Accessing the Controller Node

Rackspace Private Cloud Software also installs the OpenStack client utilities necessary to use the cloud. You can access these features through the command line interface on the Controller node. To use them, log in to the Controller node via SSH as root.

You can now run the following commands.

$ source .novarc
$ nova flavor-list

You should see output similar to the following:

+----+-----------+-----------+------+-----------+------+-------+-------------+
| ID |    Name   | Memory_MB | Disk | Ephemeral | Swap | VCPUs | RXTX_Factor |
+----+-----------+-----------+------+-----------+------+-------+-------------+
| 1  | m1.tiny   | 512       | 0    | 0         |      | 1     | 1.0         |
| 2  | m1.small  | 2048      | 10   | 20        |      | 1     | 1.0         |
| 3  | m1.medium | 4096      | 10   | 40        |      | 2     | 1.0         |
| 4  | m1.large  | 8192      | 10   | 80        |      | 4     | 1.0         |
| 5  | m1.xlarge | 16384     | 10   | 160       |      | 8     | 1.0         |
+----+-----------+-----------+------+-----------+------+-------+-------------+

This is a list of "flavors", different disk sizes that you can assign to images, and is an example of the information that you can access through the python-novaclient command line client.

You can also view the status of the controller and compute nodes and the nova components active on each while logged in as the root user.

$ sudo nova-manage service list

You should see output similar to the following:

Binary           Host      Zone       Status     State Updated_At
nova-scheduler   ctrl      nova       enabled    :-)   2012-08-02 14:51:34
nova-consoleauth ctrl      nova       enabled    :-)   2012-08-02 14:51:41
nova-network     compute1  nova       enabled    :-)   2012-08-02 14:51:39
nova-compute     compute1  nova       enabled    :-)   2012-08-02 14:51:35

You can also view logs with the tail command. For example, to view nova-compute.log, execute the following command:

$ tail /var/log/nova/nova-compute.log

All logs are available in the /var/log/ directory and its subdirectories.

Accessing the Dashboard

In addition to the command line, you can use your web browser to access the controller host. You can use the hostname or the IP address that you provided during installation. You should see the OpenStack dashboard login page. If not, the installation may not be complete.

Log in with the admin username and the password that you created during the compute node installation. When the login is successful, you can configure additional users, create and manage images, and launch instances.

Restoring the Default OpenStack Dashboard

Clusters installed with Rackspace Private Cloud Software v 2.0 will have a Rackspace-customized dashboard with a similar look and feel to the Rackspace Public Cloud dashboard. If you need to restore the default OpenStack dashboard, follow this procedure.

1. Log into the controller node and switch to root access with sudo -i.
2. Issue the following command to edit the environment file.
   

   $ knife environment edit rpcs
   

3. In the Horizon section of the file, change theme:"Rackspace" to "theme: "default".
4. Run chef-client to commit the change.
   

   $ chef-client

When you reload the dashboard in your web browser, it will now use the default OpenStack style. To revert to the Rackspace theme, follow the same procedure and change the theme: value to "Rackspace".

You can also use a single knife command to execute the change.

$ knife exec -E '@e=Chef::Environment.load("rpcs"); \
  a=@e.default_attributes; a["horizon"]["theme"]="default"; \
  @e.default_attributes(a); @e.save'

To revert the theme, execute the same knife command, substituting "Rackspace" for "default".

Using Your Logo In the OpenStack Dashboard

After you have switched to the OpenStack default dashboard, you can customize it by adding your own logo.

1. Create a transparent PNG of your logo, sized to fit within a 200-pixel wide by 160-pixel tall space.
2. Name the file logo.png.
3. Save logo.png in the following location:

   /usr/share/openstack-dashboard/openstack_dashboard/static/dashboard/img/logo.png

4. If you have not already done so, switch to root access with sudo -i.
5. Open style.css for editing with nano.
   

   $ nano /usr/share/openstack-dashboard/openstack_dashboard/static/dashboard/css/style.css                

6. Press Ctrl+w and search for: h1.brand.
7. Replace the entire h1.brand rule with the following:
   

   h1.brand a { background:
   url(../img/logo.png) center center
   no-repeat; display: block; height: 160px;
   text-indent: -9999px; margin: 25px auto;
   }
           

8. Press Ctrl+X; then press Y to commit the change.
9. Press Return to save style.css and exit the editor.

Accessing the Graphite Monitoring Tool

The cluster can be monitored via the Graphite monitoring tool. This is automatically enabled in clusters installed with Alamo v. 2.0.

To access the Graphite dashboard, use the IP address for your controller node and port 8080, as in the following example:

http://192.0.2.0:8080

Graphite allows you to access a wide range of cluster data, and allows you to create custom charts according to your environment's needs. Threshold monitoring is provided by the monit tool, which provides basic threshold monitoring and alerts.

For more information about Graphite, refer to the Graphite wiki. For more information about monit, refer to the monit web site.

OpenStack Client Utilities

The OpenStack client utilities are a convenient way to interact with OpenStack from the command line from your own workstation, without being directly logged in to the controller node. The client utilities for python are available via pypy and can be installed on most Linux systems with python available via pip install python-novaclient and pip install python-glanceclient. For more information, refer to the following links.

• python-novaclient

• Setting Up python-novaclient

• python-glanceclient

• Using the Glance CLI client

NOTE: The clients are maintained by the community and should be considered software in development. When in doubt, refer to the internal client help for more information.

Viewing and Setting Environment Variables

The environment variables set in the .novarc file are used by the OpenStack clients to provide the information necessary to authenticate to your cloud. When you are logged into the controller node as root, you can view the .novarc file.

CAUTION: Be careful with the information contained in .novarc. This file contains administrative credentials by default. This file should not be edited, since it is automatically maintained by chef.

If you want to connect to the OpenStack installation via python-novaclient or other command line clients, you must add the environment variables to your local environment. The easiest way to capture environment variables is to download them from the dashboard.

1. Log into the dashboard.
2. In the upper right corner, click Settings.
3. In the navigation panel, select OpenStack Credentials.
4. Select the project for which you want to download the environment variables and click Download RC file.
5. After you have saved the file, open a local terminal and execute the command source openrc to add the environment variables to your local environment.

The contents of the openrc.sh file are as follows:

#!/bin/bash

# With the addition of Keystone, to use an openstack cloud you should
# authenticate against keystone, which returns a **Token** and **Service
# Catalog**.  The catalog contains the endpoint for all services the
# user/tenant has access to - including nova, glance, keystone, swift.
#
# *NOTE*: Using the 2.0 *auth api* does not mean that compute api is 2.0.  We
# will use the 1.1 *compute api*
export OS_AUTH_URL=http://controller_node_url:5000/v2.0

# With the addition of Keystone we have standardized on the term **tenant**
# as the entity that owns the resources.
export OS_TENANT_ID=tenant_id
export OS_TENANT_NAME=tenant_name

# In addition to the owning entity (tenant), openstack stores the entity
# performing the action as the **user**.
export OS_USERNAME=username

# With Keystone you pass the keystone password.
echo "Please enter your OpenStack Password: "
read -s OS_PASSWORD_INPUT
export OS_PASSWORD=$OS_PASSWORD_INPUT