wiki:GENIExperimenter/Tutorials/SystematicExprCaseStudy/InstallSoftware

Version 21 (modified by lnevers@bbn.com, 8 years ago) (diff)

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Single Node Software Installation and Custom Images

This experiment is step 1 in the multi-part tutorial on Systematic Experimental Design. The Systematic Experimental Design approach follows this sequence:

Image Map

The goal is to setup a layer-3 virtual network with multiple virtual routers. Hence, the first step is to install the routing software. There are various options, such as `XORP` and `Quagga`. In this tutorial, we will install XORP to enable routing functionalities on nodes.

Sometimes it may take a long time to install software on a node, so it is always good to start with one node to test out the whole installation process. The figure below provides an overview of the software installation to a VM. This process turns a generic VM into a software router.

1. Reserve a VM with a Standard Image

Assume we have a slice created already. We want to reserve a Xen VM running a standard Ubuntu image as the basis of the software router.

a. Select a VM from an InstaGENI Site

Once you have created an image select the Add Resources button to reserve a virtual machine.

In the resulting "Add Resources" panel, drag and drop a Xen VM:

Now click on "Site 1" to select an InstaGENI aggregates, this will show the available sites in the left hand actions:

We will choose the InstaGENI aggregate Kentucky PKS2:

Note Please go to HowToReserveVM for details on how to reserve a VM from an aggregate.

b. Select a Standard Images

Click on the node to show the left-hand commands panel that allows image selection. Click on Disk Image pull-down to see available standard images:

Select Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. You are now ready to reserve the VM, which is done by scrolling to the bottom of the Add Resources page and clicking on the Reserve Resources button:

Once selected, the results section will be updated to show the status for the request as it progresses:

c. Login to the VM

Once the VM sliver creation is completed, you can get status in slice page:

The resources are shown as green when ready.

You are able to login to the node from a terminal using ssh.

ssh username@hostname -p xxxxx
Note You can find information on how to login to GENI hosts from HowToLogin.

2. Customize Your VM

In this tutorial we will install XORP 1.8.5 on Ubuntu 12.04 with the following steps:

  • Install Dependencies
     $ sudo apt-get update
     $ sudo apt-get install libssl-dev 
     $ sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev  
     $ sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev 
     $ sudo apt-get install g++ traceroute 
     $ sudo apt-get install scons 
    
  • Download XORP source files
     $ cd 
     $ wget http://www.xorp.org/releases/current/xorp-1.8.5-src.tar.bz2
     $ tar jvxf xorp-1.8.5-src.tar.bz2
    
  • Compile and build XORP
     $ cd xorp
     $ scons
     $ sudo scons install
    
  • Verify the XORP installation (Optional)
     $ scons check
    

The xorp installation takes ~40 minutes to complete. If you choose to run rhe scons check it will take an additional hour to complete. Once completed you will find the directory xorp under path /usr/local/ directory

Note To install other version of XORP, please check the XORP Official Website for details on the dependencies and installation instructions.

3. Create a Custom Image

From the manual installation procedure to customize the VM, we learned that it is not efficient to manually install XORP on multiple VMs. An alternative approach is to create a custom image of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with XORP pre-installed and save this custom image for future usage.

You can create InstaGENI custom images in the Slice page by selecting the Snapshot button:

Choose a custom image name that reflects its content and whether the image is visible to other GENI Users. Also note that the image name MUST include alphanumeric characters only.

Click on the Create button and you will get an update on the same page capturing image information :

Note The custom image with XORP pre-installed is available for use by any InstaGENI aggregate by using the URL above. This will allow you to skip the customization in Step 2 when using this newly defined custom image.

Further details can be found at ManageCustomImageInstaGENI.

If your are going to use the same slice and aggregate in the next step, now it's time to release the Xen VM resource in the Slices panel:

If you are using Omni:

 $ omni.py -a <aggregate name> deletesliver <slicename>

4. Verify InstaGENI Custom Image

Now let's load the custom image created in Step 3.

Create a new VM in Flack, and edit the node property. Instead of selecting an advertised image as we did in step 1.b, we will use the URL to the custom image we just created in step 3. Copy an paste the following URL to the URL field.

https://www.instageni.clemson.edu/image_metadata.php?uuid=5417bcef-224e-11e4-aa5a-000000000000

Apply the change, and submit the VM reservation request in Flack.

Once the VM is ready to login, we can verify the XORP installation.

xuanliu@xen:$ cd /usr/local/xorp/sbin
xuanliu@xen:/usr/local/xorp/sbin$ ls
bgp_xrl_shell_funcs.sh  fea_xrl_shell_funcs.sh  xorp_profiler  xorpsh
call_xrl                rib_xrl_shell_funcs.sh  xorp_rtrmgr

5. Cleanup the Slice

After verify the XORP installation, we can cleanup the slice for next step.

  • Use Omni
    $ omni.py -a <aggregate name> deletesliver <slicename>
    
  • Use Flack
    • Press the Delete button in the bottom of your canvas.
    • Select Delete at used manager and confirm your selection.

Overview

Step II: Small Topology

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