If you want to continue using dev-lxc 1.x then use version 3.1.2 of the dev-lxc-platform cookbook.
dev-lxc-platform 5.0 is designed to use the new dev-lxc 2.x tool which has many breaking changes. It is highly recommended that any existing version of dev-lxc-platform is destroyed first along with its persistent storage disk.
-
Run
kitchen destroyto destroy the host VM BEFORE pulling/downloading the new dev-lxc-platform code. Destroying the VM before downloading the new dev-lxc-platform code avoids complications caused by the new.kitchen.ymlfile pointing to the Ubuntu image. -
Make sure you have the latest version of Vagrant and Virtualbox installed. This has been tested with Vagrant 1.8.5 and Virtualbox 5.0.14.
-
Upgrade the
vagrant-persistent-storageplugin.vagrant plugin update vagrant-persistent-storage -
WARNING - this step will destroy existing containers. This step is only required if you are upgrading from dev-lxc 1.x to 2.x style clusters.
rm ~/VirtualBox VMs/dev-lxc-platform.vdi -
Run
git pull --rebaseif you already have a clone of the dev-lxc-platform repository or download the latest dev-lxc-platform cookbook code. -
Delete the
Berksfile.lockfile if it exists so new versions of required cookbooks will be used. -
Run
kitchen convergefrom the root directory of the dev-lxc-platform cookbook to build the new Ubuntu host VM. -
Login to the new VM and start using the dev-lxc 2.x tool.
The primary purpose of the dev-lxc-platform repo is to build a suitable environment for the dev-lxc tool which uses LXC containers to build Chef server clusters.
The environment is also suitable for other tools that use LXC such as LXD, docker, Test Kitchen and Chef Provisioning or just general LXC container usage.
- LXD and LXC Containers - Resource efficient servers with fast start/stop times and standard init
- Btrfs - Efficient, persistent storage backend provides fast, lightweight container cloning
- Dnsmasq - DHCP networking and DNS resolution
- Base Containers - Containers that are built to resemble a traditional server
- Sysdig preinstalled for awesome transparency into container activity
Creating snapshot clones of Btrfs backed containers is very fast which is helpful especially for experimenting and troubleshooting.
Download and install VirtualBox.
Download and install Vagrant.
Install the vagrant-persistent-storage plugin.
vagrant plugin install vagrant-persistent-storage
Download and install ChefDK.
Adding a route entry to the workstation enables direct communication between the workstation and any container.
For OS X run the following command. The route entry won't survive a worstation reboot. You will have to create it as needed.
sudo route -n add 10.0.3.0/24 33.33.34.13
Your workstation needs to know how to resolve the .lxc domain. For OS X you can run the following command.
echo nameserver 10.0.3.1 | sudo tee /etc/resolver/lxc
The dev-lxc-platform repo contains a .kitchen.yml which uses an Ubuntu 16.04 Vagrant base box created by Chef.
The .kitchen.yml is configured to install ChefDK into the Vagrant VM for provisioning. The root user's shell environment is also configured to use ChefDK as the default ruby. This makes dev-lxc-platform a great platform for testing and experimenting with other Chef container technologies.
The .kitchen.yml uses the dev-lxc-platform cookbook contained in this repo to install and configure a suitable LXC with Btrfs backed container storage.
The .kitchen.yml is configured to use 6GB ram in order to give plenty of room to run multiple containers. Feel free to reduce this if it is too much for your environment.
The .kitchen.yml has a commented out synced_folders section.
Uncomment and configure the section appropriately if you want to mount a directory from
your workstation into the Vagrant VM. This is useful for sharing things from your workstation
into the Vagrant VM and ultimately into running LXC containers.
Vagrant will create a second virtual disk to store the LXC containers in a Btrfs filesystem. The vagrant-persistent-storage plugin will ensure the volume is detached before the VM is destroyed and reattached when the VM is created.
While this persistent volume allows the Vagrant VM to be treated as disposable I recommend
that you don't bother destroying the VM regularly unless you want to wait for it to be
provisioned each time. I keep the VM running a lot of the time so I can jump in
and use it when I need to. If I really want to shut it down I just vagrant halt it.
Since the dev-lxc-platform VM is created using test-kitchen normal Vagrant commands will not affect the VM.
Enabling standard Vagrant can be useful especially since test-kitchen is not able to halt the VM.
Correctly setting the VAGRANT_CWD environment variable will allow Vagrant commands to be used.
You can run the following command in the top level directory of the dev-lxc-platform repo.
export VAGRANT_CWD="$(pwd)/.kitchen/kitchen-vagrant/kitchen-dev-lxc-platform-default-ubuntu-1510"
Alternatively, you can use direnv with the .envrc file included in the
dev-lxc-platform repo to automatically set VAGRANT_CWD upon entering the top level directory
of the dev-lxc-platform repo.
If you have homebrew installed in OS X then you can install direnv by running brew install direnv.
Be sure to follow the direnv install instructions to add the appropriate line to your user's rc file.
Read the following introduction to LXC if you aren't already familiar with it.
kitchen converge
kitchen login
sudo -i
Once you switch to the root user you will be in a byobu terminal session.
Byobu is a GPLv3 open source text-based window manager and terminal multiplexer which is very helpful when working with dev-lxc.
The prefix key is set to Ctrl-o
Pressing Fn-F1 in OS X will get you a help screen and selecting the "Quick Start Guide"
will give you a list of frequently used key bindings.
Read the dev-lxc README