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Storage where the datastore is located should be optimized for read performanceTerminology

VM Host

• A VM host is a physical computer running a VMware hypervisor
• A VCL computer entry must be added for each VM host (Manage Computers > Edit Computer Information)
• After the computer has been added to VCL, it is designated as a VM host by changing the computer state to vmhostinuse (Manage Computers > Computer Utilities)

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• Create a compressed tarball file containing the /.ssh directory:

  Tip
  tar -C / -czf bootbank/vcl.tgz .ssh

• Edit the /bootbank/boot.cfg file and append ' --- vcl.tgz' to modules line as shown in the following example:

  Panel
  kernel=b.z kernelopt= modules=k.z — s.z — c.z — oem.tgz — license.tgz — m.z — state.tgz — vcl.tgz build=4.1.0-260247 updated=2 bootstate=0

  Tip
  Optionally you can run the following two commands: tar -C / -czf vcl.tgz .ssh BootModuleConfig.sh --add=vcl.tgz --verbose

VM

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Host Profile Parameters

General Parameters

Name (required)

• Descriptive Name - descriptive name of the VM host profile

Type (deprecated)

• Will be removed in VCL 2.3

Image (optional)

• VCL hypervisor - deprecated, ignoreImage - VCL image installed on the VM host computers using xCAT

  Info
  xCAT is not required.  VM host computers may be installed manually or by some other means.

• If xCAT is not used, select "No Image"
• VCL has the ability to install a hypervisor image on bare-metal computers if using xCAT.  If the image property is installed and configured (Note: xCAT is not required if VM hosts are installed manually)The image configured in the VM host profile is installed using xCAT when configured, the image is installed when a computer's state is changed to vmhostinuse via Manage Computers > Computer Utilities
• If xCAT is not used, select "No Image"

Username/Password (optional)

• Name and password of the administrative or root user residing on the VM host
• This account is used to manage the VM host and VMs assigned to the host
• The username and password are currently only used if the vSphere SDK is used to manage the VM host and VMs

Storage Parameters

• Location where master copies of images are stored which are used by running VMs
• Example: /vmfs/volumes/nfs-datastore1

  Info
  For ESXi, the path configured in the profile may simply be the short datastore name as it appears in the vSphere Client: nfs-datastore1

• Storage location should be large enough to store all of the images which may be loaded on the VM host (from 100's of GB to several TB)
• VCL creates a directory for each image in the datastore
• Images are stored in the vmfs thin vmdk format
• Datastore Path may either reside on local or network storage
• Multiple VM hosts can share the same datastore if network storage is used
  • A single datastore may be used by all VM hosts if performance is adequate
  • Multiple VMs on different hosts may access the same Datastore Path image at the same time
  • It is recommended that datastores are shared among hosts so that fewer copies of each image have to be stored
  • The underlying storage hardware and network connectivity from the hosts to the storage must be adequate
  • Storage where the datastore is located should be optimized for read performance
• VCL configures VMs to access images stored in the Datastore Path in read-only mode
  • Changes made to the VM's hard drive are written to delta files located in the VM Path directory dedicated for the VM

• Path on VM host where VM files are stored (.vmx, delta, .vswp, nvram...)
• If not configured, the Datastore Path location will be used
• VCL creates a directory under the VM Path directory for each VM it creates
  • Contains the .vmx file which defines the VM
  • Contains delta vmdk files which are written to as changes are made to the VM's hard drive
• VM Path may either reside on local or network storage
• Location should be dedicated for each VM host
  • Multiple VM hosts should not share the same VM Path location for performance and image safety reasons
  • VM Paths of multiple hosts may reside on the same volume but a subdirectory should be created for each host
• Storage where the VM Path is located should be optimized for read-write performance

• Path where master copies of images are stored which are used Repository Path (optional)
• Path where master copies of images images are stored
• VMs do not run directly off of the images stored in the repository
Images stored in the repository are only used to transfer images to VM host datastores or to other repositories of other management nodes:
• If a reservation is assigned to a host but the image does not exist in that host's datastore path, it is copied from the repository to the datastore path when the VM is loaded
• If the VCL environment contains multiple management nodes and the image does not exist in the repository or the host's datastore, the image will be retrieved from another management node's repository by copying it via SCP
• The Repository Path parameter does not need to be if the VCL environment contains a single management node and all VM hosts share the same Datastore Path
• Example: /vmfs/volumes/nfs-repository1
• VMs do not run directly off of the images stored in the repository
• Setting the Repository Path parameter determines whether or not an additional copy of an image is created when an image is captured
  • If repository path is not configured then only a single copy of the image will exist in the VM host's datastore after an image is captured
  • If repository path is configured then two copies of the image will exist after an image is captured - one in the datastore and one in the repository
• Images in the repository are stored in the 2 GB sparse vmdk format
  • The size of the vmdk files will approximately be equal to the amount of actual data saved in the image regardless of the size of the VM's hard drive
  • Storing images in the 2 GB sparse format is necessary to allow images to be transferred via SCP without having to transfer data equal to the entire size of the VM's hard drive
  • Example: A Linux image contains is allocated a 30 GB hard drive but only 800 MB is actually used. A copy of the image is stored in both the datastore (thin vmdk) and repository (2 GB sparse vmdk).  Each of these locations is mounted via NFS on the VM host and management node.
    • The size of the 2 GB sparse vmdk files will be approximately equal to the actual amount of data used according to both the ls and du commands from the management node:

      Panel
      Wiki Markup \[root@vcl-

      mn vmwarelinux

      mn vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0\]# ls \-lh

      
      

      \-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 880M Apr

      22  2011

      22  2011 vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-s001.vmdk

      
      

      ...

