Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - EATT Create Assembly OTD/WLS Cookbook

In the blog entry "Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Create Assets Evolution" I described how the our asset / asssembley creation scripts had evolved to Python as a processing language and JSON as a file format. As part of that blog I briefly described the assembly configuration section and how it defines scripts that can be executed on the previously created vServers. Within this blog I intend to provide a Cookbook for using the new functionality to install and configure a simple OTD / WLS installation consisting of 3 OTD vServers and 3 WLS vServers linked over the Infiniband network. All scripts associated with the process can be found in Exalogic A-Team Tools folder (/exalogic-att) on the downloadable PythonUtilityTemplate and with some simple tweaks you should be able to build your own test environment.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Pythonised SimpleExaCli

Having completed the CreateAssembly (Create Assets) re-write of the SimpleExaCli I decided it was time to migrate some of the additional functionality I use and enhancing the outputs to match my requirements. This quick blog entry will describe the currently migrated commands and their new output structure. In accordance with my previous CreateAssembly blog I have split the functions into smaller commands and subsequently wrapped calls to these into a top level SimplePythonExaCli.sh. Although this is not a full re-write the list of functions will grow but currently comprise of the following:

• List Accounts
• List Distribution Groups
• List Networks
• List Templates
• List Volumes
• List vServers

Each will be described in more detail but all follow the same underlying principles on parameter requirements and processing described below.

Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - Create Assets Evolution

Following the success of the CreateAssets shell script and it's subsequent merging into the SimpleExaCli script I decided to extend the features and leverage the full functionality of the 2.0.6.x (Echo) IaaS. As part of the revisit of the code a rewrite in python was performed and the primary reason for this was it allowed for simple coding to read and access the new JSON format definition file. The additional flexibility that the python language allows provided a framework within which we can build a simple assembly builder.
Because I have chosen to use Python 3 and the pexpect libraries this version of the CreateAssets functionality will only be released as a vServer Template, that is an extension of the Echo template described here, and can be downloaded from the link below.

• Python Template vServer.

The rest of this blog entry will describe the new calling mechanism and focus on the new structure within the JSON files. The scripts and files described can all be found within the examples directory in the template.

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.

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 – 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.

Exalogic Networking Part 2

Following on from my introduction Exalogic Blog Entry (Exalogic Networking Part 1) this entry describes the Oracle A-Team Exalogic Scripts to help facilitate a simpler ECU installation and provide an example on configuring a standard Oracle ACS type environment. The scripts and a pdf document can be downloaded using the link below :

• Scripts

This blog will summarise the functionality that is provided by the A-Team Exalogic Scripts. These expand upon the existing “Exalogic Configuration Utility” functionality simplifying repetitive jobs, for example creating VNICs on the switches, and building base environments.

Version 1.0.1 contains the following scripts that will be detailed later:

1. genVNICSFromListLinkUp.sh
2. genVNICSFromIBNetDiscover.sh
3. genCNNetFiles.sh
4. genIfcfgFiles.sh
5. fixNetworkConfig.sh
6. setupDefaultACSRack.sh

During the process of execution the scripts above will generate additional scripts that will be specific for Exalogic Rack they are being executed on.

Exalogic Networking Part 1

This is the first blog entry in a series I will be writing on Exalogic Networking. The entries will start with the low level basics and work their way up to architectural strategies for the partitioning and configuration an Exalogic Rack.

This first entry will look at the low level creation and configuration of vNICs, vIPs, vLANs, BONDs and how we can leverage scripting and the dcli command to configure all Exalogic Compute Nodes at the same time. At this point in time the scripts with documented within this page are designed from Oracle Enterprise Linux but can be tweaked slightly for a Solaris Exalogic installation. In addition we will focus on the external facing 10Gb network because the the 1Gb is management only and should be on a private network whilst the internal InfiniBand network will not be directly accessible to the outside world.