This repository contains a set of scripts that easily allow you to create Indico images that can be run on virtualization software (VirtualBox, VMWare, etc...) or cloud services.

All the documentation about cloud-init and configuration files can be found here: http://cloudinit.readthedocs.org/en/latest/.

Without going into much detail, the user-data file we will need for the remote deployment will be a MIME multipart file. In particular, this MIME file will be composed by two different files:

• user-data-script.sh: a bash script executed on the first boot to install and configure Indico on the VM.
• cloud-config: a cloud-init configuration file, used to copy several files to the VM on the cloud.

We provide a useful script (cloud-init/gen-user-data.py) to automatically generate this user-data file, which can be used in RHEL/CentOS-compatible systems.

The script can take a configuration file to generate images with identical parameters.

$ python gen-user-data.py

When the script finishes, a user-data file will be created in the same directory.

Then all you have to do is to boot a new instance of the base image you choose specifying the user-data file just created. Be wary that the corresponding command will be different depending on the cloud service provider chosen.

For instance, if we want to deploy a new Indico image into an OpenStack infrastructure we'll need to use the nova command. The actual command should be something like that:

$ nova boot --image 'bfa5783c-e40e-4668-adc1-feb0ae3d7a46' --key-name your-nova-key-name --flavor general1-2 --config-drive true --user-data user-data indico-cloud-test

indico-cloud-test being the chosen hostname for the Indico server.

If you want to create your own image for testing purposes, you can do so by using the fabric script located under dev. You should first have created a valid user-data file. It is important to include some extra information, such as a password for the default user (and an optional ssh key if you'd like). Networking should be enabled, so that the image can be accessed from outside QEMU/KVM:

ssh_keys:
    - /home/jdoe/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
password: some_password
enable_networking: true

That said, you will also have to customize dev/fabfile.conf, namely:

user = 'centos'
password = 'some_password'
img_name = "CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2"

In order to make sure that the default user and password are set and that the image file corresponds to what you have downloaded. Then just do:

$ fab create_vm_image

And wait till the program exits. You can check qemu-output.log in order to get some more debug data.

Once you have a server deployed, you will probably want to start the database, the web server and the scheduler. Fortunately, we provide a fabric script that allows you to exactly that. You will need to set up a small config file based on fabfile.conf.sample. Normally, you will only need to change this part:

machine = {
    "name": 'your-test-server-hostname',
    "ssh_port": 22
}

in order to suit your needs.

You will want to start all services:

$ fab start:all

You can also start/stop individual services:

$ fab stop:scheduler