Getting Started With Rackspace¶
Rackspace is a major public cloud platform and is one of the core platforms that Salt Cloud has been built to support.
- Using the old format, set up the cloud configuration at
/etc/salt/cloud
:
# Set the location of the salt-master
#
minion:
master: saltmaster.example.com
# Configure Rackspace using the OpenStack plugin
#
OPENSTACK.identity_url: 'https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/tokens'
OPENSTACK.compute_name: cloudServersOpenStack
OPENSTACK.protocol: ipv4
# Set the compute region:
#
OPENSTACK.compute_region: DFW
# Configure Rackspace authentication credentials
#
OPENSTACK.user: myname
OPENSTACK.tenant: 123456
OPENSTACK.apikey: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Using the new format, set up the cloud configuration at
/etc/salt/cloud.providers
or/etc/salt/cloud.providers.d/rackspace.conf
:
my-rackspace-config:
# Set the location of the salt-master
#
minion:
master: saltmaster.example.com
# Configure Rackspace using the OpenStack plugin
#
identity_url: 'https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/tokens'
compute_name: cloudServersOpenStack
protocol: ipv4
# Set the compute region:
#
compute_region: DFW
# Configure Rackspace authentication credentials
#
user: myname
tenant: 123456
apikey: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
provider: openstack
Compute Region¶
Rackspace currently has five compute regions which may be used:
DFW -> Dallas/Forth Worth
ORD -> Chicago
SYD -> Sydney
LON -> London
IAD -> Northern Virginia
Note: Currently the LON region is only avaiable with a UK account, and UK accounts cannot access other regions
Authentication¶
The user
is the same user as is used to log into the Rackspace Control
Panel. The tenant
and apikey
can be found in the API Keys area of the
Control Panel. The apikey
will be labeled as API Key (and may need to be
generated), and tenant
will be labeled as Cloud Account Number.
An initial profile can be configured in /etc/salt/cloud.profiles
or
/etc/salt/cloud.profiles.d/rackspace.conf
:
- Using the old cloud configuration format:
openstack_512:
provider: openstack
size: 512MB Standard Instance
image: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)
- Using the new cloud configuration format and the example configuration from above:
openstack_512:
provider: my-rackspace-config
size: 512MB Standard Instance
image: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)
To instantiate a machine based on this profile:
# salt-cloud -p openstack_512 myinstance
This will create a virtual machine at Rackspace with the name myinstance
.
This operation may take several minutes to complete, depending on the current
load at the Rackspace data center.
Once the instance has been created with salt-minion installed, connectivity to it can be verified with Salt:
# salt myinstance test.ping
RackConnect Environments¶
Rackspace offers a hybrid hosting configuration option called RackConnect that allows you to use a physical firewall appliance with your cloud servers. When this service is in use the public_ip assigned by nova will be replaced by a NAT ip on the firewall. For salt-cloud to work properly it must use the newly assigned “access ip” instead of the Nova assigned public ip. You can enable that capability by adding this to your profiles:
openstack_512:
provider: my-openstack-config
size: 512MB Standard Instance
image: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)
rackconnect: True
Managed Cloud Environments¶
Rackspace offers a managed service level of hosting. As part of the managed service level you have the ability to choose from base of lamp installations on cloud server images. The post build process for both the base and the lamp installations used Chef to install things such as the cloud monitoring agent and the cloud backup agent. It also takes care of installing the lamp stack if selected. In order to prevent the post installation process from stomping over the bootstrapping you can add the below to your profiles.
openstack_512:
provider: my-rackspace-config
size: 512MB Standard Instance
image: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)
managedcloud: True
First and Next Generation Images¶
Rackspace provides two sets of virtual machine images, first and next
generation. As of 0.8.9
salt-cloud will default to using the next
generation images. To force the use of first generation images, on the profile
configuration please add:
FreeBSD-9.0-512:
provider: my-rackspace-config
size: 512MB Standard Instance
image: FreeBSD 9.0
force_first_gen: True