops.
Though internally composed of commodity software subpackages, MyPLC should be treated as a monolithic software application. MyPLC is distributed as single RPM package that has no external dependencies, allowing it to be installed on practically any Linux 2.6 based distribution.
If your distribution supports RPM:
# rpm -U http://build.planet-lab.org/build/myplc-0_4-rc1/RPMS/i386/myplc-0.4-1.planetlab.i386.rpm
If your distribution does not support RPM:
# cd /tmp # wget http://build.planet-lab.org/build/myplc-0_4-rc1/RPMS/i386/myplc-0.4-1.planetlab.i386.rpm # cd / # rpm2cpio /tmp/myplc-0.4-1.planetlab.i386.rpm | cpio -diu
The Section 3.9, “ Files and directories involved in myplc” below explains in details the installation strategy and the miscellaneous files and directories involved.
On a Red Hat or Fedora host system, it is customary to use the service command to invoke System V init scripts. As the examples suggest, the service must be started as root:
In Section 3.8, “Understanding the startup sequence”, we provide greater details that might be helpful in the case where the service does not seem to take off correctly.
Like all other registered System V init services, MyPLC is started and shut down automatically when your host system boots and powers off. You may disable automatic startup by invoking the chkconfig command on a Red Hat or Fedora host system:
After verifying that MyPLC is working correctly, shut it down and begin changing some of the default variable values. Shut down MyPLC with service plc stop (see Section 3.2, “ QuickStart ”).
The preferred option for changing the configuration is to use the plc-config-tty tool. This tools comes with the root image, so you need to have it mounted first. The full set of applicable variables is described in Appendix B, Development configuration variables (for myplc-devel), but using the u guides you to the most useful ones. Here is sample session:
Example 5. Using plc-config-tty for configuration:
# service plc mount Mounting PLC: [ OK ] # chroot /plc/root su - <plc> # plc-config-tty Config file /etc/planetlab/configs/site.xml located under a non-existing directory Want to create /etc/planetlab/configs [y]/n ? y Created directory /etc/planetlab/configs Enter command (u for usual changes, w to save, ? for help) u == PLC_NAME : [PlanetLab Test] OneLab == PLC_ROOT_USER : [root@localhost.localdomain] root@odie.inria.fr == PLC_ROOT_PASSWORD : [root] plain-passwd == PLC_MAIL_SUPPORT_ADDRESS : [root+support@localhost.localdomain] support@one-lab.org == PLC_DB_HOST : [localhost.localdomain] odie.inria.fr == PLC_API_HOST : [localhost.localdomain] odie.inria.fr == PLC_WWW_HOST : [localhost.localdomain] odie.inria.fr == PLC_BOOT_HOST : [localhost.localdomain] odie.inria.fr == PLC_NET_DNS1 : [127.0.0.1] 138.96.250.248 == PLC_NET_DNS2 : [None] 138.96.250.249 Enter command (u for usual changes, w to save, ? for help) w Wrote /etc/planetlab/configs/site.xml Merged /etc/planetlab/default_config.xml and /etc/planetlab/configs/site.xml into /etc/planetlab/plc_config.xml You might want to type 'r' (restart plc) or 'q' (quit) Enter command (u for usual changes, w to save, ? for help) r ==================== Stopping plc ... ==================== Starting plc ... Enter command (u for usual changes, w to save, ? for help) q <plc> # exit #
If you used this method for configuring, you can skip to
the Section 3.4, “ Login as a real user ”. As an alternative to using
plc-config-tty, you may also use a text
editor, but this requires some understanding on how the
configuration files are used within myplc. The
default configuration is stored in a file
named /etc/planetlab/default_config.xml
,
that is designed to remain intact. You may store your local
changes in any file located in the configs/
sub-directory, that are loaded on top of the defaults. Finally
the file /etc/planetlab/plc_config.xml
is
loaded, and the resulting configuration is stored in the latter
file, that is used as a reference.
