Nested virtualization support on Rackspace public cloud

We have found the CPU hardware architecture that the public cloud is running on in this blog: Hypervisor hardware differences on Openstack Rackspace Cloud.

Problem

Does Rackspace public cloud support nested visualization?

Results discussion

• Public Cloud

Of course for the cloud to exists the physical sever where the hypervisor runs (Xen or KVM for example) needs to have in-hardware virtualization support (Intel VT-x or AMD-V). This is the only way to provide a high performance cloud servers.

But once the cloud server boots up the cloud virtual CPU no longer exports the hardware CPU virtualization capabilities. You can verify this with this little script below.

egrep -i 'vmx|svm|ept|vpid|npt|tpr_shadow|flexpriority|vnmi'

That means you can't use your cloud server to run another, a guest hypervisor ( called as well nested hypervisor).

• Private cloud 

The nested virtualization can be enabled. As an example this link describe some of the steps for Linux KVM:

•  Installing Rackspace Private Cloud - KVM.
• http://networkstatic.net/nested-kvm-hypervisor-support/

Another solution

If your cloud server doesn't offer nested virtualization support you can always use the emulation mode. Qemu supports running VM that way.

References

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/cloud/library/cl-nestedvirtualization/
https://www.diigo.com/user/rtomaszewski/nested_virtualization?type=all&snapshot=no&sort=updated
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization

Rackspace Private Cloud v3 available

In my previous post How to install Rackspace Private Cloud (Alamo) on a single physical server I described how to install Alamo version 2. Since then the software has evolved and a new versions 3 with new features is available for download and testing.

Instalation

Full instruction how to install it can be found here: http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/private/script/

A compact version looks like:

curl -L "http://sh.opencenter.rackspace.com/install.sh" | bash -s server
curl -L "http://sh.opencenter.rackspace.com/install.sh" | bash -s dashboard
curl -L "http://sh.opencenter.rackspace.com/install.sh" | bash -s agent

Architecture has changed

Alamo version 3 comes with a modified and extended architecture to support new features. A high level diagram can be found here: http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/private/openstack_software/

More documentation

Knowledge centre articles:
http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/getting-started/rackspace-private-cloud

More instruction how to install and access to dedicated form for Rackspace Private Cloud
https://privatecloudforums.rackspace.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=345&start=0

Opencenter, installer and more about source code is here:
https://github.com/rcbops

Installing Rackspace Private Cloud (Alamo) on a single virtual server using VMware Workstation

If you are looking for info about installation on a physical server you may like this article instead: How to install Rackspace Private Cloud (Alamo) on a single physical server

VMware Workstation

The Openstack installation within a virtual server is almost identical like on a physical one. The main difference is that we have to create a virtual machine that emulated/simulate the CPU extension needed for the nested hypervisor [1]

Practically that means that  you have to enable this box in your VM config.

If you prefere editing of a config file this is the variable that you have to set in *.vmx file

 
.encoding = "windows-1252"
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "8"
numvcpus = "4"
vcpu.hotadd = "TRUE"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
memsize = "4096"
mem.hotadd = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.fileName = "Ubuntu 64-bit.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "C:\Users\radoslaw\Downloads\alamo-v2.0.0.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
floppy0.startConnected = "FALSE"
floppy0.fileName = ""
floppy0.autodetect = "TRUE"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"
ethernet0.addressType = "static"
ethernet0.address = "00:50:56:25:71:FB"
usb.present = "TRUE"
ehci.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.fileName = "-1"
sound.autodetect = "TRUE"
serial0.present = "TRUE"
serial0.fileType = "thinprint"
serial1.present = "TRUE"
serial1.fileType = "file"
serial1.fileName = "test.py"
pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge4.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge4.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge4.functions = "8"
pciBridge5.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge5.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge5.functions = "8"
pciBridge6.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge6.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge6.functions = "8"
pciBridge7.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge7.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge7.functions = "8"
vmci0.present = "TRUE"
hpet0.present = "TRUE"
usb.vbluetooth.startConnected = "TRUE"
displayName = "Ubuntu 64-bit"
guestOS = "ubuntu-64"
nvram = "Ubuntu 64-bit.nvram"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
vhv.enable = "TRUE"
powerType.powerOff = "hard"
powerType.powerOn = "hard"
powerType.suspend = "hard"
powerType.reset = "hard"
extendedConfigFile = "Ubuntu 64-bit.vmxf"
vmci0.id = "-1561829832"
uuid.location = "56 4d 22 7e ee b5 2b 19-3e c1 5e 76 a2 e8 5e 38"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 22 7e ee b5 2b 19-3e c1 5e 76 a2 e8 5e 38"
cleanShutdown = "TRUE"
replay.supported = "FALSE"
replay.filename = ""
scsi0:0.redo = ""
pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"
pciBridge4.pciSlotNumber = "21"
pciBridge5.pciSlotNumber = "22"
pciBridge6.pciSlotNumber = "23"
pciBridge7.pciSlotNumber = "24"
scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "16"
usb.pciSlotNumber = "32"
ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "33"
sound.pciSlotNumber = "34"
ehci.pciSlotNumber = "35"
vmci0.pciSlotNumber = "36"
usb:1.present = "TRUE"
vmotion.checkpointFBSize = "37748736"
usb:1.speed = "2"
usb:1.deviceType = "hub"
usb:1.port = "1"
usb:1.parent = "-1"
tools.remindInstall = "TRUE"
usb:0.present = "TRUE"
usb:0.deviceType = "hid"
usb:0.port = "0"
usb:0.parent = "-1"

