• 1. samutev: Salt Multipass Test Vm's
  • 1.1. requirements
  • 1.2. configuration
  • 1.3. usage
    • 1.3.1. gcp
    • 1.3.2. multipass
  • 1.4. some details
    • 1.4.1. directories
    • 1.4.2. vm defaults
    • 1.4.3. multipass
    • 1.4.4. gcp
    • 1.4.5. performance

1. samutev: Salt Multipass Test Vm's

samutev helps you to deploy quickly local test vm's using multipass.

Test-vm's can be deployed either as masterless minion or as a master with minions.
The resulting test-vm's are preconfigured with working saltstack.
Inside the test-vm's the salt directories are mapped to /srv/salt/*

1.1. requirements

• a salt-repo-base-directory ($salt_base) with cloned repos salt-states and salt-pillars of your project inside
• ubuntu 20.04
• multipass (apt install snapd; snap install multipass)
• enough space for created vm-disks in /var
• enough memory for created vm's - according to application needs
• internet connection (for things like package install)
• In case of a vmware-vm as multipass host, following settings are needed:
  
• In case you want to use "Google Cloud" as a provider backend you need:
  • An account and a project in GCP (with allocated budget)
  • The gcloud cli utility installed (snap install google-cloud-sdk --classic)
  • Some additional dependencies installed (apt-get install -y nfs-kernel-server portmap autossh)
  • Gcloud configured to use the correct account/project (core/account property): (gcloud init)

1.2. configuration

If you are working first time with samutev, do once cp samutev.conf.template samutev.conf

In samutev.conf customize these settings to your need:

1. salt_base=""
   should be the directory of your salt project, where git repos salt-states and salt-pillars reside
2. my_ssh_pub_key=""
   used to deploy the ssh-pub-key to each launchend vm to root and to the normal user user. So you do ssh root@<vm-ip> or ssh user@<vm-ip>

Further, in samutev.conf you can customize cloudinit to bootstrap the vms.

If you intend to use the GCP provider backend you also need to customize

1. my_ssh_pub_key=""
   should be the public SSH key you want to use to connect to the instances
2. DEFAULT_GCP_ZONE and FALLBACK_GCP_MACH_TYPE
   should not be modified unless you know what/why you are doing

1.3. usage

1.3.1. gcp

See section multipass - only the default values displayed differ a little. To use provider gcp instead of the default (multipass) just prefix the script with PROVIDER=gcp:

PROVIDER=gcp ./samutev.sh -h 

1.3.2. multipass

Usage:
  ./samutev.sh -h                        display this help message
  ./samutev.sh [-r <release>] -n <VM>    new    <VM> with masterless minion
  ./samutev.sh [-r <release>] -s <VM>    new    <VM> with minion and salt master, first vm => saltmaster, minimum of 2 vms
  ./samutev.sh -d <VM>                   delete <VM>
  ./samutev.sh -l                        list vms

                                         <release>: default is 'lts' aliased to 'focal'
                                         Other available options are:
                                           - 16.04 (or xenial)
                                           - 18.04 (or bionic)
                                           - 20.04 (or focal or lts)

Examples:
  ./samutev.sh -n  testvm                                 launch new testvm            as masterless minion
  ./samutev.sh -n 'testvm1 testvm2 testvm3'               launch multiple new testvms  as masterless minions
  ./samutev.sh -n 'testvm1:c2:m1:d3 testvm2:c4:m2'        launch multiple new testvms  as masterless minions
                                                          with special settings for cpu, memory and disk:
                                                            - testvm1 with: c2 => 2 cpu, m1 => 1GB memory and d3 => 3GB disk
                                                            - testvm2 with: c4 => 4 cpu, m2 => 2GB memory
                                                              (defaults are c2 m1 d3)

  ./samutev.sh -s 'salt-master1 testvm1 testvm2 testvm3'  launch a saltmaster with multiple new testvms
                                                            - First vm = saltmaster
                                                            - Minimum = 2 vms
  ./samutev.sh -s 'salt-master1:c2:m2:d6 testvm1'         same as above but with custom resource settings

  ./samutev.sh -d  testvm                                 delaunch/delete testvm
  ./samutev.sh -d 'testvm1 testvm2 testvm3'               delaunch/delete multiple testvms

1.4. some details

1.4.1. directories

In configured $salt_base (samutev.conf) two directories will be created, if not already there:

• localstore/ - configured as file_roots
  place to put states or binaries - outside of git repos
• salt-dev-pillars/devpillars.sls - configured as pillar_roots
  place to put you dev-pillars - outside of git repos

Both directories will be available either to the salt master or to masterless minions directly

1.4.2. vm defaults

1.4.3. multipass

type	default
cpu	2
memory	1 (GB)
disk	4 (GB)

1.4.4. gcp

Type: e2-micro

type	default
cpu	2
memory	1 (GB)
disk	10 (GB)

1.4.5. performance

some meassured times, create 4 vm's, 1 salt-master and 3 minions:
samutev.sh -s "project-master project-app project-db project-web"

multipass

environment	time
vm Testcluster (4GB RAM)	10:49 min
Lenovo x390 (16GB RAM)	04:27 min
Lenovo T14 AMD (32GB RAM)	03:45 min
Lenoveo P53 (32GB RAM)	03:31 min

gcp

environment	time
google cloud	05:38