Using a separate file for storing local changes only, as
plc-config-tty does, is not a workable option
with a text editor because it would involve tedious xml
re-assembling. So your local changes should go in
/etc/planetlab/plc_config.xml
. Be warned
however that any change you might do this way could be lost if
you use plc-config-tty later on.
This file is a self-documenting configuration file written
in XML. Variables are divided into categories. Variable
identifiers must be alphanumeric, plus underscore. A variable is
referred to canonically as the uppercase concatenation of its
category identifier, an underscore, and its variable
identifier. Thus, a variable with an id
of
slice_prefix
in the plc
category is referred to canonically as
PLC_SLICE_PREFIX
.
The reason for this convention is that during MyPLC
startup, plc_config.xml
is translated into
several different languages—shell, PHP, and
Python—so that scripts written in each of these languages
can refer to the same underlying configuration. Most MyPLC
scripts are written in shell, so the convention for shell
variables predominates.
The variables that you should change immediately are:
PLC_NAME
: Change this to the
name of your PLC installation.
PLC_ROOT_PASSWORD
: Change this
to a more secure password.
PLC_MAIL_SUPPORT_ADDRESS
:
Change this to the e-mail address at which you would like to
receive support requests.
PLC_DB_HOST
,
PLC_DB_IP
, PLC_API_HOST
,
PLC_API_IP
, PLC_WWW_HOST
,
PLC_WWW_IP
, PLC_BOOT_HOST
,
PLC_BOOT_IP
: Change all of these to the
preferred FQDN and external IP address of your host
system.
After changing these variables,
save the file, then restart MyPLC with service plc
start. You should notice that the password of the
default administrator account is no longer
root
, and that the default site name includes
the name of your PLC installation instead of PlanetLab. As a
side effect of these changes, the ISO images for the boot CDs
now have new names, so that you can freely remove the ones names
after 'PlanetLab Test', which is the default value of
PLC_NAME
Now that myplc is up and running, you can connect to the
web site that by default runs on port 80. You can either
directly use the default administrator user that you configured
in PLC_ROOT_USER
and
PLC_ROOT_PASSWORD
, or create a real user through
the 'Joining' tab. Do not forget to select both PI and tech
roles, and to select the only site created at this stage.
Login as the administrator to enable this user, then login as
the real user.
Install your first node by clicking Add
Node
under the Nodes
tab. Fill in
all the appropriate details, then click
Add
. Download the node's configuration file
by clicking Download configuration file
on
the Node Details page for the
node. Save it to a floppy disk or USB key as detailed in [1].
Follow the rest of the instructions in [1] for creating a Boot CD and installing
the node, except download the Boot CD image from the
/download
directory of your PLC
installation, not from PlanetLab Central. The images located
here are customized for your installation. If you change the
hostname of your boot server (PLC_BOOT_HOST
), or
if the SSL certificate of your boot server expires, MyPLC will
regenerate it and rebuild the Boot CD with the new
certificate. If this occurs, you must replace all Boot CDs
created before the certificate was regenerated.
The installation process for a node has significantly improved since PlanetLab 3.3. It should now take only a few seconds for a new node to become ready to create slices.
You may administer nodes as root
by
using the SSH key stored in
/etc/planetlab/root_ssh_key.rsa
.
Example 6. Accessing nodes via SSH. Replace
node
with the hostname of the node.
ssh -i /etc/planetlab/root_ssh_key.rsa root@node
Besides the standard Linux log files located in
/var/log
, several other files can give you
clues about any problems with active processes:
/var/log/pl_nm
: The log
file for the Node Manager.
/vservers/pl_conf/var/log/pl_conf
:
The log file for the Slice Creation Service.
/var/log/propd
: The log
file for Proper, the service which allows certain slices to
perform certain privileged operations in the root
context.
/vservers/pl_netflow/var/log/netflow.log
:
The log file for PlanetFlow, the network traffic auditing
service.
