Puppet vKick Module

Define KVM virtual machines and the guest's OS setup

• Combine KVM definition and Kickstart OS setup in a single module declaration.
• Create virtual machines in a centralized way with full OS setup from your Puppet master.
• Simply define which Linux flavor to install by pointing to the right HTTP mirror.
• Can be faster than bootstrapping an image, especially if you want an up to date OS.

Examples

You'll find 3 main themes to define a virtual machine: network, partitioning and packages.
The simplest definition will only need network settings and will create a CentOS 6.5 VM with 2 vcpu, 2GB of RAM and a 40GB disk image:

 vkick::guest { 'instance1.domain.com':
       root_intial_passwd => "5hould8eReplaced"
       ipaddress   => "173.255.197.131",
       subnetmask  => "255.255.255.0",
       broadcast   => "173.255.197.255",
       gateway     => "173.255.197.254",
 }

To define a bigger Fedora 20 VM with a LAMP stack (where P is for Python):

 vkick::guest { 'instance2.domain.com':
       vcpu        => 4,
       ram         => 16384,
       disk_size   => 120,
       os_variant  => 'fedora16',
       http_mirror => 'http://fedora.mirrors.ovh.net/linux/releases/20/Fedora/x86_64/os/',
       http_updates => 'http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/linux/updates/20/x86_64/',
       timezone    => 'Europe/London',
       packages    => ['httpd', 'mariadb-server', 'MySQL-python', 'python']
       root_intial_passwd => "5hould8eReplaced"
       ipaddress   => "173.255.197.131",
       subnetmask  => "255.255.255.0",
       broadcast   => "173.255.197.255",
       gateway     => "173.255.197.254",
 }

Adapt HTTP mirrors to a server nearby and serving the right version for your CPU architecture. The CPU architecture is inherited from, the host's CPU, there for only the number of vcpu/thread is left to assign. Without specifying a partition scheme, the follow settings will be used:

• An ext4 /boot partition of 512MB.
• 2GB of swap.
• 10GB for an ext4 / partition as part of a LVM volume.
• 4GB for an ext4 /home partition as part of a LVM volume.
• All remaining space of the specified disk size will be used for a /var ext4 partition as part of a LVM volume.

Requirements

• A working network bridge defined on the host.
• A CPU with support for virtualization via KVM.
• An access to the internet from the guest's IP or a local HTTP mirror.
• A version of python-virtinst equal or superior to 0.500.4-1 to support injecting Kickstart definition without local ISO or floppy installation image.

Known Limitations

• Only works for guest OS supporting Kickstart files such as RedHat, CentOS, Fedora and Ubuntu (would need custom Kickstart template to, among other things, use apt-get rather than yum).
• Requires a guest setup with static IP, either public or private if local mirror available.
• Doesn't create other user accounts than root on a guest.