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prepare-vms

README.md

Trainer tools to create and prepare VMs for Docker workshops

These tools can help you to create VMs on:

  • Azure
  • EC2
  • OpenStack

Prerequisites

Depending on the infrastructure that you want to use, you also need to install the Azure CLI, the AWS CLI, or terraform (for OpenStack deployment).

And if you want to generate printable cards:

  • pyyaml (on a Mac: brew install pyyaml)
  • jinja2 (on a Mac: brew install jinja2)

General Workflow

  • fork/clone repo
  • create an infrastructure configuration in the prepare-vms/infra directory (using one of the example files in that directory)
  • create your own setting file from settings/example.yaml
  • if necessary, increase allowed open files: ulimit -Sn 10000
  • run ./workshopctl start to create instances
  • run ./workshopctl deploy to install Docker and setup environment
  • run ./workshopctl kube (if you want to install and setup Kubernetes)
  • run ./workshopctl cards (if you want to generate PDF for printing handouts of each users host IP's and login info)
  • run ./workshopctl stop at the end of the workshop to terminate instances

Clone/Fork the Repo, and Build the Tools Image

The Docker Compose file here is used to build a image with all the dependencies to run the ./workshopctl commands and optional tools. Each run of the script will check if you have those dependencies locally on your host, and will only use the container if you're missing a dependency.

$ git clone https://github.com/jpetazzo/container.training
$ cd container.training/prepare-vms
$ docker-compose build

Preparing to Run ./workshopctl

Required AWS Permissions/Info

  • Initial assumptions are you're using a root account. If you'd like to use a IAM user, it will need AmazonEC2FullAccess and IAMReadOnlyAccess.
  • Using a non-default VPC or Security Group isn't supported out of box yet, so you will have to customize lib/commands.sh if you want to change that.
  • These instances will assign the default VPC Security Group, which does not open any ports from Internet by default. So you'll need to add Inbound rules for SSH | TCP | 22 | 0.0.0.0/0 and Custom TCP Rule | TCP | 8000 - 8002 | 0.0.0.0/0, or run ./workshopctl opensg which opens up all ports.

Create your infra file

You need to do this only once. (On AWS, you can create one infra file per region.)

Make a copy of one of the example files in the infra directory.

For instance:

cp infra/example.aws infra/aws-us-west-2

Edit your infrastructure file to customize it. You will probably need to put your cloud provider credentials, select region...

If you don't have the aws CLI installed, you will get a warning that it's a missing dependency. If you're not using AWS you can ignore this.

Create your settings file

Similarly, pick one of the files in settings and copy it to customize it.

For instance:

cp settings/example.yaml settings/myworkshop.yaml

You're all set!

./workshopctl Usage

workshopctl - the orchestration workshop swiss army knife
Commands:
ami          Show the AMI that will be used for deployment
amis         List Ubuntu AMIs in the current region
build        Build the Docker image to run this program in a container
cards        Generate ready-to-print cards for a group of VMs
deploy       Install Docker on a bunch of running VMs
ec2quotas    Check our EC2 quotas (max instances)
help         Show available commands
ids          List the instance IDs belonging to a given tag or token
ips          List the IP addresses of the VMs for a given tag or token
kube         Setup kubernetes clusters with kubeadm (must be run AFTER deploy)
kubetest     Check that all notes are reporting as Ready
list         List available groups in the current region
opensg       Open the default security group to ALL ingress traffic
pull_images  Pre-pull a bunch of Docker images
retag        Apply a new tag to a group of VMs
start        Start a group of VMs
status       List instance status for a given group
stop         Stop (terminate, shutdown, kill, remove, destroy...) instances
test         Run tests (pre-flight checks) on a group of VMs
wrap         Run this program in a container

Summary of What ./workshopctl Does For You

  • Used to manage bulk AWS instances for you without needing to use AWS cli or gui.
  • Can manage multiple "tags" or groups of instances, which are tracked in prepare-vms/tags/
  • Can also create PDF/HTML for printing student info for instance IP's and login.
  • The ./workshopctl script can be executed directly.
  • It will run locally if all its dependencies are fulfilled; otherwise it will run in the Docker container you created with docker-compose build (preparevms_prepare-vms).
  • During start it will add your default local SSH key to all instances under the ubuntu user.
  • During deploy it will create the docker user with password training, which is printing on the cards for students. This can be configured with the docker_user_password property in the settings file.

