OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook

http://www.openstackcookbook.com/

May the fourth be with you!

4th Edition Cover

4th Edition Cover

It is with immense pleasure that we bring to you the 4th Edition of the OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook by Packt Publishing!

Brought to you by 4 talented authors from Rackspace: Kevin Jackson, Cody Bunch, Egle Sigler and James Denton; a host of tenacious technical reviewers: Christian Ashby, Stefano Canepa, Ricky Donato, Geoff Higginbottom, Andy McCrae, and Wojciech Sciesinski; and a Packt team keeping us in check!

We have listened to your feedback and attempted to bend as many rules as we can to bring you a book that will help you understand, deploy and operate an OpenStack cloud environment.

When the 1st Edition was written in 2012, I didn’t think I’d still be updating it today to make a 4th Edition! Thank you to everyone involved. To the clever people that helped bring this to fruition, I thank you. To our readers – please enjoy!

UK Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mStv8e

US Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/OpenStack-Cloud-Computing-Cookbook-Fourth/dp/1788398769/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1516362964&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=openstack+fourth+edition&psc=1

Packt: https://www.packtpub.com/virtualization-and-cloud/openstack-cloud-computing-cookbook-fourth-edition

 

The OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook – Third Edition – is now available to purchase!

Thanks to Cody Bunch and Egle Sigler – and whole bunch of tech reviewers spanning the cloud and OpenStack community, the OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook has had its 3rd reboot. We cover configuration of Nova, Neutron, Glance, Keystone, Cinder and Swift. We show you how to use these. We show you how to use Ansible to deploy this in your datacentre. We show you how to use things like Heat and Cloud-Init to automate your cloud application environments as well as the latest and greatest like DVR and FWaaS.

We provide this with an accompanying multi-node Vagrant environment, where you can try out the steps in the book using free and open source stools such as VirtualBox and Vagrant – and we always make the latest versions of OpenStack available here too.

This is the best book in the series by far and now it’s available to buy here.

-Kevin Jackson

Pre-Order OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook and get 30% Off Before 25th July!

openstackbook3rdedcoverThe OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook, 3rd Edition is due for publication in August 2015. You can reserve a copy and get a whopping 30% Off with the code OCCC30 if used before July 25th 2015 from the Packt website.

We cover Juno and Kilo installations – and always maintain an updated multi-node learning environment with the latest releases at https://github.com/OpenStackCookbook/OpenStackCookbook

This is what we cover in the book to help you install and configure OpenStack for your environment, whether you’re setting up a lab or ready to move to production:


Chapter 1: Keystone
– Installation, Setting up SSL, using with LDAP and more!
Chapter 2: Glance – Installation, using with Object Storage, migrating from disk versions and more!
Chapter 3: Neutron – Installation, configuration of OVS, creating networks, using distributed virtual routers and more!
Chapter 4: Nova – Installation, configuration, launching instances, host aggregates and much more!
Chapter 5: Swift – Installation, configuration, rings and more!
Chapter 6: Using Swift – Uploading objects, large objects, containers, container replication and more!
Chapter 7: Administering Swift – monitoring, collecting stats, dealing with failures and more!
Chapter 8: Cinder – Installation, using and configuring 3rd party backends and more!
Chapter 9: More OpenStack – Cloud-init, LBaaS, FWaaS, Ceilometer and Heat!
Chapter 10: Horizon – Installation and configuration and using the dashboard!
Chapter 11: Production OpenStack – configuring HA, clusters, using Galera and other techniques and automation using Ansible!

Get your copy today at bit.ly/1MtAJov with 30% Off Code OCCC30

Pens down. It’s a wrap! OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook 3rd Edition coming soon!

B04127_MockupCover_CookbookLate Friday night July 3rd 2015, or early evening to my US counterparts, we finished the edits on the OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook, 3rd Edition. Wow – 3 Editions.

I started writing the first edition back in 2011. Back then, OpenStack Diablo was THE production ready release. It had many promises and I was keen to learn more after dipping my toes into the OpenStack water with the Bexar release months before. Of course, I pronounced this wrong. So much for a country who frowns upon our additional characters in the English language.

This book was very popular and has taken me on a journey I wasn’t expecting. As time went on, Diablo wasn’t as hot property as it sounds and after being approached by none other than Cody Bunch who convinced me to write another, the 2nd Edition was needed. This was another 10 months getting a “few updates” in the book. This was published in June 2013 and was based on Grizzly.

