knife-xenserver

Provision virtual machines with Citrix XenServer and Opscode Chef.

Upgrading knife-xenserver

When upgrading knife-xenserver, it's very important to remove older knife-xenserver versions

gem update knife-xenserver
gem clean knife-xenserver

Usage

knife xenserver --help

Examples

List all the VMs

knife xenserver vm list --xenserver-host fooserver \
                        --xenserver-username root \
                        --xenserver-password secret

List custom templates

knife xenserver template list --xenserver-host fooserver \
                              --xenserver-username root \
                              --xenserver-password secret

Include built-in templates too

knife xenserver template list --xenserver-host fooserver \
                              --xenserver-username root \
                              --xenserver-password secret \
                              --include-builtin

Create a new template from a VHD file (PV by default, use --hvm otherwise)

knife xenserver template create --vm-name ubuntu-precise-amd64 \
                                --vm-disk ubuntu-precise.vhd \
                                --vm-memory 512 \
                                --vm-networks 'Integration-VLAN' \
                                --storage-repository 'Local storage' \
                                --xenserver-password changeme \
                                --xenserver-host 10.0.0.2 

Create a VM from template ed089e35-fb49-f555-4e20-9b7f3db8df2d and bootstrap it using the 'root' user and password 'secret'. The VM is created without VIFs, inherited VIFs from template are removed by default (use --keep-template-networks to avoid that)

knife xenserver vm create --vm-template ed089e35-fb49-f555-4e20-9b7f3db8df2d \
                          --vm-name foobar --ssh-user root \
                          --ssh-password secret 

Create a VM from template and add two custom VIFs in networks 'Integration-VLAN' and 'Another-VLAN', with MAC address 11:22:33:44:55:66 for the first VIF

knife xenserver vm create --vm-template ed089e35-fb49-f555-4e20-9b7f3db8df2d \
                          --vm-name foobar --ssh-user root \
                          --ssh-password secret \
                          --vm-networks 'Integration-VLAN,Another-VLAN' \
                          --mac-addresses 11:22:33:44:55:66

Create a VM from template and supply ip/host/domain configuration. Requires installation of xe-automater scripts (https://github.com/krobertson/xenserver-automater)

knife xenserver vm create   --vm-template my-template -x root --keep-template-networks \
                            --vm-name my-hostname \
                            --vm-ip 172.20.1.25 --vm-netmask 255.255.0.0 --vm-gateway 172.20.0.1 --vm-dns 172.20.0.3 \
                            --vm-domain my-domain.local

The domU/guest will also need xe-guest-utilities installed. You can then list xenstore attributes running 'xenstore-ls vm-data' inside domU.

List hypervisor networks

knife xenserver network list

Sample .chef/knife.rb config

knife[:xenserver_password] = "secret"
knife[:xenserver_username] = "root"
knife[:xenserver_host]     = "xenserver-real"

Building the rubygem

gem build knife-xenserver.gemspec