Deploy and reconfigure Instance from Clone
This tutorial details how to deploy a virtual machine from either a running or a powered off virtual machine in the ITS Private Cloud and reconfigure the operating system (hostname, domain, gateway, dns, etc.) using the VSS CLI. It assumes you already have set up a VSS account with access to the REST API, a virtual machine with operating system and VMware Tools installed which will be the source virtual machine.
Note
If you do not have a virtual machine with operating system installed, please refer to Deploying a Development Environment.
Source Virtual Machine
A source virtual machine can be either a powered on or off virtual machine. However, the power state is relevant in terms of deployment time. This is because when cloning a running virtual machine, first it creates a snapshot and then starts copying the data. Even though the memory data is not kept, it takes time to generate the snapshot. For this example, we will be using a powered on virtual machine with Ubuntu installed.
Optional* First obtain the vm identifier moref (managed object reference)
of the source virtual machine:
Note
This version of the VSS CLI supports managing virtual machines not only using the UUID and Moref but using names. In case of multiple results, the CLI prompts to select the right instance.
vss-cli compute vm ls -f name=Front
moref name folder.path cpu_count memory_gb power_state ip_address
------- ---------------- ------------------------- ----------- ----------- ------------- ------------
vm-2182 2004T-Frontend-1 VSS > Development > Dev03 1 1 poweredOff
Save the moref in MOREF environment variable.
Launch Instance
Launching an instance from-clone is simpler than shell since the
from-clone command carbon copies source virtual machine specifications
and creates an instance with just name and --description/-d, however to
make this example more realistic, we will specify a different logical folder,
otherwise the from-clone command will use the source virtual machine
folder, network, disks and domain.
Run vss-cli compute vm mk from-clone --help to obtain the list of
arguments and options required:
Usage: vss-cli compute vm mk from-clone [OPTIONS] [NAME]
Clone virtual machine from running or powered off vm.
If name argument is not specified, -clone suffix will be added to
resulting virtual machine.
Options:
-s, --source TEXT Source virtual machine or template MOREF or
UUID. [required]
-d, --description TEXT A brief description. [required]
-b, --client TEXT Client department.
-a, --admin TEXT Admin name, phone number and email separated
by `:` i.e. "John
Doe:416-123-1234:john.doe@utoronto.ca"
-r, --inform TEXT Informational contact emails in comma
separated
-u, --usage [Test|Prod|Dev|QA] Vm usage.
-o, --os TEXT Guest operating system id.
-m, --memory INTEGER Memory in GB.
-c, --cpu INTEGER Cpu count.
--cores-per-socket INTEGER Cores per socket.
-f, --folder TEXT Logical folder moref name or path.
--scsi TEXT SCSI Controller Spec <type>=<sharing>.
-i, --disk TEXT Disk spec
<capacity>=<backing_mode>=<backing_sharing>.
optional: backing_mode, backing_sharing
-n, --net TEXT Network adapter <moref-or-name>=<nic-type>.
-t, --domain TEXT Target fault domain name or moref.
--notes TEXT Custom notes.
-p, --custom-spec TEXT Guest OS custom specification in JSON
format.
-e, --extra-config TEXT Extra configuration key=value format.
--power-on Power on after successful deployment.
--template Mark the VM as template after deployment.
--vss-service TEXT VSS Service related to VM
--instances INTEGER Number of instances to deploy [default: 1]
-w, --firmware TEXT Firmware type.
--tpm Add Trusted Platform Module device.
--storage-type TEXT Storage type.
--snapshot TEXT Snapshot to clone.
--retire-type [timedelta|datetime]
Retirement request type.
--retire-warning INTEGER Days before retirement date to notify
--retire-value TEXT Value for given retirement type. i.e.
<hours>,<days>,<months>
--help Show this message and exit.
Network
Run vss-cli compute net ls to list available network segments to your
account. You must have at least VL-1584-VSS-PUBLIC which is our public network.
Note
This version of the VSS CLI supports managing networks not only using the moref, but also using names. In case of multiple results, the CLI prompts to select the right instance.
vss-cli compute net ls -f name=PUBLIC
moref name description subnet ports
----------------- ------------------ ------------------ -------------- -------
dvportgroup-11052 VL-1584-VSS-PUBLIC VSS Public network 142.1.216.0/23 32
Save dvportgroup-11052 in NET environment variable:
export NET=dvportgroup-11052
By default, the network adapter will use vmxnet3 which provides ideal performance, however a few legacy operating systems does not have the drivers. In such case, you can specify which adapter type between: e1000e*, e1000, vmxnet2 or vmxnet3. To do so, append the adapter type to the network adapter network as follows:
export NET=dvportgroup-11052=e1000e
Folder
Logical folders can be listed by running vss-cli compute folder ls.
