1. VMware Studio Introduction
Hubert Chan

2. VMware Studio Benefits
• VMware Studio Benefits
– Building vApps
– Automated the building of Virtual Appliances
– Integrate Virtual Appliance Management
Infrastructure
– Other Benefit
https://www.vmware.com/products/studio/benefits.html

3. Before VMware Studio Solution
• Creating a Base Image by hand
– Manual 3rd party Libraries Management
– Manual cleanup and post action
– Modification is not version controlled
– Recreate base image when add/remove 3rd party
libraries

4. State of Art
• Manual Instruction NOT so reliable
• Midnight Daily Build suffers the Build Master
• Frequent bug fixing cause build master busy to
generate new OVA

5. Generate OVA by VMware Studio
• VMware Studio integrates
– VIX API
– vSphere API
– CentOS / RHEL
• Kickstart (ks.cfg)
• Yum repository

6. What you need to do
• Create a VM profile
– VM template (CentOS / RedHat / …)
– Define VM Hardware Specification
• CPU, RAM, NICs
• Partition Layout
– Define Installed Applications
– Define Pre/Post Install Scripts
– Build Related settings

7. VM Profile Template
• Inherit base template

8. Hardware Specification
• CPU / RAM / NICs

9. Hardware Specification
• Disk and Partition

10. Support CentOS repository
• Install RPMs from media (DVD ISO)

11. Install Packages
• Install 3rd party / ISV packages

12. Application Pre/Post Install Scripts
• Customization Scripts

13. Build Related Settings
• ESXi related setting

14. Command Line
• studiocli provides
– Query build status
– Create a new build
– Delete a build

15. Ideally…
• Ideally…
– Create a VM profile once
– Use studiocli to trigger a build
– Copy built OVA through SCP

16. We think we can have
• Advantages
– Auto build for OVA
– Add/Remove 3rd party libraries without pain
– Easy to customize pre/post install scripts
– VM Profile can be version controlled

17. Houston, we’ve got a problem.
• Install4j package is not RPM
– Use post install script to install install4j package
$ wget -r -np -nH -R "index.html*"
http://[VADK.localIP]/install_package/

18. Houston, we’ve got a problem.
• No CentOS 6.2 Template
– Rewrite from RHEL 6.1
• Deployment of Install Package/RPMs is slow
– Use rsync
– http://coolshell.cn/articles/7425.html

19. Houston, we’ve got a problem.
• Provide a way to do manual installation
– Hand made python scripts to control flows
• Installation
• Patch 3rd party configuration
• Firewall rules
• studiocli does not work through SSH
– Use /opt/vmware/share/build/vabs.pl

20. Houston, we’ve got a problem.
• Modify VM profile XML for rpms/scripts
– Use python lxml and glob
• Need a CPAN mirror
– Mini CPAN
– Hack for CPAN init

21. Houston, we’ve got a problem.
• Detect build automatically from tw-testing
– autofs to mount tw-testing
– Check MD5 every 5 minutes and store version in a
python pickle
– Trigger OVA build

22. Houston, we’ve got a problem.
• Performance
– Tuning (especially in memory)
– Use SSD to save some time
– Can use vmxnet in the future
• Check VM instance whether powered off bug
– No good solution now

23. Houston, we’ve got a problem.
• Separate Deployment Configuration
– Use WRKDIR for latest package
– Only overwrite deployment settings

25. Q&A