You want to spawn local VM quickly.. Like... really quickly. You want them to be as generic as possible. Actually you would like to reuse some existing cloud images!
This is the right tool for you.
Virt-Lightning exposes a CLI inspired by the Cloud and Vagrant. It can also prepare the Ansible inventory file.
This is handy to quickly validate a new Ansible playbook, or a role on a large number of environments.
In a nutshell:
echo "- distro: centos-7" > virt-lightning.yaml
vl up
vl ansible_inventory > inventory
ansible all -m ping -i inventoryDuring this recording, we:
- use the list of distributions to generate a virt-lightning.yaml file.
- we then create an environment based on this file
- once the environment is ready, we generate an Ansible inventory file
- and we use it to call Ansible's ping module on all the host.
- Python 3.8 or greater
- The Python3 binding for libvirt, the package is probably called
python3-libvirtor 'libvirt-python' according to pip. - Libvirt must be running, most of the time you just need to run:
sudo systemctl start --now libvirtd - Finally, be sure your user can access the system libvirt daemon, e.g with:
virsh -c qemu:///system
- You make also want to install
python3-urwidif you want to get the fancy list of VMs. This dependency is optional.
sudo dnf install libvirt-devel gcc python3-devel pipx
pipx ensurepath
pipx install virt-lightningsudo apt install python3-venv pkg-config gcc libvirt-dev python3-dev pipx
pipx ensurepath
pipx install virt-lightningvirt-lightning will be installed in ~/.local/bin/. Add it in your $PATH if
it's not already the case. For instance you can use:
echo "export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin/" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrcBefore you start your first VM, you need to fetch the images. To do so,
you just use the vl fetch command:
$ vl fetch fedora-32vl is an alias for virt-lightning, you can use both. In the rest of the document
we use the shortest version.
List the distro images that can be used. Its output is compatible with vl up. You can initialize a new configuration with: vl distro_list > virt-lightning.yaml.
virt-lightning will read the virt-lightning.yaml file from the current directory and prepare the associated VM.
Destroy all the VMs managed by Virt-Lightning.
Start a specific VM, without reading the virt-lightning.yaml file.
Stop just one VM.
List the VMs, their IP and if they are reachable.
Export an inventory in the Ansible format.
Show up a menu to select a host and open a ssh connection.
Like vl ssh but with the serial console of the VM.
Like vl console but with the SPICE console of the VM. Requires virt-viewer.
Fetch a VM image. You can find here a list of the available images. You can also update the custom configuration to add a private image hub.
If ~/.config/virt-lightning/config.ini exists, Virt-Lightning will read
its configuration there.
[main]
network_name = virt-lightning
root_password = root
storage_pool = virt-lightning
network_auto_clean_up = True
ssh_key_file = ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pubnetwork_name: if you want to use an alternative libvirt network
root_password: the root password
storage_pool: if you want to use an alternative libvirt storage pool
network_auto_clean_up: if you want to automatically remove a network when running virt-lightning down
ssh_key_file: if you want to use an alternative public key
private_hub: if you need to set additional url from where images should be retrieved, update the configuration file ~/.config/virt-lightning/config.ini adding the following
[main]
private_hub=url1,url2
A VM can be tuned at two different places with the following keys:
distro: the name of the base distro image to use, it's the only mandatory parameter.name: the VM namememory: the amount of memory to dedicate to the VMvcpus: the number of vcpu to dedicate to the VMroot_password: the root password in clear textssh_key_file: the path of the public key for connecting to the VMgroups: this list of groups will be used if you generate an Ansible inventory.disks: a list of disks to create and attach to the VM. The first one is used as the root disk. Default to[{"size": 15}]sizethe size of the disk in GB. Default is1.
networks: a list of network to attach to the VM. The default is: one virtio interface attached tovirt-lightningnetwork.network: the name of the libvirt network. Default is the keynetwork_namefrom the configuration (virt-lightningby default). The key cannot be used withbridge.ipv4: a static IPv4. Default is a dynamic IPv4 address.nic_model: the libvirt driver to use. Default isvirtiomac: an optional static MAC address, e.g: '52:54:00:71:b1:b6'bridge: optional, the name of a bridge to connect to. This key replace thenetworkkey.virtualport_type: The type of the virtualport, currently, this can be used withbridge.
- name: esxi-vcenter
distro: esxi-6.7
memory: 12000
root_disk_size: 30
vcpus: 2
root_password: '!234AaAa56'
groups: ['all_esxi']
- name: esxi1
distro: esxi-6.7
memory: 4096
vcpus: 1
root_password: '!234AaAa56'
groups: ['all_esxi', 'esxi_lab']
- name: esxi2
distro: esxi-6.7
memory: 4096
vcpus: 1
root_password: '!234AaAa56'
groups: ['all_esxi', 'esxi_lab']
- name: centos-7
distro: centos-7
networks:
- network: default
ipv4: 192.168.122.50
bootcmd:
- yum update -y- name: controller
distro: fedora-35
- bridge: my-ovs-bridge-name
virtualport_type: openvswitch- name: vlvm-fedora-40
distro: fedora-40
networks:
- network: virt-lightning
nic_model: virtio
- bridge: br0
nic_model: virtiocat /var/lib/virt-lightning/pool/upstream/esxi-6.7.yaml
username: root
python_interpreter: /bin/python
memory: 4096
networks:
- network: virt-lightning
nic_model: virtio
- network: default
nic_model: e1000User can create a snapshot of VM to restore it later. Default configuration of virt-lightning supports snapshots both
for running and powering off VMs. qcow2 disk format used allows diskspace-wise incremental snapshotting, keeping only
updated storage blocks. virsh tool supports it by CLI, virt-manager provides a neat GUI supporting most of
the features
# create first snapshot of running machine
virsh snapshot-create-as --domain vm_name --name snapshot_1
# create second snapshot
virsh snapshot-create-as --domain vm_name --name snapshot_2
# validate that both of them were saved
virsh snapshot-list vm_name
# and revert to the first one
virsh snapshot-revert vm_name --snapshotname snapshot_1install libvirt-dev package:
Debian/Ubuntu:
apt install python3-venv pkg-config gcc libvirt-dev python3-devFedora/RHEL:
dnf install python3-devel gcc libvirt-develYou can run a development copy in a virtual env:
python3 -m venv /tmp/vl-dev-venv
. /tmp/vl-dev-venv/bin/activate
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
pip3 install -e /path/to/my-virt-lightning-copy
vlThe changes that are introduce in /path/to/my-virt-lightning-copy should be visible when you run vl from within the virtual env. running test will require:
pip3 install -r test-requirements.txt
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