vmpooler/README.md
kirby@puppetlabs.com 86e92de4cf (POOLER-158) Add capability to provision VMs on demand
This change adds a capability to vmpooler to provision instances on
demand. Without this change vmpooler only supports retrieving machines
from pre-provisioned pools.

Additionally, this change refactors redis interactions to reduce round
trips to redis. Specifically, multi and pipelined redis commands are
added where possible to reduce the number of times we are calling redis.

To support the redis refactor the redis interaction has changed to
leveraging a connection pool. In addition to offering multiple
connections for pool manager to use, the redis interactions in pool
manager are now thread safe.

Ready TTL is now a global parameter that can be set as a default for all
pools. A default of 0 has been removed, because this is an unreasonable
default behavior, which would leave a provisioned instance in the pool
indefinitely.

Pool empty messages have been removed when the pool size is set to 0.
Without this change, when a pool was set to a size of 0 the API and pool
manager would both show that a pool is empty.
2020-05-15 14:12:36 -07:00

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4.5 KiB
Markdown

![vmpooler](https://raw.github.com/sschneid/vmpooler/master/lib/vmpooler/public/img/logo.gif)
# vmpooler
vmpooler provides configurable 'pools' of instantly-available (running) virtual machines.
## Usage
At [Puppet, Inc.](http://puppet.com) we run acceptance tests on thousands of disposable VMs every day. Vmpooler manages the lifecycle of these VMs from request through deletion, with options available to pool ready instances, and provision on demand.
## Installation
### Prerequisites
vmpooler is available as a gem
To use the gem `gem install vmpooler`
### Dependencies
Vmpooler requires a [Redis](http://redis.io/) server. This is the datastore used for vmpooler's inventory and queueing services.
### Configuration
Configuration for vmpooler may be provided via environment variables, or a configuration file.
Please see this [configuration](docs/configuration.md) document for more details about configuring vmpooler via environment variables.
The following YAML configuration sets up two pools, `debian-7-i386` and `debian-7-x86_64`, which contain 5 running VMs each:
```
---
:providers:
:vsphere:
server: 'vsphere.example.com'
username: 'vmpooler'
password: 'swimsw1msw!m'
:redis:
server: 'redis.example.com'
:config:
logfile: '/var/log/vmpooler.log'
:pools:
- name: 'debian-7-i386'
template: 'Templates/debian-7-i386'
folder: 'Pooled VMs/debian-7-i386'
pool: 'Pooled VMs/debian-7-i386'
datastore: 'vmstorage'
size: 5
provider: vsphere
- name: 'debian-7-x86_64'
template: 'Templates/debian-7-x86_64'
folder: 'Pooled VMs/debian-7-x86_64'
pool: 'Pooled VMs/debian-7-x86_64'
datastore: 'vmstorage'
size: 5
provider: vsphere
```
See the provided YAML configuration example, [vmpooler.yaml.example](vmpooler.yaml.example), for additional configuration options and parameters or for supporting multiple providers.
### Running via Docker
A [Dockerfile](/docker/Dockerfile) is included in this repository to allow running vmpooler inside a Docker container. A configuration file can be used via volume mapping, and specifying the destination as the configuration file via environment variables, or the application can be configured with environment variables alone. The Dockerfile provides an entrypoint so you may choose whether to run API, or manager services. The default behavior will run both. To build and run:
```
docker build -t vmpooler . && docker run -e VMPOOLER_CONFIG -p 80:4567 -it vmpooler
```
To run only the API and dashboard
```
docker run -p 80:4567 -it vmpooler api
```
To run only the manager component
```
docker run -it vmpooler manager
```
### docker-compose
A docker-compose file is provided to support running vmpooler easily via docker-compose. This is useful for development because your local code is used to build the gem used in the docker-compose environment.
```
docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up
```
### Running Docker inside Vagrant
A vagrantfile is included in this repository. Please see [vagrant instructions](docs/vagrant.md) for details.
## API and Dashboard
vmpooler provides an API and web front-end (dashboard) on port `:4567`. See the provided YAML configuration example, [vmpooler.yaml.example](vmpooler.yaml.example), to specify an alternative port to listen on.
### API
vmpooler provides a REST API for VM management. See the [API documentation](docs/API.md) for more information.
### Dashboard
A dashboard is provided to offer real-time statistics and historical graphs. It looks like this:
![dashboard](https://raw.github.com/sschneid/vmpooler/gh-pages/img/screenshots/dashboard.png)
[Graphite](http://graphite.wikidot.com/) is required for historical data retrieval. See the provided YAML configuration example, [vmpooler.yaml.example](vmpooler.yaml.example), for details.
## Command-line Utility
- [vmfloaty](https://github.com/briancain/vmfloaty) is a ruby based CLI tool and scripting library written in ruby.
## Vagrant plugin
- [vagrant-vmpooler](https://github.com/briancain/vagrant-vmpooler) Use Vagrant to create and manage your vmpooler instances.
## Development and further documentation
For more information about setting up a development instance of vmpooler or other subjects, see the [docs/](docs) directory.
## Build status
[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/puppetlabs/vmpooler.png?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/puppetlabs/vmpooler)
## License
vmpooler is distributed under the [Apache License, Version 2.0](http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html). See the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for more details.