Ganeti Web Manager

Ganeti Web Manager is a Django-based web application that allows administrators and clients access to their ganeti clusters.

Ganeti compatibility:

• >=2.4.x - supported
• 2.2.2 - mostly supported
• 2.3.1 - mostly supported
• 2.1.x - mostly supported
• 2.0.x - unsupported but may work
• 1.x - unsupported

Browser compatibility:

• Mozilla Firefox >= 3.x
• Chrome / Chromium

The VNC console requires WebSockets or flash support and HTML5 support in the browser.

Links

• Project page
• Documentation
• Mailing List
• Twitter
• IRC: #ganeti-webmgr on freenode.net

Installation

Note

Installing via the setup.sh script is now the preferred method. That script does everything for you. However it's still possible to install GWM in not-that-much automatic way.

Installation script

Get setup.sh from https://github.com/pbanaszkiewicz/ganeti_webmgr-setup. Make it executable, run ./setup.sh -h to get help message and then install GWM. Notice, that this script can upgrade your installation in future.

For development

Get yourself the virtualenvwrapper. For your sanity. Then proceed with installation:

$ mkvirtualenv gwm
(gwm)$ git clone git://git.osuosl.org/gitolite/ganeti/ganeti_webmgr
(gwm)$ cd ganeti_webmgr
(gwm)$ python setup.py develop

And that's it, you can now safely work on GWM.

Manual installation

1. Install dependencies: Python, Pip, Virtualenv
2. Get the Ganeti Web Manager code: Clone from the repository or download a release tarball
3. Create a virtual environment in your desired location and install GWM in there by issuing python setup.py install in GWM directory (after you unzipped the tarball or cloned the repository)
4. Configure settings: in directory ganeti_webmgr/ganeti_web/settings copy end_user.py.dist to end_user.py and make any modifications
5. Sync database, then run the server: ./ganeti_webmgr/manage.py syncdb --migrate, then ./ganeti_webmgr/manage.py runserver

Related Topics

• Troubleshoot an installation using Fabric
• More on manual installation

Compatibility

Ganeti Web Manager is compatible with the following:

Ganeti

Ganeti >= v2.2.x is supported. v2.1.x and v2.0.x are unsupported and sometimes work but can cause problems (see #8973). Lower versions are not supported.

Browsers

Mozilla Firefox >= v3.x, Google Chrome or Chromium.

Other contemporary browsers may also work, but are not supported. (The web-based VNC console requires browser support of WebSockets and HTML5.

Databases

MySQL or SQLite. SQLite is not recommended in production environments.

Operating systems

GWM has been tested on Debian 7, Ubuntu 11.10, 12.04 and CentOs 5 and 6. Debian 6 is supported, provided the Pip, Virtualenv and Fabric packages are updated to the versions listed below.

Dependencies

• Python >=2.5, Python >=2.6 recommended
• Virtualenv >= 1.6.1

Other requirements are either Virtualenv dependencies or will get installed by setup script.

• install Virtualenv:

$ sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv

Configuration

In the ganeti_webmgr/ganeti_web/settings directory, you'll find a default settings file called end_user.py.dist. Copy it to end_user.py:

$ cp end_user.py.dist end_user.py

If you want to use another database engine besides the default SQLite (not recommended for production), then in settings edit the following lines to reflect your wishes:

DATABASE_ENGINE = ''   # <-- Change this to 'mysql', 'postgresql',
                       #     'postgresql_psycopg2' or 'sqlite3'
DATABASE_NAME = ''     # <-- Change this to a database name, or a file for
                       #     SQLite
DATABASE_USER = ''     # <-- Change this (not needed for SQLite)
DATABASE_PASSWORD = '' # <-- Change this (not needed for SQLite)
DATABASE_HOST = ''     # <-- Change this (not needed if database is
                       #     localhost)
DATABASE_PORT = ''     # <-- Change this (not needed if database is
                       #     localhost)

Warning

PostgreSQL support was fixed just recenly, check if your GWM version has it. See issue #3237.

Initialize Database:

$ ./ganeti_webmgr/manage.py syncdb --migrate

Build the search indexes:

$ ./ganeti_webmgr/manage.py rebuild_index

Note

Running ./ganeti_webmgr/manage.py update_index on a regular basis ensures that the search indexes stay up-to-date when models change in Ganeti Web Manager.

Everything should be all set up! Run the development server with:

$ ./ganeti_webmgr/manage.py runserver

Additional configuration for production servers

Deploying a production server requires additional setup steps.

1. Change the ownership of the whoosh_index directory to apache

$ chown apache:apache whoosh_index/

2. Change your SECRET_KEY and WEB_MGR_API_KEY to unique (and hopefully unguessable) strings in your end_user.py settings file.
3. Configure the Django Cache Framework to use a production capable backend in end_user.py. By default Ganeti Web Manager is configured to use the LocMemCache but it is not recommended for production. Use Memcached or a similar backend.

CACHES = {
   'default': {
       'BACKEND': 'django.core.cache.backends.locmem.LocMemCache',
   }
}

4. For versions >= 0.5 you may need to add the full filesystem path to your templates directory to TEMPLATE_DIRS and remove the relative reference to 'templates'. We've had issues using wsgi not working correctly unless this change has been made.
5. Ensure the server has the ability to send emails or you have access to an SMTP server. Set EMAIL_HOST, EMAIL_PORT, and DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL in end_user.py. For more complicated outgoing mail setups, please refer to the Django Email documentation.
6. Follow the Django guide to deploy with apache. Here is an example mod_wsgi file:

import os
import sys

path = '/var/lib/django/ganeti_webmgr'

# activate virtualenv
activate_this = '%s/venv/bin/activate_this.py' % path
execfile(activate_this, dict(__file__=activate_this))

# add project to path
if path not in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(path)

# configure django environment
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'settings'

import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

7. Set VNC_PROXY to the hostname of your VNC AuthProxy server in end_user.py. The VNC AuthProxy does not need to run on the same server as Ganeti Web Manager.