Create a slice by clicking Create Slice
under the Slices
tab. Fill in all the
appropriate details, then click Create
. Add
nodes to the slice by clicking Manage Nodes
on the Slice Details page for
the slice.
A cron job runs every five minutes and
updates the file
/plc/data/var/www/html/xml/slices-0.5.xml
with information about current slice state. The Slice Creation
Service running on every node polls this file every ten minutes
to determine if it needs to create or delete any slices. You may
accelerate this process manually if desired.
During service startup described in Section 3.2, “ QuickStart ”, observe the output of this command for any failures. If no failures occur, you should see output similar to the following:
Example 8. A successful MyPLC startup.
Mounting PLC: [ OK ] PLC: Generating network files: [ OK ] PLC: Starting system logger: [ OK ] PLC: Starting database server: [ OK ] PLC: Generating SSL certificates: [ OK ] PLC: Configuring the API: [ OK ] PLC: Updating GPG keys: [ OK ] PLC: Generating SSH keys: [ OK ] PLC: Starting web server: [ OK ] PLC: Bootstrapping the database: [ OK ] PLC: Starting DNS server: [ OK ] PLC: Starting crond: [ OK ] PLC: Rebuilding Boot CD: [ OK ] PLC: Rebuilding Boot Manager: [ OK ] PLC: Signing node packages: [ OK ]
If /plc/root
is mounted successfully, a
complete log file of the startup process may be found at
/plc/root/var/log/boot.log
. Possible reasons
for failure of each step include:
Mounting PLC
: If this step
fails, first ensure that you started MyPLC as root. Check
/etc/sysconfig/plc
to ensure that
PLC_ROOT
and PLC_DATA
refer to the
right locations. You may also have too many existing loopback
mounts, or your kernel may not support loopback mounting, bind
mounting, or the ext3 filesystem. Try freeing at least one
loopback device, or re-compiling your kernel to support loopback
mounting, bind mounting, and the ext3 filesystem. If you see an
error similar to Permission denied while trying to open
/plc/root.img
, then SELinux may be enabled. See Section 2, “ Requirements ” above for details.
Starting database server
: If
this step fails, check
/plc/root/var/log/pgsql
and
/plc/root/var/log/boot.log
. The most common
reason for failure is that the default PostgreSQL port, TCP port
5432, is already in use. Check that you are not running a
PostgreSQL server on the host system.
Starting web server
: If this
step fails, check
/plc/root/var/log/httpd/error_log
and
/plc/root/var/log/boot.log
for obvious
errors. The most common reason for failure is that the default
web ports, TCP ports 80 and 443, are already in use. Check that
you are not running a web server on the host
system.
Bootstrapping the database
:
If this step fails, it is likely that the previous step
(Starting web server
) also failed. Another
reason that it could fail is if PLC_API_HOST
(see
Section 3.3, “Changing the configuration”) does not resolve to
the host on which the API server has been enabled. By default,
all services, including the API server, are enabled and run on
the same host, so check that PLC_API_HOST
is
either localhost
or resolves to a local IP
address. Also check that PLC_ROOT_USER
looks like
an e-mail address.
Starting crond
: If this step
fails, it is likely that the previous steps (Starting
web server
and Bootstrapping the
database
) also failed. If not, check
/plc/root/var/log/boot.log
for obvious
errors. This step starts the cron service and
generates the initial set of XML files that the Slice Creation
Service uses to determine slice state.
If no failures occur, then MyPLC should be active with a
default configuration. Open a web browser on the host system and
visit http://localhost/
, which should bring you
to the front page of your PLC installation. The password of the
default administrator account
root@localhost.localdomain
(set by
PLC_ROOT_USER
) is root
(set by
PLC_ROOT_PASSWORD
).
MyPLC installs the following files and directories:
/plc/root.img
: The main
root filesystem of the MyPLC application. This file is an
uncompressed ext3 filesystem that is loopback mounted on
/plc/root
when MyPLC starts. This
filesystem, even when mounted, should be treated as an opaque
binary that can and will be replaced in its entirety by any
upgrade of MyPLC.
