Virtualization

MicroStack installation fails on Ubuntu 20.04

I needed an instance of Openstack in my home lab for some tests and the first attempt was to deploy it with DevStack all-in-one. Is one of the most common methods out there. However it kept on failing (still need to find out why), so I turned to MicroStack.

MicroStack describe itself as the most straightforward way to install Openstack. I don’t say this is the way to go for Enterprise grade installation, but would do if you want something simple like one or two nodes for testing, learning purposes.

MicroStack uses two commands to have an Openstack instance up and running:

sudo snap install microstack --beta
$
sudo microstack init --auto --control

You can read a more detailed “how-to” on the Ubuntu or MicroStack page. One note, the entire topic is in Beta stage.

I’ve tried deploying multiple time on fresh Ubuntu 20.04 installation and everytime I’ve ended up with the error below. I’m adding the entire text, just in case you encounter an error at certain installation stage and want to check if is the same like mine:

sudo microstack init --auto --control
2022-11-02 20:21:19,950 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring clustering ...
2022-11-02 20:21:20,454 - microstack_init - INFO - Setting up as a control node.
2022-11-02 20:21:24,066 - microstack_init - INFO - Generating TLS Certificate and Key
2022-11-02 20:21:26,187 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring networking ...
2022-11-02 20:21:42,675 - microstack_init - INFO - Opening horizon dashboard up to *
2022-11-02 20:21:43,807 - microstack_init - INFO - Waiting for RabbitMQ to start ...
Waiting for 172.31.82.163:5672
2022-11-02 20:21:56,629 - microstack_init - INFO - RabbitMQ started!
2022-11-02 20:21:56,629 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring RabbitMQ ...
2022-11-02 20:21:58,753 - microstack_init - INFO - RabbitMQ Configured!
2022-11-02 20:21:58,953 - microstack_init - INFO - Waiting for MySQL server to start ...
Waiting for 172.31.82.163:3306
2022-11-02 20:23:08,775 - microstack_init - INFO - Mysql server started! Creating databases ...
2022-11-02 20:23:14,509 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring Keystone Fernet Keys ...
2022-11-02 20:26:07,658 - microstack_init - INFO - Bootstrapping Keystone ...
2022-11-02 20:26:21,999 - microstack_init - INFO - Creating service project ...
2022-11-02 20:26:27,938 - microstack_init - INFO - Keystone configured!
2022-11-02 20:26:28,257 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring the Placement service...
2022-11-02 20:26:49,572 - microstack_init - INFO - Running Placement DB migrations...
2022-11-02 20:27:09,282 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring nova control plane services ...
2022-11-02 20:27:22,369 - microstack_init - INFO - Running Nova API DB migrations (this may take a lot of time)...
2022-11-02 20:29:02,089 - microstack_init - INFO - Running Nova DB migrations (this may take a lot of time)...
Waiting for 172.31.82.163:8774
2022-11-02 20:39:31,994 - microstack_init - INFO - Creating default flavors...
2022-11-02 20:39:59,738 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring nova compute hypervisor ...
2022-11-02 20:39:59,738 - microstack_init - INFO - Checking virtualization extensions presence on the host
2022-11-02 20:39:59,756 - microstack_init - WARNING - Unable to determine hardware virtualization support by CPU vendor id "GenuineIntel": assuming it is not supported.
2022-11-02 20:39:59,756 - microstack_init - WARNING - Hardware virtualization is not supported - software emulation will be used for Nova instances
2022-11-02 20:40:06,690 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring the Spice HTML5 console service...
2022-11-02 20:40:08,564 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring Neutron
Waiting for 172.31.82.163:9696
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/snap/microstack/245/bin/microstack", line 11, in <module>
    load_entry_point('microstack==0.0.1', 'console_scripts', 'microstack')()
  File "/snap/microstack/245/lib/python3.8/site-packages/microstack/main.py", line 44, in main
    cmd()
  File "/snap/microstack/245/lib/python3.8/site-packages/init/main.py", line 60, in wrapper
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/snap/microstack/245/lib/python3.8/site-packages/init/main.py", line 228, in init
    question.ask()
  File "/snap/microstack/245/lib/python3.8/site-packages/init/questions/question.py", line 210, in ask
    self.yes(awr)
  File "/snap/microstack/245/lib/python3.8/site-packages/init/questions/__init__.py", line 887, in yes
    check('openstack', 'network', 'create', 'test')
  File "/snap/microstack/245/lib/python3.8/site-packages/init/shell.py", line 69, in check
    raise subprocess.CalledProcessError(proc.returncode, " ".join(args))
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command 'openstack network create test' returned non-zero exit status 1.

