Setting up the openstack environment

Getting Started

This stolen mainly from here.

The NCI staff suggested some preference that we use CentOS for the main server. So we did. The eucalyptus images were Ubuntu 10.04, however.

Note: This describes the eucalyptus setup.  Using OpenStack is similar _once installed_.
      You just need to source ". .nova/novarc" to set up the environment.

Install Eucatools

The installation instructions here don't actually work. They suggest doing:

$ export VERSION=1.3.1    # the latest version
$ export ARCH=x86_64      # we have a 64bit machine, 'i386' for 32bit

Then create a file /etc/yum.repos.d/euca.repo containing:

[euca2ools]
name=Euca2ools
baseurl=http://www.eucalyptussoftware.com/downloads/repo/euca2ools/$VERSION/yum/centos/
enabled=1

but this doesn't work - the $VERSION isn't replaced (and can't work for another user). So change the baseurl= line to be:

baseurl=http://www.eucalyptussoftware.com/downloads/repo/euca2ools/1.3.1/yum/centos/

Then install the tools:

$ yum install euca2ools.$ARCH --nogpgcheck

Create your account

You should be given a URL to login/create a Eucalyptus account. Go there, create the account, and click on the link in the confirmatory email you receive. Log in.

Creating credentials

Once you have logged in to your account, you will see your account page which has a Download Credentials button. Clicking on the button prompts you to download a zip file containing your credentials. Do so, and unzip the file into your ~/.euca directory:

$ mkdir ~/.euca
$ mv /from/where/ever/name-of-the-key-zip.zip .euca
$ cd ~/.euca
$ unzip name-of-the-key-zip.zip
$ rm name-of-the-key-zip.zip
$ chmod 0700 ~/.euca
$ chmod 0600 ~/.euca/*

The ~/.euca/eucarc file is designed to be 'sourced' before you use the eucatools. That is, before attempting to use the tools do:

$ . ~/.euca/eucarc

A quick test to see if everything is OK:

$ euca-describe-images

This should list a set of images you can choose to start.

Generating keypairs

Run this command:

$ euca-add-keypair mykey | tee mykey.private

to store your public key in eucalyptus and create a file mykey.private containing your private key. Store this file in ~/.euca and protect it:

$ my mykey.private ~/.euca
$ chmod 0600 ~/.euca/mykey.private