/plc/root
: The mount point
for /plc/root.img
. Once the root filesystem
is mounted, all MyPLC services run in a
chroot jail based in this
directory.
/plc/data
: The directory where user
data and generated files are stored. This directory is bind
mounted onto /plc/root/data
so that it is
accessible as /data
from within the
chroot jail. Files in this directory are
marked with %config(noreplace) in the
RPM. That is, during an upgrade of MyPLC, if a file has not
changed since the last installation or upgrade of MyPLC, it is
subject to upgrade and replacement. If the file has changed,
the new version of the file will be created with a
.rpmnew
extension. Symlinks within the
MyPLC root filesystem ensure that the following directories
(relative to /plc/root
) are stored
outside the MyPLC filesystem image:
/etc/planetlab
: This
directory contains the configuration files, keys, and
certificates that define your MyPLC
installation.
/var/lib/pgsql
: This
directory contains PostgreSQL database
files.
/var/www/html/alpina-logs
: This
directory contains node installation logs.
/var/www/html/boot
: This
directory contains the Boot Manager, customized for your MyPLC
installation, and its data files.
/var/www/html/download
: This
directory contains Boot CD images, customized for your MyPLC
installation.
/var/www/html/install-rpms
: This
directory is where you should install node package updates,
if any. By default, nodes are installed from the tarball
located at
/var/www/html/boot/PlanetLab-Bootstrap.tar.bz2
,
which is pre-built from the latest PlanetLab Central
sources, and installed as part of your MyPLC
installation. However, nodes will attempt to install any
newer RPMs located in
/var/www/html/install-rpms/planetlab
,
after initial installation and periodically thereafter. You
must run yum-arch and
createrepo to update the
yum caches in this directory after
installing a new RPM. PlanetLab Central cannot support any
changes to this directory.
/var/www/html/xml
: This
directory contains various XML files that the Slice Creation
Service uses to determine the state of slices. These XML
files are refreshed periodically by cron
jobs running in the MyPLC root.
/root
: this is the
location of the root-user's homedir, and for your
convenience is stored under /data
so
that your local customizations survive across
updates - this feature is inherited from the
myplc-devel package, where it is probably
more useful.
/etc/init.d/plc
: This file
is a System V init script installed on your host filesystem,
that allows you to start up and shut down MyPLC with a single
command, as described in Section 3.2, “ QuickStart ”.
/etc/sysconfig/plc
: This
file is a shell script fragment that defines the variables
PLC_ROOT
and PLC_DATA
. By default,
the values of these variables are /plc/root
and /plc/data
, respectively. If you wish,
you may move your MyPLC installation to another location on your
host filesystem and edit the values of these variables
appropriately, but you will break the RPM upgrade
process. PlanetLab Central cannot support any changes to this
file.
/etc/planetlab
: This
symlink to /plc/data/etc/planetlab
is
installed on the host system for convenience.
The MyPLC package, though distributed as an RPM, is not a traditional package that can be easily rebuilt from SRPM. The requisite build environment is quite extensive and numerous assumptions are made throughout the PlanetLab source code base, that the build environment is based on Fedora Core 4 and that access to a complete Fedora Core 4 mirror is available.
For this reason, it is recommended that you only rebuild MyPLC (or any of its components) from within the MyPLC development environment. The MyPLC development environment is similar to MyPLC itself in that it is a portable filesystem contained within a chroot jail. The filesystem contains all the necessary tools required to rebuild MyPLC, as well as a snapshot of the PlanetLab source code base in the form of a local CVS repository.
Install the MyPLC development environment similarly to how you would install MyPLC. You may install both packages on the same host system if you wish. As with MyPLC, the MyPLC development environment should be treated as a monolithic software application, and any files present in the chroot jail should not be modified directly, as they are subject to upgrade.
