MiniCloud is a cloud-computing toolkit built on OpenVZ
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Installation is simple and operational tasks are to the point
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It’s perfect for rapid testing and development requiring disposable compute resources
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There is no central database (or any database)
MiniCloud is a set of client/server programs to drive the container-based virtualisation platform, OpenVZ. It allows you to manage instances with a simple set of command line tools.
MiniCloud was built out of a frustration surrounding existing open source cloud management solutions. It aims to be simple while being flexible enough to fit into an organisations existing infrastructure.
Install and setup OpenVZ: wiki.openvz.org/Quick_installation. MiniCloud expects OpenVZ to be operational and able to run containers. Currently MiniClould server must be run as root.
Clone the MiniCloud repo to install.
$ sudo su - $ cd /opt $ git clone https://github.com/ryandoyle/minicloud.git
Run the MiniClould server, specifying a range of IP addresses that it can hand out
$ /opt/minicloud/sbin/mcserver -r 10.0.0.100-10.0.0.200
Check the log files
$ tail -f /opt/minicloud/log/mcc-server.log
The client tools are also part of the MiniCloud repo. They are all located under bin/
Clone the MiniCloud repo.
$ cd ~/ $ mkdir .minicloud $ git clone https://github.com/ryandoyle/minicloud.git .minicloud/ $ export PATH=$PATH:~/.minicloud/bin
Once we’ve setup the server and client tools, we can create an instance
Fist export the MCC_SERVER environment variable. It is the hostname and port of the MiniCloud server.
$ export MCC_SERVER=myopenvzserver:8080
List the images we are able to select
$ mcc-list-images
IMAGE centos-5-x86_64
IMAGE centos-5-x86
IMAGE fedora-14-x86_64
IMAGE gentoo-10.0-x86_64
IMAGE ubuntu-10.04-x86_64
List the instance types we can select
$ mcc-list-instance-types
INST_TYPE basic
INST_TYPE light
INST_TYPE unlimited
INST_TYPE vswap-1024m
INST_TYPE vswap-256m
INST_TYPE vswap-512m
List the keys we have associated with MiniCloud
$ mcc-list-keys
Humm, nothing. We need to register one
$ mcc-add-key --name doylenet --public-key "ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2.....aQ== mykey"
Now let’s launch an instance!
$ mcc-run-instances -i centos-5-x86_64 -t basic -k doylenet -n my-web-server
ID IP
INST 501 10.0.0.110
We will get back the ID of the instance and the IP address to connect to. Let’s see the progress using mcc-list-instances
$ mcc-list-instances
ID IP STATUS TEMPLATE NAME
INSTANCE 501 10.0.0.110 running centos-5-x86_64 my-web-server
It’s up! At the moment the instance won’t appear until it is up and running. It may take a few seconds for the instance to appear. It will not be present in the list until it is up and running!
It’s easy - use mcc-destroy-instace
First check the running instances
$ mcc-list-instances
ID IP
INST 501 10.0.0.110
Kill off any you don’t want
$ mcc-destroy-instance -i 501
It could take a while for MiniCloud to kill off the instance. Use mcc-list-instances to check the status
$ mcc-list-instances
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The server needs to be run as root
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Calls between the client and server are XML-RPC over HTTP without authentication
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Client-side libraries to do what the CLI tools do
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Rspec tests and mocking RPC calls
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RPM and DEB packages for installation of the server, client tools and libraries
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Running the server as a user other than root
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Look at better RPC methods
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Replace the vz* binary programs with Ruby equivalents
Copyright © 2012 Ryan Doyle
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <www.gnu.org/licenses/>.