I’ve did some research and I found some hints about the need to manually install Python on a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 instance:

sudo apt install python python-dev

After installing Python all worked like a charm:

sudo microstack init --auto --control
# Skipped text #
2022-11-02 21:18:18,159 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring the Spice HTML5 console service...
2022-11-02 21:18:19,503 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring Neutron
Waiting for 172.31.82.163:9696
2022-11-02 21:19:21,615 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring Glance ...
Waiting for 172.31.82.163:9292
2022-11-02 21:20:53,119 - microstack_init - INFO - Adding cirros image ...
2022-11-02 21:20:57,002 - microstack_init - INFO - Creating security group rules ...
2022-11-02 21:21:09,046 - microstack_init - INFO - Configuring the Cinder services...
2022-11-02 21:22:10,868 - microstack_init - INFO - Running Cinder DB migrations...
2022-11-02 21:23:31,155 - microstack_init - INFO - restarting libvirt and virtlogd ...
2022-11-02 21:23:42,260 - microstack_init - INFO - Complete. Marked microstack as initialized!

For some reason the MicroStack initialization process doesn’t detect Python installation or more like it the lack of.

If you have this error during installation, let me know if manual Python installation does the job.

Ubuntu 20.04 Docker image – Python For Network Engineers

This is an updated Docker image of Python For Network Engineers (PFNE) based on Ubuntu 20.04 (minimal server distro).

It contains all necessary tools for network / devops engineers to test automation and learn Python:

Openssl
Net-tools
IPutils
IProute
IPerf
TCPDump
NMAP
Python 2
Python 3
Paramiko
Netmiko
Ansible
Pyntc
NAPALM
Netcat
Socat

If you notice a missing package which could be a value added for the scope of the Ubuntu PFNE image, please let me know in comments below.

Before testing the new Ubuntu 20.04 PFNE Docker image, please pull it from Docker Hub:

docker pull yotis/ubuntu2004-pfne

To start using it:

docker run -i -t yotis/ubuntu2004-pfne /bin/bash

For more details about how to install, operate and create your own Docker images, please check my older article on How to create your own Docker image.

ESXi VM – The CPU has been disabled by the guest operating system

For some weeks now, a couple of my virtual machines on ESXi would stop working out of nowhere. They were completely unresponsive (including via the ESXi VM Console). Nothing would help, except a shutdown / start of the VM. Just to find out later that, randomly, the VM would become unresponsive again.

The only human readable information about these failures was in the ESXi host Events and was saying something like this (among other things):

 The CPU has been disabled by the guest operating system

One other thing which I should mention is that all my VM encountering this issue where Linux based, mainly Ubuntu 20.04 as OS distribution.

Not much to work with, but I gave it a try and searching for the error did point me to this VMware KB: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2000542

The KB is clearly accurate, just that it didn’t help me at all to resolve my problem. The troubleshooting process explain in the KB lead me to a dead end.

Other web resources (for the above error) pointed to articles which explained a procedure for VMware Workstation / Player. Not my case, since I’m using ESXi.

More research done, which took a while – that’s why I’m writing this article, hopefully others with this problem will find it easier – pointed to a BUG. Seems this BUG is a particular case between my VM Linux kernel and the version of the ESXi I’m using currently.

I’ve arrived to this VMware KB https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2151480 which was a game changer. In my case this KB was hard to find, because the title – Linux VM fails with the error “kernel BUG at drivers/net/vmxnet3/vmxnet3_drv.c:1413!” (2151480) – is completely different than the error I was seeing and which I used searching the web.

Skipping the long output at the beginning of the KB, I saw something interesting in lower part of the page:

This issue occurs due to a bug in VMXNET3 vNIC backend which is part of the vmkernel. This issue occurs if the following conditions are met:

    Linux VM is running kernel >= 4.8
    HW version of VM is >=13
    ESXi version is 6.5

All the above fits my scenario, VMXNET3 as vNIC, Kernel 5.4, VM HW version 13 and ESXi 6.5

Like in most of BUG cases, the obvious solution is upgrade. Same here:

This issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 6.5 U1

Just that I cannot upgrade now for various reasons.