Select the target moref folder to store the virtual machine on:
Note
This version of the VSS CLI supports managing logical folders not only using the moref, but also using name or path. In case of multiple results, the CLI prompts to select the right instance.
vss-cli compute folder ls -f name=API
moref name path parent.name
----------- --------------- --------------------------------- ---------------
group-v6736 APIDemo jm > Demo > APIDemo jm
Set the FOLDER environment variable to the target folder
(the folder moref may vary):
export FOLDER=group-v6736
Before proceeding to deploy the virtual machine, a guest operating system customization specification needs to be created.
Customization Spec
Customizing a guest operating system is helpful to prevent conflicts if virtual machines are identical after deployed. To customize the guest operating system, VMware Tools and Perl must be installed in the source virtual machine.
The vss-cli compute vm mk from-clone command provides the option
-p/--custom-spec to pass the guest os customization spec, which is
structured as follows:
{
"hostname": "string",
"domain": "string",
"dns": [
"string"
],
"dns_suffix": [
"string"
],
"interfaces": [{"dhcp": "bool",
"ip": "string",
"mask": "string",
"gateway": ["string"]
}]
}
Since we are running on a DHCP-enabled network, we will just update the hostname and domain. The customization spec added will be:
{
"hostname": "fe1",
"domain": "eis.utoronto.ca",
"interfaces": [{"dhcp": true}]
}
Serializing the above JSON structure would be something like:
'{"hostname": "fe1", "domain": "eis.utoronto.ca", "interfaces": [{"dhcp": true}]}'
Note
Passing above JSON data structure to --custom-spec in Linux, macOS, or Unix and
Windows PowerShell use the single quote ' to enclose it. On the Windows command prompt,
use the double quote " to enclose the data structure and escape the double quotes from
the data structure using the backslash \.
Deployment
At this point, we have all requirements to run
vss-cli compute vm mk from-clone command to submit a deployment
request. For this example, the request is made for 2GB of memory, 2 vCPU,
2x40GB disks and to reconfigure the hostname and domain.
Note
Deploy multiple instances with the --instances flag.
Note
Cloning a virtual machine from a specific snapshot state, use the --snapshot flag with the
snapshot id. For more information about how to list snapshots, please refer to the
Snapshot example.
vss-cli compute vm mk --wait from-clone --power-on --source Frontend \
--client EIS --folder APIDemo \
--memory 2 --cpu 2 --disk 40 --disk 40 --net VSS \
--custom-spec '{"hostname": "fe2", "domain": "eis.utoronto.ca", "interfaces": [{"dhcp": true}]}' \
--storage-type hdd \
--description "Frontend 2" Frontend2
Note
To wait for the deployment to complete, you could use the --wait flag at the mk command level:
i.e. vss-cli compute vm mk --wait from-clone ...`
Wait a few minutes until the virtual machine is deployed.
vss-cli request new ls -s created_on=desc -c 1
id created_on updated_on status vm_moref vm_name approval.approved built_from
---- --------------------------- --------------------------- --------- ---------- --------------- ------------------- ------------
76 2020-04-24 Fri 16:36:15 EDT 2020-04-24 Fri 16:37:31 EDT PROCESSED vm-2183 2004T-Frontend2 True clone
Access Virtual Machine
Since we added the --power-on option, the virtual machine should have been powered on
right after the Guest Operating System Customization task completed.
In a few minutes the virtual machine will show the hostname and ip configuration by running
vss-cli compute vm get <name-or-vm-id> guest:
vss-cli compute vm get Frontend2 guest
hostname : fe2
ip_address : 142.1.217.228, fe80::250:56ff:fe92:323f
full_name : CentOS 8 (64-bit)
guest_id : centos8_64Guest
running_status : guestToolsRunning
The Guest Host Name shows that the hostname has been changed, and now
you will be able to access via either ssh or the virtual machine console:
ssh username@<ip-address>
vss-cli compute vm get Frontend2 vsphere-link -l