References

1. Nested virtualization
   http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/cloud/library/cl-nestedvirtualization/ http://www.veeam.com/blog/nesting-hyper-v-with-vmware-workstation-8-and-esxi-5.html
   
   You can't use Oracle Virtual Box tool as it doesn't support nested virtualisation. https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4032


2. http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/installing-rackspace-private-cloud-vmware-fusion

How to install Rackspace Private Cloud (Alamo) on a single physical server

Rackspace has released a new version of its private cloud offerings. The new private cloud is based on the lasted Folsom Openstack release and includes many of the latest features.

ISO downloading 

The software can be downloaded fro http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/private/openstack_software/ after you fill in a simple form. Once filled you receive an email with a direct link to download the ISO image (alamo-v2.0.0.iso). The other important link is Getting Started Guide document.

Supported features

In the guide we can find more details about supported and unsupported features.

Supported OpenStack Features:

• Rackspace supports integration with the other components of OpenStack, as well as features such as floating IP address management, security groups, availability zones, and the python-novaclient command line client
• Single and dual NIC configurations
• NFS and ISCSI file storage as backing stores for VM storage
• VNC Proxy
• KVM hypervisor
• Nova Multi Scheduler instead of Filter Scheduler
• Keystone integrated authentication
• Glance integrated image service
• Horizon dashboard
• Cinder block storage service
• Swift object storage service
• Linux and Windows guests to the extent to which they accept handoff from KVM and boot
• Single metadata server running on each device
• Cloud management through OpenStack APIs
• Rackspace also supports the use of Rackspace Cloud Files as a backend for OpenStack
• Image Storage. For information about OpenStack Object Storage, refer to Rackspace Private Cloud OpenStack Object Storage installation

Unsupported OpenStack Features. The following features are not supported yet.

• Nova high availability
• Nova object store
• Nova volumes
• NFS and ISCSI file storage via volumes for guest VMs
• Clustered file system solutions
• xpvnc
• Xen and other hypervisors
• Centralized metadata servers
• Quantum Software Defined Networking

Installation

To start the installer I had to first convert the ISO into a bootable USB (In the guide you find a link to this tool that can help you with this task www.pendrivelinux.com)

Once done change the boot sequence in BIOS, plug your Pendrive and restart the server.

The installation is relatively simple. The couple of questions that you may get confused are about the number of NIC and what subnet do you want to use for the cloud servers.

Below are some of my screenshots to demonstrate how it looks like (sorry for the quality)

The installation welcome screen

There will be couple of questions for IP address, gateway, netmask, DNS, user, password that you have to answer as well. Random screenshots are showed below.

During the whole installation you can switch to console 4 (ALT+4) and observe various debugging logs as the installation progresses.

At some point the phase 1 of 2 will be completed and the system reboots. Once the system come back we can see different logs showing how the chef progress as Openstack is configured.

At the end of phase 2/2 when the installation is completed you are going to see a screen with summaries about the server resources.

References

1. http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/private/openstack_software/
2. http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/installing-rackspace-private-cloud-on-physical-hardware