It's an OpenStack Devstack builder!

More specifically, it's a set of Ansible plays to build VMs, run devstack on them, and perform various openstacky activities such as baremetal introspection.

mogrel-punt has been tested on Fedora 30. You can use mongrel-punt to build VMs for the following operating systems:

• Centos 7 (centos7)
• Centos 8 (centos8)
• Fedora 29 (f29)
• Ubuntu 18.04 (u1804)

The problem is that several operating systems don't fully work for various reasons. Please see Limitations for the reasons why, and how you can work around these issues. But once you address these, you can make use of the following plays.

Each supported operating system has a separate inventory file inventory-*.yml in the top-level directory. This is where you can customise what mongrel-punt will do.

The very first thing you want to do is to update the name: definition. It is suggested that you use OS-date-rev, where OS is one of [centos7, f29, u1804]; date is today's date in YYYYMMDD format i.e. 20190812; and rev is an integer indicating a revision number to distinguish multiple builds on the same day.

In mongrel-punt, we have some higher-level playbooks that run individual plays. These are:

• 00-ipa.yml - build an ironic-python-agent disk image
• 00-start-devstack.yml - builds and starts a devstack

You can run these on the supported operating systems as follows:

Alternatively, you can run individuals plays. See Limitations to determine which plays are supported where.

• build-ipa-image.yml - build an ironic-python-agent image and copies the resultant images back to the invoking host
• build-ironic-node.yml - builds virtual baremetal nodes alongside the devstack vm
• build-vm.yml - builds a virtual machine for the devstack node
• copy-ipa-image.yml - copies ip images from localhost into the devstack vm
• enroll-nodes.yml - enrolls virtual baremetal ironic nodes into devstack
• get-vm-ip-address.yml - utility play to obtain the devstack IP address
• introspect-nodes.yml - performs introspection on the (nested) virtual baremetal nodes, adding traits to them based upon instrospection rules configured in /opt/stack/introspection/rules.json
• metalsmith-provision-traits.yml - provision virtual baremetal ironic nodes based upon traits added via introspection
• prepare-devstack.yml - configures your VM ready to run devstack
• provide-tinyipa.yml - copy ip disk images from localhost onto the devstack node
• build-ipa-image.yml - builds a customised tinyipa image for introspection
• start-devstack.yml - runs devstack.

This is how a typical build will go.

1. Choose your operating system
2. Customise your inventory file, one of [inventory-centos7.yml, inventory-f29.yml, inventory-u1804.yml]
3. Build your VM, either using a golden image or the build-vm.yml playbook. i.e. ansible-playbook -K -i inventory-centos7.yml playbooks/build-vm.yml
4. Prepare your VM for devstack. i.e. ansible-playbook -K -i inventory-centos7.yml playbooks/prepare-devstack.yml
5. Build a customised tinyipa image. i.e. ansible-playbook -K -i inventory-f29.yml playbooks/build-ipa-image.yml
6. Start devstack, noting that it will take around 30 minutes before it completes. i.e. ansible-playbook -K -i inventory-centos7.yml playbooks/start-devstack.yml
7. Introspect your nodes. i.e. ansible-playbook -K -i inventory-centos7.yml playbooks/introspect-nodes.yml

Right now, there are some challenges with various target operating systems.

You can build a Fedora 29 VM by doing this:

ansible-playbook -K -i inventory-f29.yml playbooks/build-vm.yml

But currently Fedora can't run an Ironic-ised devstack, due to virtual baremetal nodes entering "clean failed" state. Once that is fixed upstream, you can follow Running Plays.

U1804 is not supported for automated kickstart based builds (or is hard to work out without up to date documentation), so the play to build a VM is not complete. You'll have to build that by hand first - see Building an U18.04 VM for ideas. After that's done, you can follow Running Plays.

Centos 7 uses an old kernel version, which is too old for "ironic-python-agent-builder" to use. Instead, use either Ubuntu 18.04 or Fedora 29 to build your customised tinyipa images for baremetal node introspection.

Centos 8 is supported for all operations, except for actually running devstack. It is expected that support for Centos 8 / RHEL-8 will be added to devstack, but it is not yet available.

What is the meaning of the term, "mongrel punt"?

Australia's national sport is Australian Rules Football (AFL)[1], which is different from rugby, gridiron and soccer. It's a game where people kick the football, pass the football via punching ("handball"), ferociously tackle each other, and score by kicking the ball between the goal posts.

A poorly executed kick is referred to as a "mongrel punt". It gets the job done, but is not considered orthodox, reliable, or stylish. According to wikipedia, it is "a tumbling, awkward looking kick"[2]. It describes what a set of Ansible plays to standup an OpenStack devstack is.

Here's a video of what a mongrel punt is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNlm5Xwf51c

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMZYZcoAcU0 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Australian_rules_football