VServer Development Scripts
Charles Shapiro 
14 Nov 2003

Version 0.0.3

What Is This Stuff?

This is a small collection of scripts to make developing on a linux
virtual server platform easier.  It is designed to allow multiple
developers who each need multiple independent machines to work on the
same physical box without interfering with each other.  Each developer
can create and destroy virtual machines with happy abandon, allowing
him (or her) to test deployment, and function of multiple versions
of the application without interferance or destruction from others.

I assume that the machine you're using is running VServer kernel
ctx-13 or better, and has the vserver-admin 0.20 or better rpm (or its
equivalent) installed. I also assume you have bash and perl (5.6 or
better) on the vserver server.  For information on installing and
running VServer, see the VServer web pages.

These scripts are written on the assumption that your development
vservers are isolated to their own class C IP network; as shipped this
is "10.0.25.*".  You can change this by editing the number in
vbuild.params/current.ip.num.  I also reserve the first 20 ip
addresses in the space for miscellaneous use (as, for example, the ip
address of the vserver server).  Change this by fixing the "-b"
argument of the "nextIP.pl" command line buried in bin/mkVS.sh.

Setup

Create an account on your VServer server and untar the distribution
tar file into its root (e.g. "/home/vsmaker"). Move everything in the
distribution directory to your account's root, as:

cd /home/vsmaker/vsmaker-0.0.3
mv . ..

Move the "dotbash_profile" and "dotenvfile" files to the appropriate
names, as:

cd /home/vsmaker
mv dotbash_profile .bash_profile
mv dotenvfile .envfile

You may wish to edit the .bash_profile file to conform to local custom
(if, for example, you automatically log in to a cvs system).

Edit the /etc/sudoers file on the vserver server and add the
appropriate privilages for your vsmaker user. I have included an
example sudoers file in the distribution as "sudoers.example".

Now create a "vsroot" vserver with the vserver script, as:

vserver vsroot build

This is the root vserver from which vsmaker/bin/mkVS.sh will build all
new vservers. You can prune as much from /vservers/vsroot as necessary
to cut down on the amount of disk space each new vserver will consume.

The vbuild.params directory is where the "bin/mkVS.sh" script keeps
its current ip and MAC addresses. Each time you run mkVS.sh, it will
increment those addresses.  The "current.ip.num" file contains the
current IP address, and the "current.mac.num" file contains the
current MAC number. The scripts will edit the new
/etc/vservername.conf file to bind the new vserver to the correct IP
address, but they'll only put the new MAC address in its /tmp/
directory as "/tmp/fakeMACAddress.txt". It's your application's
responsibility to spoof it from there as necessary.

The "help.sh" script documents the scripts shipped. 

Changelog


Version 0.0.3
	* ip addresses now kept in name/address database.
	* VSCp now works the way you expect it: you can copy a file to 
	a directory, or a directory to another directory.
	
Version 0.0.2
    * Improved error detection
    * Creating a new vserver with the same name as another one no
      longer allowed
    * If a vserver's eth0: subdevice is still up, don't delete the
      vserver. (this can cause major pain. Apparently a bug in vserver keeps
      the subdevice up if you enter and then exit a stopped vserver with the
      vserver script).
    * Added "clone" flag to vserver generator script
    * Improved doc (heck, _anything_ is an improvement!)

Version 0.0.1
	Original Release
    
To Do

     *  Make the MAC address generator track which addresses 
        are being used instead of blindly incrementing each time a server is 
        created
     *  Improve parameter handling (e.g. ip address limits).
     *  Figure out ways to use other vserver features, such as vunify.
     *  Add More Cool Scripts and options.

Happy Hacking!