If your distribution supports RPM:
# rpm -U http://build.planet-lab.org/build/myplc-0_4-rc2/RPMS/i386/myplc-devel-0.4-2.planetlab.i386.rpm
If your distribution does not support RPM:
# cd /tmp # wget http://build.planet-lab.org/build/myplc-0_4-rc2/RPMS/i386/myplc-devel-0.4-2.planetlab.i386.rpm # cd / # rpm2cpio /tmp/myplc-devel-0.4-2.planetlab.i386.rpm | cpio -diu
The default configuration should work as-is on most sites. Configuring the development package can be achieved in a similar way as for myplc, as described in Section 3.3, “Changing the configuration”. plc-config-tty supports a -d option for supporting the myplc-devel case, that can be useful in a context where it would not guess it by itself. Refer to Appendix B, Development configuration variables (for myplc-devel) for a list of variables.
The MyPLC development environment installs the following files and directories:
/plc/devel/root.img
: The
main root filesystem of the MyPLC development environment. This
file is an uncompressed ext3 filesystem that is loopback mounted
on /plc/devel/root
when the MyPLC
development environment is initialized. This filesystem, even
when mounted, should be treated as an opaque binary that can and
will be replaced in its entirety by any upgrade of the MyPLC
development environment.
/plc/devel/root
: The mount
point for
/plc/devel/root.img
.
/plc/devel/data
: The directory
where user data and generated files are stored. This directory
is bind mounted onto /plc/devel/root/data
so that it is accessible as /data
from
within the chroot jail. Files in this
directory are marked with
%config(noreplace) in the RPM. Symlinks
ensure that the following directories (relative to
/plc/devel/root
) are stored outside the
root filesystem image:
/etc/planetlab
: This
directory contains the configuration files that define your
MyPLC development environment.
/cvs
: A
snapshot of the PlanetLab source code is stored as a CVS
repository in this directory. Files in this directory will
not be updated by an upgrade of
myplc-devel
. See Section 4.6, “Updating CVS” for more information about updating
PlanetLab source code.
/build
:
Builds are stored in this directory. This directory is bind
mounted onto /plc/devel/root/build
so that
it is accessible as /build
from within the
chroot jail. The build scripts in this
directory are themselves source controlled; see Section 4.5, “Building MyPLC” for more information about executing
builds.
/root
: this is the
location of the root-user's homedir, and for your
convenience is stored under /data
so
that your local customizations survive across
updates.
/etc/init.d/plc-devel
: This file is
a System V init script installed on your host filesystem, that
allows you to start up and shut down the MyPLC development
environment with a single command.
The MyPLC development environment requires access to a
complete Fedora Core 4 i386 RPM repository, because several
different filesystems based upon Fedora Core 4 are constructed
during the process of building MyPLC. You may configure the
location of this repository via the
PLC_DEVEL_FEDORA_URL
variable in
/plc/devel/data/etc/planetlab/plc_config.xml
. The
value of the variable should be a URL that points to the top
level of a Fedora mirror that provides the
base
, updates
, and
extras
repositories, e.g.,
file:///data/fedora
http://coblitz.planet-lab.org/pub/fedora
ftp://mirror.cs.princeton.edu/pub/mirrors/fedora
ftp://mirror.stanford.edu/pub/mirrors/fedora
http://rpmfind.net/linux/fedora
As implied by the list, the repository may be located on
the local filesystem, or it may be located on a remote FTP or
HTTP server. URLs beginning with file://
should exist at the specified location relative to the root of
the chroot jail. For optimum performance and
reproducibility, specify
PLC_DEVEL_FEDORA_URL=file:///data/fedora
and
download all Fedora Core 4 RPMS into
/plc/devel/data/fedora
on the host system
after installing myplc-devel
. Use a tool
such as wget or rsync to
download the RPMS from a public mirror:
Example 9. Setting up a local Fedora Core 4 repository.