So, I’ve decide to look into the workarounds.

Second workaround on the page seems to be more simple and I don’t even have to restart the VM:

ethtool -G ethX rx-mini 0

Of course replace the ethX with your interface name.

Worked like a charm without any visible side-effects.

The other workaround is also doable, but I didn’t want to modify the .vmx file

Power off the virtual machine
         
Edit the vmx file and add the below parameter:
vmxnet3.rev.30 = FALSE
         
Power on the virtual machine

Now I’m just curious if I would encounter the same issues using another vNIC adapter type, like E1000 or E1000E instead of VMXNET3. Maybe I’ll give it a try…

VCSA, 503 Service Unavailable – possible fix

My ESXi hosting the VCSA crashed for whatever reason and after reboot the VCSA was displaying a “503 Service Unavailable” error.

What I was seeing actually was a blabbering long line:

503 Service Unavailable (Failed to connect to endpoint: [N7Vmacore4Http20NamedPipeServiceSpecE:0x00007fa69401a900] _serverNamespace = / action = Allow _pipeName =/var/run/vmware/vpxd-webserver-pipe)

The ESXi hosting my VCSA is not the fastest in the world, so I’ve waited a while, but the error was still there. Searching the Interne returned a lot of possible root causes for this errors, ranging from simple to complex one (like duplicate database table entry where you have to manually touch the postgresql instance).

I didn’t want to jump directly into touching things like the database, so I started with something more simple.

Below is what worked for me, maybe you’ll find it useful and can try before going into advanced troubleshooting.

I’ve connected to the VCSA CLI using the root credentials.

[email protected]'s password:
Connected to service

* List APIs: "help api list"
* List Plugins: "help pi list"
* Launch BASH: "shell"

Command>

Launched BASH by typing shell at the Command> prompt.

Now I have a Linux like CLI terminal.

Next step I’ve ran

service-control --status --all

which resulted in the following output:

[email protected] [ ~ ]# service-control --status --all
Running:
 lwsmd vmafdd vmcad vmdird vmdnsd vmonapi vmware-cis-license vmware-cm vmware-eam vmware-rhttpproxy vmware-sca vmware-sts-idmd vmware-stsd vmware-vapi-endpoint vmware-vmon vmware-vpostgres vmware-vpxd-svcs vsphere-client
Stopped:
 applmgmt pschealth vmcam vmware-content-library vmware-imagebuilder vmware-mbcs vmware-netdumper vmware-perfcharts vmware-psc-client vmware-rbd-watchdog vmware-sps vmware-statsmonitor vmware-updatemgr vmware-vcha vmware-vpxd vmware-vsan-health vmware-vsm vsphere-ui

I’m not a certified expert in VCSA, but this doesn’t look good. Too many stopped services.

So, I just give it a try to see if I can start them by running

service-control --start --all

The next output is a long one, but basically it will check what services are up and start the ones which are stopped

[email protected] [ ~ ]# service-control --start --all
Perform start operation. vmon_profile=ALL, svc_names=None, include_coreossvcs=True, include_leafossvcs=True
2020-04-06T17:31:57.180Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'lwsmd']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.185Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.188Z Service lwsmd does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.188Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'lwsmd', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.213Z Done running command
Successfully started service lwsmd
2020-04-06T17:31:57.217Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'vmafdd']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.589Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.593Z Service vmafdd does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.593Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'vmafdd', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.617Z Done running command
Successfully started service vmafdd
2020-04-06T17:31:57.621Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'vmdird']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.627Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.630Z Service vmdird does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.630Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'vmdird', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.654Z Done running command
Successfully started service vmdird
2020-04-06T17:31:57.657Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'vmcad']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.663Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.667Z Service vmcad does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.667Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'vmcad', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.690Z Done running command
Successfully started service vmcad
2020-04-06T17:31:57.694Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'vmware-sts-idmd']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.700Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.703Z Service vmware-sts-idmd does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.703Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'vmware-sts-idmd', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.727Z Done running command
Successfully started service vmware-sts-idmd
2020-04-06T17:31:57.730Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'vmware-stsd']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.736Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.739Z Service vmware-stsd does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.740Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'vmware-stsd', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.763Z Done running command
Successfully started service vmware-stsd
2020-04-06T17:31:57.767Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'vmdnsd']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.773Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.777Z Service vmdnsd does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.777Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'vmdnsd', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.801Z Done running command
Successfully started service vmdnsd
2020-04-06T17:31:57.805Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'is-enabled', u'vmware-psc-client']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.812Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.815Z Service vmware-psc-client does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.
2020-04-06T17:31:57.815Z Running command: ['/sbin/service', u'vmware-psc-client', 'status']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.839Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.843Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'daemon-reload']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.927Z Done running command
2020-04-06T17:31:57.927Z Running command: ['/usr/bin/systemctl', 'set-property', u'vmware-psc-client.service', 'MemoryAccounting=true', 'CPUAccounting=true', 'BlockIOAccounting=true']
2020-04-06T17:31:57.943Z Done running command
Successfully started service vmware-psc-client
Service-control failed. Error Failed to start vmon services.vmon-cli RC=1, stderr=Failed to start statsmonitor services. Error: Operation timed out

