Provide configurable 'pools' of instantly-available (running) virtual machines
Find a file
Glenn Sarti df783f0ed0 (POOLER-52) Use a Connection Pooler for vSphere connections
Previously the vSphere Provider would share a single vSphere connection for all
pools under management.  This would cause issues in large environments as this
would cause errors to be thrown or operations to slow down.  This commit
modifies the vSphere Provider to use a connection pool when communicating with
the vSphere API
- Uses the GenericConnectionPool object to manage the connection pool
- Uses a default connection pool size of:
	Whatever is biggest from:
	- How many pools this provider services
	- Maximum number of cloning tasks allowed
	- Need at least 2 connections so that a pool can have inventory functions
	  performed while cloning etc.
- A large connection_pool_timeout is used as a connection object is consumed
  during a VM clone, which can take up to 2 minutes
- Removes the `get_connection` method as that is now obsolete due to the
  connection pool
- Removes the `close` method as it is now obsolete
- Modified the spec tests slightly, to stop mocking get_connection as it no
  longer exists, and set a super low pool timeout so that if a test fails, it
  will fail quickly instead of taking the default time of 60+ seconds
2017-05-17 13:52:28 -07:00
lib (POOLER-52) Use a Connection Pooler for vSphere connections 2017-05-17 13:52:28 -07:00
scripts Updated YAML config variables 2016-01-05 13:59:05 -06:00
spec (POOLER-52) Use a Connection Pooler for vSphere connections 2017-05-17 13:52:28 -07:00
.gitignore (maint) Update Gemfile and gitignore 2017-02-08 17:35:58 -08:00
.rubocop.yml (maint) Update VMPooler files with fixes for Rubocop violations 2017-05-17 13:52:28 -07:00
.rubocop_todo.yml (maint) Update rubocop.yml to ignore 2 cops 2017-04-03 11:30:02 -07:00
.travis.yml (maint) Add rubocop checks to Travis 2017-02-10 13:33:36 -08:00
API.md Merge CI.next into Master (#161) 2016-07-25 10:43:32 -05:00
Dockerfile Add instructions for running in a Docker container 2016-12-20 10:54:09 -08:00
Gemfile (POOLER-52) Add a generic connection pool 2017-05-17 13:52:28 -07:00
LICENSE (maint) update README.md and LICENSE to reflect rebranding 2016-07-07 23:08:38 +00:00
Rakefile (maint) Only load rubocop rake tasks if gem is available 2017-02-22 15:23:45 -08:00
README.md (POOLER-70) Move vSphere configuration into providers section 2017-05-17 13:52:28 -07:00
vmpooler (maint) Enable Ctrl-C to kill all threads in developer environment 2017-02-08 17:35:58 -08:00
vmpooler.yaml.example (POOLER-52) Modify dummy provider to use a connection pool 2017-05-17 13:52:28 -07:00

vmpooler

vmpooler

vmpooler provides configurable 'pools' of instantly-available (running) virtual machines.

Usage

At Puppet, Inc. we run acceptance tests on thousands of disposable VMs every day. Dynamic cloning of VM templates initially worked fine for this, but added several seconds to each test run and was unable to account for failed clone tasks. By pushing these operations to a backend service, we were able to both speed up tests and eliminate test failures due to underlying infrastructure failures.

Installation

Prerequisites

vmpooler requires the following Ruby gems be installed:

It also requires that a Redis server exists somewhere, as this is the datastore used for vmpooler's inventory and queueing services.

Configuration

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.company.com'
    username: 'vmpooler'
    password: 'swimsw1msw!m'

:redis:
  server: 'redis.company.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, for additional configuration options and parameters.

Running via Docker

A Dockerfile is included in this repository to allow running vmpooler inside a Docker container. A vmpooler.yaml configuration file can be embedded in the current working directory, or specified inline in a VMPOOLER_CONFIG environment variable. To build and run:

docker build -t vmpooler . && docker run -e VMPOOLER_CONFIG -p 80:4567 -it vmpooler

API and Dashboard

vmpooler provides an API and web front-end (dashboard) on port :4567. See the provided YAML configuration 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 for more information.

Dashboard

A dashboard is provided to offer real-time statistics and historical graphs. It looks like this:

dashboard

Graphite is required for historical data retrieval. See the provided YAML configuration example, vmpooler.yaml.example, for details.

Command-line Utility

  • The vmpooler_client.py CLI utility provides easy access to the vmpooler service. The tool is cross-platform and written in Python.
  • vmfloaty is a ruby based CLI tool and scripting library written in ruby.

Vagrant plugin

Build status

Build Status

License

vmpooler is distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the LICENSE file for more details.