Example Steps to Launch a group of AWS Instances for a Workshop

  • Run ./workshopctl start --infra infra/aws-us-east-2 --settings/myworkshop.yaml --count 60 to create 60 EC2 instances
    • Your local SSH key will be synced to instances under ubuntu user
    • AWS instances will be created and tagged based on date, and IP's stored in prepare-vms/tags/
  • Run ./workshopctl deploy TAG to run lib/postprep.py via parallel-ssh
    • If it errors or times out, you should be able to rerun
    • Requires good connection to run all the parallel SSH connections, up to 100 parallel (ProTip: create dedicated management instance in same AWS region where you run all these utils from)
  • Run ./workshopctl pull_images TAG to pre-pull a bunch of Docker images to the instances
  • Run ./workshopctl cards TAG generates PDF/HTML files to print and cut and hand out to students
  • Have a great workshop
  • Run ./workshopctl stop TAG to terminate instances.

Example Steps to Launch Azure Instances

  • Install the Azure CLI and authenticate with a valid account (az login)
  • Customize azuredeploy.parameters.json
    • Required:
      • Provide the SSH public key you plan to use for instance configuration
    • Optional:
      • Choose a name for the workshop (default is "workshop")
      • Choose the number of instances (default is 3)
      • Customize the desired instance size (default is Standard_D1_v2)
  • Launch instances with your chosen resource group name and your preferred region; the examples are "workshop" and "eastus":
az group create --name workshop --location eastus
az group deployment create --resource-group workshop --template-file azuredeploy.json --parameters @azuredeploy.parameters.json

The az group deployment create command can take several minutes and will only say - Running .. until it completes, unless you increase the verbosity with --verbose or --debug.

To display the IPs of the instances you've launched:

az vm list-ip-addresses --resource-group workshop --output table

If you want to put the IPs into prepare-vms/tags/<tag>/ips.txt for a tag of "myworkshop":

  1. If you haven't yet installed jq and/or created your event's tags directory in prepare-vms:
brew install jq
mkdir -p tags/myworkshop
  1. And then generate the IP list:
az vm list-ip-addresses --resource-group workshop --output json | jq -r '.[].virtualMachine.network.publicIpAddresses[].ipAddress' > tags/myworkshop/ips.txt

After the workshop is over, remove the instances:

az group delete --resource-group workshop

Example Steps to Configure Instances from a non-AWS Source

  • Copy infra/example.generic to infra/generic
  • Run ./workshopctl start --infra infra/generic --settings settings/...yaml
  • Note the prepare-vms/tags/TAG/ path that has been auto-created.
  • Launch instances via your preferred method. You'll need to get the instance IPs and be able to SSH into them.
  • Edit the file prepare-vms/tags/TAG/ips.txt, it should list the IP addresses of the VMs (one per line, without any comments or other info)
  • Continue deployment of cluster configuration with ./workshopctl deploy TAG
  • Optionally, configure Kubernetes clusters of the size in the settings: workshopctl kube TAG
  • Optionally, test your Kubernetes clusters. They may take a little time to become ready: workshopctl kubetest TAG
  • Generate cards to print and hand out: workshopctl cards TAG
  • Print the cards file: prepare-vms/tags/TAG/ips.html

Even More Details

Sync of SSH keys

When the start command is run, your local RSA SSH public key will be added to your AWS EC2 keychain.

To see which local key will be uploaded, run ssh-add -l | grep RSA.

Instance + tag creation

The VMs will be started, with an automatically generated tag (timestamp + your username).

Your SSH key will be added to the authorized_keys of the ubuntu user.

Creation of ./$TAG/ directory and contents

Following the creation of the VMs, a text file will be created containing a list of their IPs.

Deployment

Instances can be deployed manually using the deploy command:

$ ./workshopctl deploy TAG

The postprep.py file will be copied via parallel-ssh to all of the VMs and executed.

Pre-pull images

$ ./workshopctl pull_images TAG

Generate cards

$ ./workshopctl cards TAG

If you want to generate both HTML and PDF cards, install wkhtmltopdf; without that installed, only HTML cards will be generated.

If you don't have wkhtmltopdf installed, you will get a warning that it is a missing dependency. If you plan to just print the HTML cards, you can ignore this.

List tags

$ ./workshopctl list infra/some-infra-file

$ ./workshopctl listall

$ ./workshopctl tags

Stop and destroy VMs

$ ./workshopctl stop TAG

ToDo

  • Don't write to bash history in system() in postprep
  • compose, etc version inconsistent (int vs str)