# mkdir -p /plc/devel/data/fedora # cd /plc/devel/data/fedora # for repo in core/4/i386/os core/updates/4/i386 extras/4/i386 ; do > wget -m -nH --cut-dirs=3 http://coblitz.planet-lab.org/pub/fedora/linux/$repo > done
Change the repository URI and --cut-dirs level as needed to produce a hierarchy that resembles:
/plc/devel/data/fedora/core/4/i386/os /plc/devel/data/fedora/core/updates/4/i386 /plc/devel/data/fedora/extras/4/i386
A list of additional Fedora Core 4 mirrors is available at http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors.html.
All PlanetLab source code modules are built and installed
as RPMS. A set of build scripts, checked into the
build/
directory of the PlanetLab CVS
repository, eases the task of rebuilding PlanetLab source
code.
Before you try building MyPLC, you might check the configuration, in a file named plc_config.xml that relies on a very similar model as MyPLC, located in /etc/planetlab within the chroot jail, or in /plc/devel/data/etc/planetlab from the root context. The set of applicable variables is described in Appendix B, Development configuration variables (for myplc-devel).
To build MyPLC, or any PlanetLab source code module, from within the MyPLC development environment, execute the following commands as root:
Example 10. Building MyPLC.
# Initialize MyPLC development environment service plc-devel start # Enter development environment chroot /plc/devel/root su - # Check out build scripts into a directory named after the current # date. This is simply a convention, it need not be followed # exactly. See build/build.sh for an example of a build script that # names build directories after CVS tags. DATE=$(date +%Y.%m.%d) cd /build cvs -d /cvs checkout -d $DATE build # Build everything make -C $DATE
If the build succeeds, a set of binary RPMS will be
installed under
/plc/devel/data/build/$DATE/RPMS/
that you
may copy to the
/var/www/html/install-rpms/planetlab
directory of your MyPLC installation (see Section 3, “Installating and using MyPLC”).
A complete snapshot of the PlanetLab source code is included
with the MyPLC development environment as a CVS repository in
/plc/devel/data/cvs
. This CVS repository may
be accessed like any other CVS repository. It may be accessed
using an interface such as CVSweb,
and file permissions may be altered to allow for fine-grained
access control. Although the files are included with the
myplc-devel
RPM, they are not subject to upgrade once installed. New
versions of the myplc-devel
RPM will install
updated snapshot repositories in
/plc/devel/data/cvs-%{version}-%{release}
,
where %{version}-%{release}
is replaced with
the version number of the RPM.
Because the CVS repository is not automatically upgraded,
if you wish to keep your local repository synchronized with the
public PlanetLab repository, it is highly recommended that you
use CVS's support for vendor branches to track changes, as
described here
and here.
Vendor branches ease the task of merging upstream changes with
your local modifications. To import a new snapshot into your
local repository (for example, if you have just upgraded from
myplc-devel-0.4-2
to
myplc-devel-0.4-3
and you notice the new
repository in /plc/devel/data/cvs-0.4-3
),
execute the following commands as root from within the MyPLC
development environment:
Example 11. Updating /data/cvs from /data/cvs-0.4-3.
Warning: This may cause severe, irreversible changes to be made to your local repository. Always tag your local repository before importing.
# Initialize MyPLC development environment service plc-devel start # Enter development environment chroot /plc/devel/root su - # Tag current state cvs -d /cvs rtag before-myplc-0_4-3-merge # Export snapshot TMP=$(mktemp -d /data/export.XXXXXX) pushd $TMP cvs -d /data/cvs-0.4-3 export -r HEAD . cvs -d /cvs import -m "Merging myplc-0.4-3" -ko -I ! . planetlab myplc-0_4-3 popd rm -rf $TMP
If there are any merge conflicts, use the command suggested by CVS to help the merge. Explaining how to fix merge conflicts is beyond the scope of this document; consult the CVS documentation for more information on how to use CVS.
Please refer to, and feel free to contribute, the FAQ page on the Princeton's wiki .