The last line above is not too encouraging, “failed” keywords is not something to I wanted to see in the output. I was thinking my attempt didn’t work.

However checking the service status again, I’ve seen the following:

[email protected] [ ~ ]# service-control --status --all
Running:
 applmgmt lwsmd pschealth vmafdd vmcad vmdird vmdnsd vmonapi vmware-cis-license vmware-cm vmware-content-library vmware-eam vmware-perfcharts vmware-psc-client vmware-rhttpproxy vmware-sca vmware-sps vmware-sts-idmd vmware-stsd vmware-updatemgr vmware-vapi-endpoint vmware-vmon vmware-vpostgres vmware-vpxd vmware-vpxd-svcs vmware-vsan-health vmware-vsm vsphere-client vsphere-ui
Stopped:
 vmcam vmware-imagebuilder vmware-mbcs vmware-netdumper vmware-rbd-watchdog vmware-statsmonitor vmware-vcha

This was for sure better than before.

I gave it a try by opening the https://vcsa.local.domain and there it was, the webpag working fine.

I’m not sure exactly why the restart of the VCSA resulted in some services not to start properly, but seems that a kick will do the job.

How to create your own Docker image

I mentioned in my previous post that I’ll explain how to create your own Docker image and customize it however you’d like. While is great to just use an image from Docker Hub, it can be that you need some customized image to fit your needs. As said before, is not hard at all to create the image and worth knowing how to do it.

I’ll use for this tutorial a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 minimal installation. You can follow the same steps (or almost) using different Linux distro, Microsoft Windows or MacOS. The reason why I chose Ubuntu is simply because is the distro that I’m most familiar and enjoy working with.

For all steps below you need to be root or run the commands via sudo. So you’ll see either # at the begining of the command if you’re root or $ sudo if you pick to run it with elevated rights.

Install Docker

# apt install -y docker.io

A word of advice here. Be sure to have docker.io typed. If you miss the .io, the system will install a docker, but that’s a different package:

docker/bionic 1.5-1build1 amd64
  System tray for KDE3/GNOME2 docklet applications

You’ll end up with something that cannot be used for what we want to achieve, since the docker command isn’t even there.

You can test if the installation completed successfully by using the following command:

# service docker status

You should see something like this in the output:

Since this is a new installation, you’ll have no images, no containers, nothing.
You can check, just to be sure.

# docker image ls

The result should be:

I’ll add at the end of the post some basic (and most important) Docker commands to get you started.

Pull Ubuntu 18.04 image – Optional step

This step is optional, but I’d advise to do it, just to test that everything is fine with your Docker installation In this case we’re going to use the official Ubuntu 18.04 minimal Docker image. If you want to read more about this image you can check the explanation on Ubuntu 18.04 minimal Docker image and check their repository on Docker Hub – Ubuntu.

# docker pull ubuntu:18.04

If everything goes well you should see a message ending with “Status: Downloaded newer image for ubuntu:18.04” :

Time to run our first container:

# docker run -i -t ubuntu:18.04 /bin/bash

You should be now in container shell:

Now that we tested you can type exit to leave the container.

