Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets – IaaS Utility vServer

Following a number of discussions around the SimpleExaCli Script and the ModifyLVM Script that are available from this blog site I decided to package the scripts and any future scripts within a simple Utility vServer that was then converted to a template using the SimpleExaCli script. The advantage of constructing this standard utility vServer is that it can be configured in an appropriate manner to allow simple use of all the scripts to control and configure your Exalogic Environment.

The Utility vServer currently comes in two flavours 2.0.4.x (Navstar) and 2.0.6.x (Echo) the key difference being the version of the IaaS Cli installed and hence the appropriate version should be downloaded and are available here.

• 2.0.4.x (Navstar) Template.
• 2.0.6.x (Echo) Template.

Installing and configuring the Utility vServer

Once downloaded and uploaded to your account the template should be used, along with the SMALL vServer type, to create a Utility vServer with access to the EoIB Network and the vServer Shared Storage Network. Before they Utility can be used you will need to check some of the predefined configuration and confirm that it matches your Exalogic or modify it appropriately.

/etc/fstab

The fstab on the Utility vServer contains entries to mount the ExalogicRepo share, for use when creating templates, and two common shares. By default it looks like the following.

[root@EchoUtilityServer ~]#
[root@EchoUtilityServer ~]# cat /etc/fstab
LABEL=/1                /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
LABEL=SWAP-VM           swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
# Keep the following 2 lines but modify the IP to the appropriate storage IP
172.17.0.5:/export/ExalogicRepo /OVS/Repositories/GUID nfs ro,bg,hard,nointr,rsize=131072,wsize=131072,tcp,vers=3
172.17.0.5:/export/common/images /u01/common/images nfs rw,bg,hard,nointr,rsize=131072,wsize=131072,tcp,vers=3
172.17.0.5:/export/common/patches /u01/common/patches nfs rw,bg,hard,nointr,rsize=131072,wsize=131072,tcp,vers=3
[root@EchoUtilityServer ~]#
[root@EchoUtilityServer ~]#

You will need to validate the IP for the ZFS matches that on your machine.

ExalogicRepo NFS Exception

Because we will be mounting the ExalogicControl/ExalogicRepo share across the IPoIB-vserver-shared-storage a new NFS exception will need to be added to the ExalogicRepo share. This should be defined as a Read only root exception.

Executing commands

When we execute the SimpleExaCli script not in a location that is not the EC vServer we need to specify the EMOC URL on the command line (e.g. -url https://172.16.0.5:9443 ) with the utility vServer we can modify the .bashrc file and add the following:

export IAAS_BASE_URL=https://<EMOC IP>:<EMOC Port>

The EMOC IP specified can be it's IP on the IPoIB-vserver-shared-storage network

export IAAS_BASE_URL=https://172.16.0.5:9443 

Once this has been specified the -url parameter is not required on the command-line.

--list-vservers

SimpleExaCli.sh -url https://172.16.0.5:9443 --list-vservers -u root -p ovsroot -verbose -to-hrf

or

SimpleExaCli.sh --list-vservers -u root -p ovsroot -verbose -to-hrf

--create-template

SimpleExaCli.sh --create-template -v NavstarUtilityServer

--capture-vserver

SimpleExaCli.sh -url https://172.16.0.5:9443 --capture-vserver -a andrew -v NavstarUtilityServer -u root -pf .pwd.file -sip 172.16.0.5

In this command it should be noted that the -cip has not been specified. This is because we have the ExalogicRepo mounted locally and hence can run the create template command directly.