Tag Archives: Sledgehammer

Build Sledgehammer, the Crowbar discovery image / build prerequisite

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Note: This content has been copied to the Crowbar Wiki.
Victor “got your back” Lowther, CI & build automation czar on our team at Dell, spent a lot of time cleaning up the open source build to make it MUCH easier.  The latest build only requires ONE server for all components.  To make it repeatable and fast, I’m using a hosted VM from Rackspace Cloud.
Here are the steps that you should follow (cool: if you build before the prereqs are in place, the script will tell you what’s missing).
Note: You must build the discovery image (build_sledgehammer.sh) before building Crowbar.  This image does not change very often, so it’s helpful to cache it somewhere (like in the Crowbar cache where it normally lives) and save time.
  1. Starting from a Rackspace Cloud Ubuntu 10.10 image (512 RAM is OK, $0.03/hr)
  2. Get libraries for git, RPM, & Ruby: apt-get install git rpm ruby
  3. Get the sledgehammer repo: git clone git://github.com/dellcloudedge/crowbar-sledgehammer.git
  4. Go to sledgehammer: cd crowbar-sledgehammer
  5. Download the CentOS image: curl -o ../CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-DVD-1of2.iso http://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/CentOS/5.6/isos/x86_64/CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-DVD-1of2.iso
    1. takes some time (10+ mins) even in the cloud
  6. Tell the build where to look for the CentOS image: CENTOS_ISO=~/CentOS-5.6-x86_64-bin-DVD-1of2.iso ./build_sledgehammer.sh
    1. you may need to change the path of the image if you did not put it in your home directory
    1. wait a long time while magic happens and the tar gets created
    2. check out the tar ball in the /bin directory!
  7. Create the cache location for Sledgehammer: mkdir -p ~/.crowbar-build-cache
  8. Move the the cache location: cd ~/.crowbar-build-cache
  9. Extract the Sledgehammer tar: tar xzvf ~/crowbar-sledgehammer/bin/sledgehammer-tftpboot.tar.gz 
Or, use the tar copy that I’ve cached it on zehicle.com!  Then you can start at step 8.
Now you can build crowbar as per instructions (duplicated below)
  1. cd ~
  2. git clone git://github.com/dellcloudedge/crowbar.git
  3. apt-get update
  4. apt-get install build-essential mkisofs debootstrap
  5. crowbar/build_crowbar.sh
    1. kicks off a long download to create the cache (first time only!)
    2. look in the home directory for the openstack-dev.iso

Of course, you still need to INSTALL CROWBAR (as root, /tftpboot/ubuntu_dvd/extra/install) after you use the ISO to boot a VM.  Instructions on that shortly…

Crowbar build using Ubuntu 10.10 vm on Rackspace Cloud from Github Repo

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Our OpenStack team at Dell (especially Victor Lowthor) has been working hard with the public Crowbar repos to make it possible for the community to build their own version of a Crowbar ISO.   When you build the ISO, you’ll be downloading a whole bunch (that’s the technical term) of open source licensed components to make it work: we’re trying to maintain a list of licenses on the Github wiki.

To make sure that it was possible for mortals, I signed up for a Ubuntu 10.10 VM (512 Mb RAM, $0.03/hr) at RackSpace Cloud.  I did this from a non-Dell to ensure that it was as independent from our source as possible.

Once I had my vm, there were just a few steps to follow (these are NOT verbatim):

  • apt-get install debootstrap, mkisofs, git, build-essential packages
  • git clone git://github.com/dellcloudedge/crowbar.git
  • Got the results from a sledgehammer build (a fresh sledgehammer tarball) and extracted it into $HOME/.crowbar-build-cache/tftpboot, which is where build_crowbar.sh expects to find it cached.
    • NOTE: I’m not ready to document sledgehammer builds yet, but I will tell you that you’d need a CentOS VM.
  • In the crowbar directory, ran ./build_crowbar.sh
  • The build will pull down all the packages that you need and cache them to the VM.  Subsequent builds will be much faster!

The end result of the build is an “openstack-dev.iso” that will install Crowbar with the OpenStack barclamps (here’s how to do it on VMs).  Just for fun, I copied _my build_ output ISO off the build VM and to my web server.

Please let me know if you have problems with this process, we want people to try Crowbar!

$$ Note: Turn off your VM when you’re done so you don’t incur extra expenses.  Since this process only took about 2 hours, the whole build cost me less than a dime.  Which is good, since I was building it on “my own dime” anyway.