Create Dockerfile

The Dockerfile is nothing more than a text document which contains all the commands a user could call on the command line to create an image.
A detailed explanation is beyond the scope of this post, but if you’d like to learn more, you can check the Docker Documentation – Dockerfile

Here is a sample that’s good to start with:

# My custom Ubuntu 18.04 with 
# various network tools installed
# Build image with:  docker build mycustomlinux01 .


FROM ubuntu:18.04
MAINTAINER Calin C., https://github.com/yotis1982
RUN apt-get update --fix-missing
RUN apt-get upgrade -y
RUN apt-get install -y software-properties-common
RUN apt-get install -y build-essential
RUN apt-get install -y net-tools mtr curl host
RUN apt-get install -y iputils-arping iputils-ping iputils-tracepath
RUN apt-get install -y iproute2
RUN apt-get install -y traceroute
RUN apt-get install -y tcpdump

A short explanation:

# – This is a comment, add here whatever you think is useful. I’ve picked the name “mycustomlinux01”, but you can add whatever you like.
FROM – is always your first instruction, because it names the base image you’re building your new image from.
MAINTAINER – is the creator of the Dockerfile.
RUN – instruction to run the specified command, in this case apt-get to install various packages

There are multiple instructions for setting environment variables like ADD, COPY, ENV, EXPOSE, LABEL, USER, WORKDIR, VOLUME, STOPSIGNAL, and ONBUILD. You can read all about them in the Docker Documentation – Dockerfile

Using RUN you can add whatever package you need in your custom image. The same like you would do on a regular Ubuntu installation.
Yes, all the packages above could have been added in one RUN line, but for the sake of better visibility I would suggest to have separate lines.

Create your custom Docker image

After you save the Dockerfile is time to create your image

# docker build -t mycustomlinux01 .

You’ll see a lot of output, the same like when you’re installing new packages in any Linux distro. When you see the following lines, you’ll know that the image was successful created:

Let’s check if the image is listed using:

# docker image ls

You should see the mycustomlinux01 image listed:

Since the image is created successful I’d suggest that you run a container using this image following the same steps like in the “Pull Ubuntu 18.04 image”

Basically that’s it, you just created your custom image.

As mentioned above, here is a list of commands that I find useful to have at hand when working with Docker containers.

List images:

# docker image ls

Start a container from an image:

# docker run -i -t ubuntu:12.04 /bin/bash

Using an ID (you get the ID from List image command):

# docker run -i -t 8dbd9e392a96 /bin/bash

List all containers:

# docker ps -a

List running containers:

# docker ps -l

Attach running container:

# docker attach “container ID”

Remove a container:

# docker rm “container ID”

Last but not least. If you liked my Ubuntu 18.04 Docker image customized for network engineers who wants to learn Python and you would like to install additional packages, here is the Dockerfile:

# Ubuntu 18.04 with Python, Paramiko, Netmiko, Ansible
# various other network tools installed and SSH activated
# Build image with:  docker build -t yotis/ubuntu1804-pfne .

FROM ubuntu:18.04
MAINTAINER Calin C., https://github.com/yotis1982
RUN apt-get update --fix-missing
RUN apt-get upgrade -y
RUN apt-get install -y software-properties-common
RUN apt-get install -y build-essential
RUN apt-get install -y openssl libssl-dev libffi-dev
RUN apt-get install -y net-tools mtr curl host socat
RUN apt-get install -y iputils-arping iputils-ping iputils-tracepath
RUN apt-get install -y iproute2
RUN apt-get install -y iptraf-ng traceroute
RUN apt-get install -y tcpdump nmap
RUN apt-get install -y iperf iperf3
RUN apt-get install -y python python-pip python-dev
RUN apt-get install -y python3 python3-pip python3-dev
RUN apt-get install -y openssh-client telnet
RUN apt-get install -y nano
RUN apt-get install -y netcat
RUN apt-get install -y socat
RUN pip install --upgrade pip
RUN pip install cryptography
RUN pip install paramiko
RUN pip install netmiko
RUN pip install pyntc
RUN pip install napalm
RUN apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible
RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y ansible
RUN apt-get clean
VOLUME [ "/root" ]
WORKDIR [ "/root" ]
CMD [ "sh", "-c", "cd; exec bash -i" ]

Obviously there is more about Docker than is covered on this post. It wasn’t in my scope to make a detailed analyze of Docker, rather a cheatsheet on how to create your custom image. If you want to learn more there are plenty resources out there and a good starting point is the Docker website.

I hope you find this how-to useful. As always, if you need to add something or you have questions about, please use the Comments form to get in contact with me.