First, let's check where we are. You see installing the orchestra server, it automatically downloads and imports various Ubuntu server ISOs and creates all the needed structure (distros, profiles ...etc) in the underlying cobbler system. Let's see what have we
$ sudo cobbler listwoah! that sure makes my life easier. If you're interested to see where the isos were downloaded (like I was) here you are
distros:
hardy-i386
hardy-x86_64
lucid-i386
lucid-x86_64
maverick-i386
maverick-x86_64
natty-i386
natty-x86_64
oneiric-i386
oneiric-x86_64
profiles:
hardy-i386
hardy-i386-juju
hardy-x86_64
hardy-x86_64-juju
lucid-i386
lucid-i386-juju
lucid-x86_64
lucid-x86_64-juju
maverick-i386
maverick-i386-juju
maverick-x86_64
maverick-x86_64-juju
natty-i386
natty-i386-juju
natty-x86_64
natty-x86_64-juju
oneiric-i386
oneiric-i386-juju
oneiric-x86_64
oneiric-x86_64-juju
systems:
repos:
hardy-i386
hardy-i386-security
hardy-x86_64
hardy-x86_64-security
lucid-i386
lucid-i386-security
lucid-x86_64
lucid-x86_64-security
maverick-i386
maverick-i386-security
maverick-x86_64
maverick-x86_64-security
natty-i386
natty-i386-security
natty-x86_64
natty-x86_64-security
oneiric-i386
oneiric-i386-security
oneiric-x86_64
oneiric-x86_64-security
images:
mgmtclasses:
orchestra-juju-acquired
orchestra-juju-available
ls /var/lib/cobbler/isos/
hardy-i386-mini.iso lucid-i386-mini.iso maverick-i386-mini.iso natty-i386-mini.iso oneiric-i386-mini.iso
hardy-x86_64-mini.iso lucid-x86_64-mini.iso maverick-x86_64-mini.iso natty-x86_64-mini.iso oneiric-x86_64-mini.iso
Let's create a new virtual box VM, to serve as our new "server" that needs to be installed. Here's how it looks for me
One thing is worth noting however, it's that the NIC is placed on the "intnet" network, which has the IP range 192.168.77.0/24 that we configured in the first part of this article
now the only "real" thing you have to do, is to add a profile on the orchestra server for your new bare server. The profile binds its mac address, to a name and an installation profile (think OS to install, kickstart ..etc)
sudo cobbler system add --name="oneiric01.ubuntu.lan" --mac-address="08:00:27:B7:76:2A" --ip-address="192.168.77.33" --dns-name="oneiric01.ubuntu.lan" --hostname="oneiric01.ubuntu.lan" --profile="oneiric-x86_64-juju" --mgmt-classes="orchestra-juju-available" --kopts=" DEBCONF_DEBUG=developer netcfg/dhcp_timeout=120 netcfg/choose_interface=eth0"Boot the server, choose PXE (For vbox that's F12 then "l" that's an L)
Watch the installer fly by (look ma hands free)
and your box is ready!
That's how easy it is to install a fresh server off your orchestra box! So basically the only thing you need to do per server, is to attach it to a profile and that's it. Boot it and it installs whatever you provisioned for it. Of course any good admin already did that manually before, but it took effort and it wasn't standardized. Now you can count on Ubuntu server covering your back when you're tasked with installing a hundred servers
How cool was that! Got thoughts, comments or rotten tomatoes ? Shoot me a comment
Where are all those repos and profiles defined and hosted? Why should I need every supported version of Ubuntu?
How do you configure them? What is orchestra other than preconfigured cobbler?
What about other OS and their repos? Can they be managed in one instance? Is it possible to set up windows?
You should link between the different parts of a series!
[...] ISOs, thus will need a few minutes depending on your internet connection speed) EDIT: Continued on part-2 So, what do you think of this coolness? Is this easier than the last time you tried building [...]
@Philipp: in the end, cobbler is using the netboot image with a preseeded d-i installer…
First of all, thank you for this awesome tutorial.
I was able to follow it all along up to the point of the PXE installation of oneiric01.ubuntu.lan server. The installer would complain about corresponding kernel module not being able to be found for the specified distro and if you ignored it and continued, it resulted in a failed installation. However, if I change the cobbler profile from “oneiric-x86_64-juju” to something like “natty-x86_64-juju”, everything seemed to work the way as instructed…
[...] new orchestration and service management framework, orchestra for your automated deployment needs, Ubuntu Cloud infrastructure Ubuntu’s new private cloud based on OpenStack with an Ubuntu [...]
@Chih, oneiric is not yet released, so it might have been broken at the instant you were testing this. For me, natty was not yet working when I was writing this
Since it worked with natty, I assume the instructions are fine and you’re not doing anything wrong .. Hope you enjoyed it 
[...] new orchestration and service management framework, orchestra for your automated deployment needs, Ubuntu Cloud infrastructure Ubuntu’s new private cloud based on OpenStack with an Ubuntu [...]
[...] system. This is documented in my previous article about deploying server fleets (part1, part2) – Afterwards, you will need to setup juju to “control” the Orchestra machines. This is [...]
[...] system. This is documented in my previous article about deploying server fleets (part1, part2) – Afterwards, you will need to setup juju to “control” the Orchestra machines. This is [...]
Hi,
Big thanks for this. The first part seemed to work as a charm, but apparently not quite as I found out that the isos you list in the beginning of part 2 are not there (empty list). I tried importing isos using “sudo cobbler-ubuntu-import lucid-i386″ which I thought worked as I could see them in /var/lib/cobbler/isos. But then after adding a rule for my server, it wouldn’t boot from LAN. It gives me “FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium”. Where have i gone wrong?
This is very cool stuff for which I’m very grateful. I have, however, hit a snag. PXE booting isn’t working. When I start my oneiric01 box, having set it to boot from the network, I get: ‘FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted.’. I used VBoxManage add dhcpserver to add a dhcpserver on intnet but no go. Thoughts?
Thanks again … WkH
I got most the way there, however I can’t install the vm as it can’t access the internet (and the ubuntu archives).
I assume I need to add a gateway route in there somewhere but I don’t know what.
This looks like a great stuff, so I decided to give it a try. I followed the tutorial to the teeth but got blocked at the PXE booting. PXE booted till I got the following messages:
“[!!] Configure the network
The network autoconfiguration was successful. However, no default route was set: the system does not know how to communicate with hosts on the Internet. This will make it impossible to continue with the installation unless you have the first installation CD, a ‘Netinst’ CD-ROM, or packages available on the local network.
If you are unsure, you should not continue without a default route: contact your local network administrator about this problem.
Continue without a default route?”
I entered Yes.
Then it asked for Name server addresses. I entered 192.168.77.1, then entered Continue.
The next screen says:
“[!!] Download debconf preconfiguration file
Failed to retrieve the preconfiguration file
This file needed for preconfiguration would not be retrieved from http://192.168.77.1/cblr/svc/op/ks/system/natty02.ubuntu.lan. The installation will proceed in non-automated mode.”
I then went to the orchestra node, and did a wget at the above url, it did return the preconfiguration file, so this is not a problem of the orchestra node, but somehow an issue with the pxe booting, where the network didn’t seem to be configured well prior to downloading the debconf preconfig file.
I tried both natty and oneiric profile, but got the same results.
Any ideas?
BTW, I used the latest 11.10 server iso as the base install for both nodes..