VNC_PROXY = 'my.server.org:8888'

Also see the Install documentation.

Ganeti RAPI users and passwords

Before you can start using Ganeti Web Manager, you will need to create a user and password on the Ganeti cluster.

Here is an example with user "jack" and password "abc123":

$ echo -n 'jack:Ganeti Remote API:abc123' | openssl md5

Add the hash to the RAPI users file and restart ganeti-rapi. Depending on the version of Ganeti you are running, you will need to either use /var/lib/ganeti/rapi_users (Ganeti <=2.3.x ) or /var/lib/ganeti/rapi/users (Ganeti >=2.4.x ).

An example hash entry might look like the following:

# Hashed password for jack
jack {HA1}54c12257ee9be413f2f3182435514aae write

Also see managing clusters documentation page.

Importing a Cluster

1. Use the admin user created during syncdb to log in.
2. Import a cluster: Clusters -> Add Cluster
3. Fill out properties and click save

When the cluster is created it will automatically synchronize the list of Virtual Machines with information from the Ganeti cluster.

Also see importing cluster documentation page.

Users, Groups and Permissions

Permissions may be granted to both clusters and virtual machines. The permissions system is intended to allow users to manage themselves. Any object that can have its permissions edited will have a Users tab.

Adding users to objects:

1. Navigate to Group, Cluster, or Virtual Machine detail page
2. Click Add New User
3. Select user or group
4. Select permissions
5. Save

Updating permissions:

1. Navigate to Group, Cluster, or Virtual Machine detail page
2. Click Users tab
3. Click permissions column
4. Select permissions and save

Deleting permissions:

1. Navigate to Group, Cluster, or Virtual Machine detail page
2. Click Users tab
3. Click the delete icon

Deleting a user will remove all permissions, and other properties associated with the user such as cluster quotas.

Users may belong to any number of user groups. User groups can be assigned permissions and quotas just like users. Users inherit permissions from groups and may act on their behalf to create virtual machines.

Also see permissions documentation page.

Assigning Quotas

Quotas restrict the usage of cluster resources by users and groups. Default quotas can be set by editing clusters, if no quota is set unlimited access is allowed. This will affect all users and groups.

The default quota can be overridden on the cluster users page:

1. Clusters -> Cluster -> Users
2. Click on the quota
3. Edit values

Leaving a value empty specifies unlimited access for that resource.

Also see quotas documentation page.

Orphaned Virtual Machines

You can find Virtual Machines with no permissions via Admin -> Orphaned VMs. This will force a synchronization of all clusters and display Virtual Machines that do not have any permissions assigned.

You only need to grant permissions directly on virtual machines if you are granting access to non-admin users.

Also see the documentation page about orphaned virtual machines.

Cache System

Ganeti Web Manager uses a cache system that stores information about Ganeti clusters in the database. This allows the following:

     ---  Ganeti  ---
    /                \
   /                  \
Cluster ->       <-   Bulk
 Model  <- cache <-  Updater

• Permissions are stored in the database and are associated to the cached objects
• The cached data can be searched and or filtered
• Limits the amount of traffic between the web server and Ganeti cluster.

The cache system is transparent and will load cached data automatically when the object is initialized.

Also see cache system documentation page.

VNC

Ganeti Web Manager provides an in browser console using noVNC, an HTML5 client. noVNC requires WebSockets to function. Support for older browsers is provided through a flash applet that is used transparently in the absence of WebSockets.

Also see the VNC documentation page.

VNC AuthProxy

VNC Auth proxy is required for the console tab to function. VNC servers do not speak websockets and our proxy allows your ganeti cluster to sit behind a firewall, VPN, or NAT.

Enabling in settings file

Set the host and port that the proxy will be running at with the VNC_PROXY setting. For development this is typically "localhost:8888" but for production you would use the name of the server its running on. See the instructions in end_user.py for more details.

Starting the Daemon

Twisted VNC Authproxy is started with twistd, the twisted daemon. Eventually we will include init.d scripts for better managing the daemon. You may want to open port 8888 in your firewall for production systems.

$ twistd --pidfile=/tmp/proxy.pid -n vncap

Starting Flash Policy Server

Browsers that do not support WebSockets natively are supported through the use of a flash applet. Flash applets that make use of sockets must retrieve a policy file from the server they are connecting to. Twisted VNCAuthProxy includes a policy server. It must be run separately since it requires a root port. You may want to open port 843 in your firewall for production systems.

Start the policy server with twistd:

$ sudo twistd --pidfile=/tmp/policy.pid -n flashpolicy

Possible issues

You may encounter an issue where twisted fails to start and gives you an error. This is usually caused by the environment variable PYTHONPATH not being exported correctly if you sudo up to root. To fix it type:

$ export PYTHONPATH="."

Try executing Twisted again and it should work.

Also see the VNC AuthProxy documentation page.

SSH Keys

Ganeti Web Manager allows users to store SSH Keys. Each virtual machine has a view that will return SSH keys for users with access. This can be used as a Ganeti post-install hook to deploy user's keys on the VMs.

To allow VMs to copy keys, copy util/hooks/sshkeys.sh to the instance definition hooks directory on every node in the cluster and make the file executable. Next, add the required variables to the variant config file or main instance definition config file. The config file can be found in util/hooks/sshkeys.conf and includes documentation for each variable.

Also see the SSH Keys documentation page.