Listed below is the set of standard configuration variables
and their default values, defined in the template
/etc/planetlab/default_config.xml
. Additional
variables and their defaults may be defined in site-specific XML
templates that should be placed in
/etc/planetlab/configs/
.
This information is available online within plc-config-tty, e.g.:
Example A.1. Advanced usage of plc-config-tty
<plc> # plc-config-tty Enter command (u for usual changes, w to save, ? for help) V plc_dns ========== Category = PLC_DNS ### Enable DNS # Enable the internal DNS server. The server does not provide reverse # resolution and is not a production quality or scalable DNS solution. # Use the internal DNS server only for small deployments or for testing. PLC_DNS_ENABLED
List of the myplc configuration variables:
Type: string
Default: PlanetLab Test
The name of this PLC installation. It is used in the name of the default system site (e.g., PlanetLab Central) and in the names of various administrative entities (e.g., PlanetLab Support).
Type: string
Default: pl
The abbreviated name of this PLC installation. It is used as the prefix for system slices (e.g., pl_conf). Warning: Currently, this variable should not be changed.
Type: email
Default: root@localhost.localdomain
The name of the initial administrative account. We recommend that this account be used only to create additional accounts associated with real administrators, then disabled.
Type: password
Default: root
The password of the initial administrative account. Also the password of the root account on the Boot CD.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/root_ssh_key.pub
The SSH public key used to access the root account on your nodes.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/root_ssh_key.rsa
The SSH private key used to access the root account on your nodes.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/debug_ssh_key.pub
The SSH public key used to access the root account on your nodes when they are in Debug mode.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/debug_ssh_key.rsa
The SSH private key used to access the root account on your nodes when they are in Debug mode.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/pubring.gpg
The GPG public keyring used to sign the Boot Manager and all node packages.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/secring.gpg
The SSH private key used to access the root account on your nodes.
Type: ip
Default: test
The namespace of your MA/SA. This should be a globally unique value assigned by PlanetLab Central.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/ma_sa_ssl.key
The SSL private key used for signing documents with the signature of your MA/SA. If non-existent, one will be generated.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/ma_sa_ssl.crt
The corresponding SSL public certificate. By default, this certificate is self-signed. You may replace the certificate later with one signed by the PLC root CA.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/ma_sa_ca_ssl.crt
If applicable, the certificate of the PLC root CA. If your MA/SA certificate is self-signed, then this file is the same as your MA/SA certificate.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/ma_sa_ca_ssl.pub
If applicable, the public key of the PLC root CA. If your MA/SA certificate is self-signed, then this file is the same as your MA/SA public key.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/ma_sa_api.xml
The API Certificate is your MA/SA public key embedded in a digitally signed XML document. By default, this document is self-signed. You may replace this certificate later with one signed by the PLC root CA.
Type: ip
Default: 127.0.0.1
Primary DNS server address.
Type: ip
Default:
Secondary DNS server address.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Enable the internal DNS server. The server does not provide reverse resolution and is not a production quality or scalable DNS solution. Use the internal DNS server only for small deployments or for testing.
Type: boolean
Default: false
Set to false to suppress all e-mail notifications and warnings.
Type: email
Default: root+support@localhost.localdomain
This address is used for support requests. Support requests may include traffic complaints, security incident reporting, web site malfunctions, and general requests for information. We recommend that the address be aliased to a ticketing system such as Request Tracker.
Type: email
Default: root+install-msgs@localhost.localdomain
The API will notify this address when a problem occurs during node installation or boot.
Type: email
Default: root+SLICE@localhost.localdomain
This address template is used for sending e-mail notifications to slices. SLICE will be replaced with the name of the slice.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Enable the database server on this machine.
Type: string
Default: postgresql
The type of database server. Currently, only postgresql is supported.
Type: hostname
Default: localhost.localdomain
The fully qualified hostname of the database server.
Type: ip
Default: 127.0.0.1
The IP address of the database server, if not resolvable by the configured DNS servers.
Type: int
Default: 5432
The TCP port number through which the database server should be accessed.
