How to confirm the VM run by the cloudlet commands “synthesis” with standalone version

[Eiji]

Hello, everyone.
I have successfully installed Openstack++ cloudlet infrastructure on my PC, following https://github.com/cmusatyalab/elijah-openstack guidelines.
I was able to synthesis a new VM by using web’s dashboard with openstack version, and to log in the running VM and see the prompt.
On the other hand, I can also use the cloudlet commands with standalone version.
I think I am able to synthesis a new VM with by the command “synthesis”, but I don’t know how to confirm the VM instance is running.
Please give me some ideas; how to confirm it and log in the VM.
Or, is this my misunderstanding?

Thank you.

[krha]

Hi @Eiji,

It's glad to here that you can run most of the code.

As far as I understand, you want to run cloudlet command (e.g. vm synthesis) using command line tool.

I do have a command line tool for this purpose. Please check out https://github.com/cmusatyalab/elijah-openstack/blob/master/client/cloudlet_client.py

$ cloudlet_client.py -h

will give you a intruction to use.

For example,

$ cloudlet_client.py --credential ./openstack_cred synthesis http://example.com/my_overlay.zip test_vm

will read openstack access information from openstack_cred file, and then perform VM synthesis using http://example.com/my_overlay.zip, finally create a VM with name 'test_vm'. This command will return VM instance information using json format and you can compare that information with a VM at openstack to verify it.

Do I make myself clear, especially about how to confirm the VM instance is running part?

[Eiji]

Hello, @krha

Thank you very much for your replay.
I am sorry that my explanation is not good.

I want to try the following cloudlet commands. (not OpenStack++, cloudlet_client.py)

  $ which cloudlet
  /usr/local/bin/cloudlet

And I want to log in the VM instance performed by the following command.

 $ cloudlet synthesis [basevm] [meta]

Could you please let me know the way to log in the VM and see the prompt.

Thanks !

[krha]

Hi @Eiji,

No apology needed. Now I got your intention

/usr/local/bin/cloudlet is a standalone application working independently. Both cloudlet command line tool and OpenStack++ code share a command cloudlet library. That means you can do whatever you did in OpenStack++ using cloudlet command line tool.

To login a VM you synthesized using the command $cloudlet synthesis, you should first use VNC. For most of the case (e.g. if you have created only on VM)

$ gvncviewer localhost

Will popup a GUI windows of the VM.

If you have multiple VM and want to know the VNC port number, you can first check VM id using

$ virsh -c qemu:///session list

Then,

$ virsh -c qemu:///session dumpxml [vm_id]

will print out all HW configuration details. At the end of the printed out XML, you can find VNC port number as follows:

<input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
<graphics type='vnc' port='5901' autoport='yes' listen='127.0.0.1' keymap='en-us'>
  <listen type='address' address='127.0.0.1'/>

For example with port number 5901, you can connect to the VM using gvncviewer localhost:1 (since VNC port number start from 5900, gvncviwer will map :1 to port 5901).

Or if you have created your VM overlay after installing ssh server, you can directly connect using ssh client. However, this needs a bit more complicated setting regarding port forwarding. Please read instruction about port forwarding at https://github.com/cmusatyalab/elijah-provisioning/#how-to-create-vm-overlay.

[Eiji]

Hi @krha,
I'm sorry for replay lately and thank you for your helps.
Please let me ask an additional question.

1) Does "/usr/local/bin/cloudlet" have a function to run a VM instance?
By the way, what kind of situations can "/usr/local/bin/cloudlet" be used in?

2) To log in a VM instance run by OpenStack dashboard with cloudlet,
should I use a gvncviewer, not a console* (n-novnc etc.)?
(*) for example "Console" tab of "Instances" menu of the dashboard

Best regards and thanks again,
Eiji

[krha]

Hi Eiji,

1) Does "/usr/local/bin/cloudlet" have a function to run a VM instance?By the way, what kind of situations can "/usr/local/bin/cloudlet" be used in?

Yes. This file provides command line tool of cloudlet feature. If you type $ cloudlet --help, it will give you more details. Basically, you can do everything you did on OpenStack using this tool. If you like to use cloudlet without OpenStack, this is a way to go.

2) To log in a VM instance run by OpenStack dashboard with cloudlet, should I use a gvncviewer, not a console* (n-novnc etc.)? (*) for example "Console" tab of "Instances" menu of the dashboard

nova-novnc also eventually use VNC to see the VM instance. But somehow OpenStack devstack installation sometimes fails to show console*. This is probably a bug from OpenStack side.