[Xen-devel] Automation scripts

[Paul Dorman <pauld@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone on the list has written any scripts to automate the 
management of VMs with loopback images. Here's what I want to be able to do:

* Store existing physical machine file systems, or pristine installs in 
loopback images on my Xen servers (something I'll do manually)

* Run a script that will start a VM from one of these images, automatically 
associate it with a loopback device, give it a name, RAM allocation, network 
addresses, and set various internal parameters, such as hostname, routes, 
etc., based on a set of arguments. So something like "script <imagename> 
<hostname> <netconfigs> <RAM> <.. etc.

* Have the same script take another argument that will cause it to clone a 
filesystem image first before starting the VM, so that I can use a set of 
images as VM templates. I intend to have a large collection of templates 
which my developers can use to create VMs suited to whatever project they are 
working on.

* After a VM machine has been instantiated, I would like to be able to start 
and stop it with simple "start hostname" and "stop hostname" kinds of 
commands.

* Have management tools so that I can for example shift a VM from one Xen 
server to another (shift hostname xenservername). These would also be used by 
load balancing scripts to shift machines around to manage resources.

I'd like to build a web-based management system for these scripts, so that 
developers are free to create and control Xen VMs (though naturally with 
limitations based on what the servers can handle -- so my bosses will know 
when they need to buy me more servers :o)  ).

I don't see these as particularly difficult, but if someone has done them 
already .... Also, I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have on automation 
of this kind, particularly in terms of functionality and practicalities.

Thanks for your time!

Paul


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