Type: string
Default: planetlab3
The name of the database to access.
Type: string
Default: pgsqluser
The username to use when accessing the database.
Type: password
Default:
The password to use when accessing the database. If left blank, one will be generated.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Enable the API server on this machine.
Type: boolean
Default: false
Enable verbose API debugging. Do not enable on a production system!
Type: hostname
Default: localhost.localdomain
The fully qualified hostname of the API server.
Type: ip
Default: 127.0.0.1
The IP address of the API server, if not resolvable by the configured DNS servers.
Type: int
Default: 80
The TCP port number through which the API should be accessed. Warning: SSL (port 443) access is not fully supported by the website code yet. We recommend that port 80 be used for now and that the API server either run on the same machine as the web server, or that they both be on a secure wired network.
Type: string
Default: /PLCAPI/
The base path of the API URL.
Type: string
Default: maint@localhost.localdomain
The username of the maintenance account. This account is used by local scripts that perform automated tasks, and cannot be used for normal logins.
Type: password
Default:
The password of the maintenance account. If left blank, one will be generated. We recommend that the password be changed periodically.
Type: hostname
Default:
A space-separated list of IP addresses allowed to access the API through the maintenance account. The value of this variable is set automatically to allow only the API, web, and boot servers, and should not be changed.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/api_ssl.key
The SSL private key to use for encrypting HTTPS traffic. If non-existent, one will be generated.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/api_ssl.crt
The corresponding SSL public certificate. By default, this certificate is self-signed. You may replace the certificate later with one signed by a root CA.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/api_ca_ssl.crt
The certificate of the root CA, if any, that signed your server certificate. If your server certificate is self-signed, then this file is the same as your server certificate.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Enable the web server on this machine.
Type: boolean
Default: false
Enable debugging output on web pages. Do not enable on a production system!
Type: hostname
Default: localhost.localdomain
The fully qualified hostname of the web server.
Type: ip
Default: 127.0.0.1
The IP address of the web server, if not resolvable by the configured DNS servers.
Type: int
Default: 80
The TCP port number through which the unprotected portions of the web site should be accessed.
Type: int
Default: 443
The TCP port number through which the protected portions of the web site should be accessed.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/www_ssl.key
The SSL private key to use for encrypting HTTPS traffic. If non-existent, one will be generated.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/www_ssl.crt
The corresponding SSL public certificate for the HTTP server. By default, this certificate is self-signed. You may replace the certificate later with one signed by a root CA.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/www_ca_ssl.crt
The certificate of the root CA, if any, that signed your server certificate. If your server certificate is self-signed, then this file is the same as your server certificate.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Enable the boot server on this machine.
Type: hostname
Default: localhost.localdomain
The fully qualified hostname of the boot server.
Type: ip
Default: 127.0.0.1
The IP address of the boot server, if not resolvable by the configured DNS servers.
Type: int
Default: 80
The TCP port number through which the unprotected portions of the boot server should be accessed.
Type: int
Default: 443
The TCP port number through which the protected portions of the boot server should be accessed.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/boot_ssl.key
The SSL private key to use for encrypting HTTPS traffic.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/boot_ssl.crt
The corresponding SSL public certificate for the HTTP server. By default, this certificate is self-signed. You may replace the certificate later with one signed by a root CA.
Type: file
Default: /etc/planetlab/boot_ca_ssl.crt
The certificate of the root CA, if any, that signed your server certificate. If your server certificate is self-signed, then this file is the same as your server certificate.
Type: string
Default: 4
Version number of Fedora Core upon which to base the build environment. Warning: Currently, only Fedora Core 4 is supported.
Type: string
Default: i386
Base architecture of the build environment. Warning: Currently, only i386 is supported.
Type: string
Default: file:///data/fedora
Fedora Core mirror from which to install filesystems.
Type: string
Default: /cvs
CVSROOT to use when checking out code.
Type: boolean
Default: false
Controls whether MyPLC should be built inside of its own development environment.