Nova-Ubuntu(Folsom) is a re-mastered Ubuntu 12.04 Server. Unlike Ubuntu itself, nova-ubuntu is fully automated using preseed files and nova install scripts.

• 4+GB Memory Free (6+GB recommended)
• 800MB disk space free on /tmp
• 30-100 GB free disk space on /var/lib/libvirt
• Access to the internet (for installation of packages)
• ability to run command via sudo to install libvirt/KVM etc.
• x86_64/amd64 CPU, or able to emulate x86_64/amd64
• nested virtualization capability (otherwise fallback to qemu inside nova-ubuntu)

Whilst it is preferable to use KVM as the hypervisor, there are many circumstances which will not make that possible:

Other virtualization products known to support Nova-Ubuntu: Vmware Workstation, VirtualBox

The installer assumes you are running from X-Windows. Although it will work from a text console, the VM will be created in headless mode (i.e. No virtual graphics card). Using Nova-Ubuntu in headless mode is outside the scope of this document. For best results perform the following from an X-Windows session.

Run the installer with bash and use install as the first and only parameter

This will extract the ISO image, and untar it to /tmp directory (it will be automatically deleted on reboot) After that it will check for the existence of packages, available memory, and disk space

For disk space you require at least 30G available in the /var/lib/libvirt directory, or /var/lib (if libvirt doesn't yet exist on your system)

You will also need sharutils, virt-viewer, virt-manager and kvm packages installed. The script will prompt for the sudo password to install this for you.

Note: If this is installed as port of the process (i.e. Not already installed) you will need to re-login to the session you will be added to the newly created libvirt group and this will only be effective on a new login. If the script fails shortly after this step then log back in (or reboot) and try again.

Once all dependencies have been satisfied the ISO image will extract and a KVM VM will be created to boot from this image.

Virt-viewer will launch and you will be presented with the initial boot menu.

Proceed to section: “Common installation (Hypervisor agnostic)”

• Instructions based on VMware Workstation 8.0.1 build 528992
• Download file
• On a Linux machine (or Cygwin/OSX terminal/other unix compatible shell)
• Run script as follows:

bash nova-ubuntu_installer-2.6.2.bin extract

This should output a file: nova-ubuntu-2.6.2.iso

Copy this to the host you will install it to

• Start Vmware
• Choose “File-New Virtual Machine...”Select “Custom (advanced)” radio box
• Select “Workstation 8.0” from drop down box (Hardware compatibility screen)
• Select “I will install the operating system later”
• Choose Linux=> Ubuntu 64-bit (Guest Operating System Screen)
• Choose name (ensure you put in the version, of nova-ubuntu you are installing)
• Choose minimum 2 cores, 2 CPUs for best results (Processor Configuration screen)
• choose minimum 4GB memory
• Use NAT (network connection screen)

Note: If you have previously installed nova-ubuntu Diablo – you may need to manually select the virtual interface rather than NAT. Use VMware Virtual Network Editor to view available networks. You need something with NATTED connection that must have DHCP. If NAT is not possible Bridged connections will also work, but ensure that DHCP is available on the network you are using.

If required use the network editor application to ensure you are using the correct network:

• leave I/O controller as default recommended option (IO Controller types screen)
• Create New Virtual Disk (Disk screen)
• Choose SCSI – recommended (Virtual disk type screen)
• Choose disk size 100G, single file, do not allocate all disk space
• Click Customize Hardware
• Select Processors
• select CPU
• select Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI (if your host CPU supports it)
• Select CD
• Select “Use ISO Image”
• Browse to location of previously extracted ISO Image
• Click Close
• Click Finish
• Power on the virtual Machine

Proceed to section: “Common installation (Hypervisor agnostic)”

Instructions based on Oracle VirtualBox 4.0.4_OSE

Note: VirtualBox does NOT support nested virtualization so you will will fall back to QEMU only within nova-ubuntu. It is also known to have issues with high DiskIO, so may not be ideal for many tasks. Use at your own RISK

