openstack team mailing list archive

[Jesse Andrews <anotherjesse@xxxxxxxxx>]

Great question.

Right now there are 3 approaches to metadata/runtime config:

 * ec2 metadata service - http://169.254.169.254/ (used by ubuntu's
cloud-init for example)
 * config drive - added in diablo
 * xenstore via openstack agent - https://launchpad.net/openstack-guest-agents
 * injecting files into the filesystem prior to launch - on some
hypervisors / filesystems combinations

There are issues with each approach currently:

 * metadata service - requires that cloud uses DHCP to configure network
 * config drive - only sets values at runtime and no support from any guests
 * xenstore approach - hypervisor specific.
 * injecting into filesystem - brittle as it requires the host to
support arbitrary filesystems

If we assume that instance networking can be configured by DHCP, then
a metadata service is probably our best choice for simplicity of
implementation and user experience.

Given that Rackspace Public Cloud is the only openstack developer/user
(I know of) that doesn't use DHCP for network configuration of
instances, I reached out to the team to see if DHCP would be an
option.  They are researching either a way use DHCP _or_ propose an
approach to initial network configuration that can be executed by the
openstack guest agent.

Based on those conversations we've been writing a proposal that would
recommend guests use a (currently non-existing) openstack metadata api
- http://wiki.openstack.org/guest-configuration

Hope this helps.

Thoughts on the optimal experience for essex?

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Jay Pipes <jaypipes@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 9:04 AM, McNally, Dave <dave.mcnally@xxxxxx> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've recently been looking at file and metadata injection in Nova and I have
>> a question relating to it.
>>
>> (BTW this is based off what I have seen in nova/virt/disk.py)
>>
>> I notice that for key/value pairs specified as metadata during boot of an
>> instance these values are injected into a file /meta.js in the instance.
>> However if a file (and corresponding injection location) are specified when
>> booting the instance the file does not get injected.
>
> Not on libvirt/KVM. It works on Xen, though:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/755168
>
>> I was wondering if there was an intentional decision not to use a similar
>> method to that used when injecting meta.js to inject other files? Because it
>> seems to me the addition of such functionality would be fairly
>> straightforward.
>
> I'm interested in the answer to this question as well...
>
>> Also on a vaguely related note why is the metadata injected into a file
>> rather than stored in a location where it can be retrieved from the metadata
>> service?
>
> No idea. :(
>
> Cheers,
> -jay
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openstack
> Post to     : openstack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openstack
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp