Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets – Modifying the Default LVM Guest Template

With the latest release of the Exalogic Virtual Environment (2.0.6.0.0) an number of modifications have been implemented and one of these is the introduction of an LVM based Guest Template. LVM was a much requested feature for the base template but it's introduction means the information provided in my blog entry Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Modifying the Default Shipped (Base) Template is no longer appropriate because modifyjeos does not work with an LVM based System.img.

To resize the new Base Template we need to work with LVM directly and working with colleagues I have put together a simple script that will allow you to increase the size of the default root Volume and Swap Volume and thus generate a new template.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets – Creating Assets with the Simplified Exalogic Cli (A SimpleExaCli.sh Tutorial)

In a previous blog entry I described a script for creating assets (Distribution Groups, vServers, etc) but since that initial script I have written and blogged about the Simple Exalogic Cli Script and therefore have decided to write this short tutorial on the "--create-asset" command option. This version is expanded from it's original release last September so I will run through all the features available within this command.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Modifying Memory, CPU and Storage on a vServer (A SimpleExaCli.sh Tutorial)

With the current release of Exalogic Virtual the Enterprise Manager Ops Center interface does not provide a support method for increasing the reasources associated with a running vServer. Therefore to increase the CPU, Memory or Disk size of a vServer we need to recreate vServer using the same Network information, mapped storage etc but with the new CPU, Memory and Disks space. Rather than simply destrying and then manually recreating the vServer we can use the SimpleExaCli.sh script described in the blog entry "Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Simplified Exalogic IaaS Cli" to first create a template and capture the network information. Then using the generated Template and captured information to recreate the vServer with a new "VServer Type" that defines the new resource requirements. This blog entry will take you through the simple process of resizing the resources associated with an already existing Exalogic vServer.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets – Simplified Exalogic IaaS Cli

In previous blogs I have built and documented a number of extensions to the standard Exalogic IaaS Cli that either simplify the Cli usage or provide additional functionality. Following feedback from the various user I have enhanced and amalgamated a number of my scripts into a new single “SimpleExCli.sh”. In addition the SimpleExCli.sh script contains a number of new options for creating and managing vServers within your Exalogic environment.

The aim of this blog entry is to introduce the new script and document the commands available providing a starting point for script usage. I will produce a number of additional short targeted tutorials that will work through the individual commands in more detail.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Power Cycling Your Virtual Exalogic Rack

On rare occasions you may need to Power Cycle / Shutdown your Virtualised Exalogic Rack. Although the Power Cycle for the Physical Rack is documented in the "Exalogic Machine Owners Guide" and the Control Stack procedure is defined within a MOS note we do not have a single source that documents the Power Down / Power Up procedure for a fully Virtualised Exalogic Rack. This simple short blog entry will bring the distributed information into a single location and will also include the processes required for guest vServers.

At a High level the Power Cycle procedure is as follows:

Power Down

1. Shutdown all guest vServers.
2. Shutdown Control vServers (Control Stack).
3. Power down Physical Rack. 

Power Up

1. Power Up Physical Rack.
2. Start-up Control vServers
3. Start-up guest vServers.

The rest of this blog will go into more details about the high level steps above and draws from the "Exalogic Machine Owners Guide", "Exalogic Backup and Recovery Guide (MOS Note)" and the "Simple Exalogic Cli" blog entry to bring all the steps together in a single location.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Wrapping the Exalogic iaas cli

Having worked with the Exalogic Command Line for a while I decided to wrap some of the common functions in a simplified bash script. This saves me creating the keys, connecting and identifying the appropriate Ids. Instead I can simply specify the Name and the script will do the rest of the work. This initial version has just a few commands in it but as I add more the blog entry will expand, as will the script, and document the new functionality.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Cloning an existing vServer

Following on from my Blog entry "Scripted Template Generation from an existing vServer" I have built a wrapper script that can be used to execute the Template Generation script or Clone a specific vServer. This script was not incorporated into the original script because it must be executed on a Compute Node with access to the /OVS/Repositories directory and the Compute Node are a minimal install and hence do not have all the required software available. As part of the Cloning process this new script will create an Assets input file that can be used with the CreateAssets.sh describe in the blog "Scripting Asset Creation" and optionally execute the result to create the clone.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Scripted Template Generation from an existing vServer

As part of your Exalogic Virtual environment you may want to build vServer that will be used, going forwards, as a template for future vServers. Currently the "Exalogic Elastic Cloud Administrator's Guide" has an appendix describing how this can be achieved using the OVMM interface. Based on internal A-Team work it is now possible to achieve this directly from a compute nodes command-line without accessing OVMM.

As a result of this I have built the script below that will take the files associated with a "Stopped" vServer and converts them to a template.

For this templating process to work the script will need to be executed on a machine with access to the /OVS/Repositories/* directories and this means running directly on one of the Compute Nodes (I generally run it on Compute Node 1).

Because of the space and resource limitations of the Compute Node (minimal OS) we will need to create a and mount a Share from the internal ZFS to save the working files and ultimately the Template. To this end the script will take a number of parameters that will specification of these directories. If these are not specified the script assumes we have the ZFS /export/common/images mounted on /u01/common/images.

As can been seen from the Usage section below the script only mandates the Name of the vServer to be copied but assumes that the user has stopped the vServer previously. Once the template has been created, or post copy, the vServer can be restarted.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Some Simple ZFS Scripts

Whilst working on an Exalogic Upgrade I was working with the ZFS storage and having executed the same commands a number of times I decided to script them. This short blog entry, although it will grow over time, contains the scripts I find useful. For each of the scripts I will simply provide a brief description and the source of the script and occasionally add the output assuming it is not too long. Where I need to pass the Hostname / IP Address of the storage heads the scripts will use the flags:

• -p <Primary - first storage head>
• -s <Secondary - Second storage head>

I will be using a combinations of simple bash scripts and the more function ZFS scripting language.