• Click “New” to start the “New Virtual Machine Wizard”
• Click next
• Choose name and OS (Ensure you have the version in the VM name)
• Choose Operating System and Version as Linux Ubuntu (64-bit)
• Select memory, 4+GB (4096MB)
• Select Create new hard disk (Virtual Hard Disk screen)
• Choose Dynamically expanding storage (Hard disk storage Type screen)
• Choose Disk size: 100G (Virtual Disk Location and size screen)
• Click Next => Finish => Finish
• Click settings (Settings of the new VM you just created)
• System->Processor
• Enable PAE/NX,
• Processor: 4

acceleration tab:

• enable vt-x/AMD-v

• enable nested paging

• Go to Storage menu option => click on CPU in the tree

• Browse to previously downloaded ISO image

• Click OK

• Start VM

Proceed to section: “Common installation (Hypervisor agnostic)”

This section is common to all methods of installation. Although there may be some extra steps performed in the background, these are largely transparent.

Select the option that suits you better (USA, Europe, India, Home) and press ENTER.

The remainder of the installation should be fully automated and will not require any interaction. If the process stops for any reason, or prompts you for any information this could indicate an issue with the network (DHCP/Proxy etc.), or you have chosen a wrong option in the previous menu.

The first part of the install process (called phase 1) is installing some core Ubuntu packages. You will see a purple screen with a red progress bar.

Although networking is configured here, no packages are downloaded from the internet at this stage. Everything is installed from the CD/ISO image.

This process will take approximately 10-20 minutes, depending on the speed of your hard drive/RAM.

The machine will then reboot to continue installing.

You will see a black screen with script output rushing up the screen. This installs other required packages, sets up the environment, configures chef, and installs/configures nova. Due to the amount of packages required (mainly from upstream Ubuntu repositories) this part of the process can take anywhere up to 2 hours (depending on the speed of your network connection, CPU, and Hard drive).

If this process seems to complete sooner that the above estimated time, it could be that something failed (check log files, discussed later)

Once complete you will be presented with a login screen, which also displays information about your new environment.

This shows the current IP address of the VM, for SSHing in or connecting to the services remotely Also the default user name/password is displayed.

A good test to find out if the installation was successful is to log in and check for ACTIVE instances as follows:

adiab@amrox:~$ ssh default@192.168.122.201

Warning: Permanently added '192.168.122.201' (ECDSA) to the list of
known hosts.

default@192.168.122.201's password:

Welcome to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-23-generic x86_64)


* Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".

See "man sudo_root" for details.

default@nova-ubuntu:~$ nova list

+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------------------------+

| ID | Name | Status | Networks |

+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------------------------+

| 2622c579-0f53-4275-a1d6-9dbec8566b62 | at_boot_test | ACTIVE |
private=10.10.0.2, 10.30.0.1 |

+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------------------------+

default@nova-ubuntu:~$

By default there should be one running instance after the installation is complete.

If not see debug section below to try to identify what went wrong.

You should use the default user for most tasks. This as a default password of “password”. You have full sudo access with this user to perform other functions (eg. Restarting services, (re)installing nova or other packages, viewing log files etc.

The root user is also available for direct log in when sudo is not sufficient. Default password is also “password”.

Both users are set up to use nova/glance commands – you do NOT need to source any novarc files, or otherwise as keystone permissions are granted via the bashrc file on log in.

To run X11 (see below) you need to be logged in as default, not root.

All log files relating specifically to nova-ubuntu are placed in the /var/log/novaubuntu directory.

For boot logs (identifying issues with installation) you will need to view the following logs:

/var/log/novaubuntu/boo1.log

/var/log/novaubuntu/boot2.log

Other log files will be in the default location in /var/log

Information files:

/etc/novaubuntu (release information of nova-ubuntu – version, release date etc.)