      
      

      \-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.5K Apr

      22  2011

      22  2011 vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0.vmdk

      
      

      total 798M

      
      

      \[root@vcl-mn vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0\]# du \-ch \*.vmdk

      
      406M    vmwarelinux

      406M    vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-s001.vmdk

      
      

      ...

      
      16K    

      16K     vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-s016.vmdk

      
      

      8.0K

         vmwarelinux

         vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0.vmdk

      
      798M    total

      798M    total

    • The size of the thin vmdk file will be equal to the size of the VM's hard drive according to the ls command from the management node:

      Panel
      Wiki Markup \[root@vcl-mn vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0\]# ls \-lh

      
      

      total 953M

      
      

      -rw-\-----\- 1 root root *30G

      Aug  1  2011

      * Aug  1  2011 vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-flat.vmdk

      
      

      -rw-\-----\- 1 root root 540

      Aug  2  2011

      Aug  2  2011 vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0.vmdk

    • The size of the thin vmdk file will be approximately equal to the actual amount of data used according to the du command from the management node:

      Panel
      Wiki Markup \[root@vcl-mn vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0\]# du \-ch \*.vmdk

      
      953M    vmwarelinux

      953M    vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-flat.vmdk

      
      

      8.0K

         vmwarelinux

         vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0.vmdk

      
      953M    total

      953M    total

    • Copy the thin vmdk via SCP - the amount of data copied is equal to the size of the VM's hard drive (30 GB):

      Panel
      Wiki Markup \[root@vcl-mn nfs-datastore1\]# scp \-r vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0 matilda:/install/thin

      
      

      vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-flat.vmdk

                                                           7% 2261MB  25.3MB/s   18:45

                                                           7% 2261MB  25.3MB/s   18:45 ETA

    • Copy the 2 GB sparse vmdk via SCP - the amount of data copied is approximately equal to the actual amount of data used:

      Panel
      Wiki Markup \[root@vcl-mn vmware_images\]# scp \-r vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0 matilda:/install/2gbsparse

      
      

      vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-s001.vmdk

                                                         100%  880MB  25.9MB/s   00:34
      ...
      

                                                         100%  880MB  25.9MB/s   00:34 ... vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0-s016.vmdk

                                                         100%   64KB  64.0KB/s   00:00
      vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0.vmdk                                                         100% 1444     1.4KB/s   00:00
  • Image files are copied using SCP from the VM host to the Repository Path on the management node during the image capture process if the VM Disk parameter is set to localdisk
  • If the requested image does not reside in the Data Store Path on the VM host when a reservation is made, it is copied from the Repository Path on the management node to the VM host using SCP

  • •                                                    100%   64KB  64.0KB/s   00:00 vmwarelinux-RHEL54Small2251-v0.vmdk                                                         100% 1444     1.4KB/s   00:00

VM Disk

• Defines whether the storage where the VM host's Datastore Path resides is dedicated to a single host or shared among multiple hosts:
  • localdisk
    • The VM host's Datastore Path is located on local disks or dedicated network storage
    • The VM host is the only host which accesses the Datastore Path
    • Repository Path must be configured
  • networkdisk
    • The VM host's Datastore Path is located on network storage which is shared by other VM hosts
    • Repository Path is optional

Networking Parameters

Virtual Switch

• Should match the network names configured on the VM host
• Data Store Path - Path on VM host where virtual disk (.vmdk) files are stored
  • VCL creates a directory under the Data Store Path directory on the VM host for each image used on the VM host
  • The image directories are named after the VCL images:
    <os name><image name><image revision>
  • Example: vmwarewin7-enterprise156-v2
• VM Path - Path on VM host where running VM files are stored (.vmx, .vswp, nvram...)
  • VCL creates a directory under the VM Path directory on the VM host for each VM it creates on the VM host
  • The VM directories are named using a combination of the VM computer and image name:
    <computer name>_<image id>-<image revision>
  • Example: vclvm-53_156-v0
• Virtual Switch - network names configured in VMware
  Virtual Switch 0 - private VCL management networ
  Virtual Switch 1 - public network used by user making reservation to access the VMs
• For ESXi, the Virtual Switch parameters must match the Virtual Machine Port Group Network Labels configured in the vSphere Client
• For VMware Server 2.x, the Virtual Switch parameters must match the Network Names configured by running vmware-config.pl
• VM Disk - Defines the type of storage used on the VM host to store the VCL images
  • localdisk - Select localdisk if separate storage is used by each VM host to store images and storage is available on the management node, configured by the Repository Path parameter
    • Images are copied from the VM host to the Repository Path on the management node during the image capture process
    • Images are copied from the Repository Path on the management node to the Data Store Path on the VM host during the image load process if the image does not already reside on the VM host
  • network - Select network if the same network-based storage is used by all of the VM hosts
    • Images are not copied to the Repository Path on the management node when during the image capture process
• Virtual Switch 0 - private VCL management network
• Virtual Switch 1 - public network used by user making reservation to access the VMs

Generate eth0/eth1 MAC

• Not used at the current time
• Will eventually determine whether VMs are assigned MAC addresses defined in the VCL database or if random MAC addresses should be assigned - not usedUsername/Password - Name and password of the administrative or root user residing on the VM host
• This account is used to manage the VM host and VMs assigned to the host
The username and password are currently only used if the vSphere SDK is used to manage the VM host and VMs