/etc/location.cfg (proxy settings used by build scripts)

All nova-ubuntu specific scripts are location in /usr/local/bin (viewnova-ubuntu developers documentation for more details on how/why/when/what they do. All scripts required for day-to-day running will be displayed on the Desktop.

By default nova-ubuntu boots into text mode. This is because not everybody needs/uses the GUI, but it is available for those that do.

To start the GUI log on at the console using the default user and type: startx

Note: Full screen has been known not to work properly on all monitors/resolution. You may need to adjust some parameters for this to work perfectly on your nova-ubuntu instance.

This is the default screen when logging into the GUI.

Desktop manager: ubuntu-fallback

Icons on the desktop for cleanup/install/other functions (not yet complete)

Nova-Ubuntu Desktop Dashboard (displaying nova-ubuntu install details)

Nagstmon in status bar (displaying status of nova)

System monitor (top of screen) displaying VM resource status

Common development applications in Ubuntu menu

This displays information about nova, and glance

It also displays information about Nova-Ubuntu itself (the version, when it was created, installed, and updated)

The VPN available line changes to red if the VPN NOT available. It does this by checking if a route to KEG is available.

Source modified checks if the nova code has been modifed since it was installed. It does this by using a package called debsums which compares the md5sum of each file with the md5sum of the file provided by the package. This line will also change to red if there have been modifications. This is useful if you need to know how fresh the instllation is, or have forgotton if you made any changes, and where they are. To find out which files have been modified you can simply run the debsums binary in a terminal.

All these details are updated every minute and will change when the version is updated.

This is a Nagios client set up for Nova-Ubuntu only (ie. It is not related to Icinga running in production, and other environments.)

Its purpose is to alert the user to services not running, and other networking issues that may not be otherwise apparent. A red flashing icon indicates that there is an issue – click on the icon to display further information. The icon is green if everything is running as expected.

There are 6 min-graphs displayed at the top of the screen. When running many instances, or opertaions that use up huge resources its useful to keep an eye on this display.

From left to right these 6 graphs display the following:

Using KVM, it is best to keep track of Nova-Ubuntu using virtual machine manage (command name: virt-manager) . You can also use starndard virsh commands for starting/stopping/rebooting/deleting instances.

Issues with the installer are mainly due to network issues.

The network is configured staright away (DHCP), so a failure here would be notised straight away. Insure that KVM has a default network which is configured with NAT and DHCP is available. If you have not used KVM before on your host this will be setup automatically.

How to re-configure guest networking is outside the scope of this document. Here is a link which may be useful. http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Networking

Other network issues may also be seen at a later stage after the VM has rebooted for the first time.

If you see many errors related to downloading files, this may indcate there is an issue with DNS, or routing. If you do find issues after the installation is complete (eg. Nova doesn't seem to be isntalled) you should check the boot logs in /var/log/novaubuntu for more explation. You can then try to reproduce the issue, but running the commands in these log files that failed....

apt-get update, or apt-get install <package-name>

If installed you can also use telnet, or nc to see if the ubuntu repositories (listed in /etc/apt/sources.list) are accessable on port 80

Take a look at /etc/location.cfg and insure that the details (proxy etc.) listed in there are correct.

From this you should have a better idea of what the issue is.

Occasionally (although quite rarely) after first boot nova list will display in instance in ERROR status. This could be because of a race-condition for services starting after chef completes its job of installing nova.

To check if this is really a problem, try creating a new instance and ensure it goes to ACTIVE status. Otherwise, the nova logs may provide some insight.

This is more an issue encountered while developing, rather than an issue with Nova-Ubuntu or Nova. With Nova-Ubuntu its much easier to debug why this is happening.

In te Nova-Ubuntu GUI start virt-manager (or connect to it using virt-manager remotely using SSH)

May need to run “sudo virt-manager” in a terminal

Often you will see something like “Disk not bootable”, or invalid kernel etc. which will not show in the console log.