Fast forward towards the end of 2014 and through a mental lapse, Cody yet again thought it might be a good idea to do another. Along the way of ideas, we picked up the esteemed Egle Sigler. Putting in a few more updates and with 50% more help, this would be a breeze to get the book updated for Juno. Or so we thought.

About 8 months later, we made it. We have updated sections that include how to install the very latest OpenStack Kilo using Ansible. Over 110 recipes has had an upgrade, rewrite or is a brand new addition to the book. We listened and we have a book that takes you through all the essential components and much more. We take you through step by step instructions on how you could run this in your datacentres.

We wouldn’t have made this possible without the immense valuable feedback from our tech reviewers. Thank you for keeping us on track and making this book even better than it was going to be:

Andy McCrae, Sriram Rajan, Melissa Palmer, Stefan Lenz, Chris Beatty, Walter Bentley and Victoria Martínez de la Cruz.

And a big shout out to Tim Bell for writing an excellent foreword to the book. We are truly honoured. I’m expecting a signed copy from him in the post.

So go out and by the thing. You won’t regret it.

Kevin Jackson

Thinking of taking the #OpenStack Certified Administrator exam? Up to 50% Off OpenStack Books!

DSC_0320

Get your learning on ahead of the OpenStack Certified Administrator exam by purchasing the above books written by Rackspace OpenStack authors!

OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook, 3rd Edition by Kevin Jackson, Cody Bunch and Egle Sigler

-50% on eBook code is OCCTE50   (http://bit.ly/203VVcg)
-30% on print code is OCCTE30   (http://bit.ly/203VVcg)

Learning OpenStack Networking (Neutron), 2nd Edition by James Denton

-50% on eBook code is LSNNSE50   (http://bit.ly/1UU4IKj)
-30% on print code is LSNNSE30  (http://bit.ly/1UU4IKj)

OpenStack Administration with Ansible by Walter Bentley

-50% on eBook code is CONEB50osaa   (https://goo.gl/ARBFPm)
-30% on print  code is CONPRT50osaa  (https://goo.gl/ARBFPm)

Two must have OpenStack books, up to 30% off!

IMG_20160115_154450.jpgGet up to 30% off a copy of the OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook (3rd Edition) and Learning OpenStack Networking (Neutron) 2nd Edition using the codes below!

OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook, 3rd Edition

30% off eBook with code OSCCC3E
25% off print with
 code OSCCC3P

Learning OpenStack Neutron (Networking), 2nd Edition
30% off eBook with code LOSN2E
25% off print with code LOSN2P

Offer valid from Friday 15th January to 31st January 2016

Book Discount Codes; Love in Tokyo

Understand, install, configure, and manage Nova

Understand, install, configure, and manage Nova

It’s time to say sayonara to the OpenStack Summit in Tokyo, but never fear, if you weren’t one of the lucky Stackers to grab one of the signed copies of the OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook or Learning OpenStack Networking (Neutron) then use the following codes:

50% Off ebook: OpenStack50

30% Off print: OpenStack30

These codes are valid until November 15th direct from PacktPub. The print copy includes the ebook too in non DRM format to use on whatever device you use.

More information can be found here: http://bit.ly/1LWUkQj

Feedback on the book – dealing with Amazon reviews

We really do appreciate our readers taking the time and effort to write reviews of our book. We actively encourage feedback and this is presented in the book on how to do this. As we maintain a very active GitHub repository of a complete working OpenStack environment, code and examples – we positively encourage people to give us feedback so we can improve our code and writing.

UPDATE: The reviewer contacted us to say how happy he was to have his concerns addressed and as a result, the review has been removed. Thank you. I have removed references to emails so this post offers a guide to future reviewers on how to give us feedback. 

The problem with reviews is that it tends to be a one-sided conversation though, with us only being able to respond to the damage that has already been done. We were recently alerted to a 2-star Amazon review [Edit: Now removed] that contradicted conversations that I’d had with the reviewer. We thought the best way to address this was by explaining why the review is incorrect. A rebuttal 5-star review by an author would help fix the ratings – as people do judge Amazon books by the star ratings – but would be false and equally damaging.

Fortunately in this incident, I had a 2-way conversation with this reviewer. It started on Twitter then progressed to email.

The first issue was to raise awareness around syntax used in the book and the use of under_scores and not hyphen-ated flags.

This is perfectly valid syntax as shown below:

syntax-router-id

The example used in the review incorrectly asserts that the syntax we used is not valid. This is also mythbusted below too:

syntax-subnet-create

The neutron client allows both. Arguments exist for what would be more correct, but to say it is invalid is completely wrong.

The second issue was that of the Kindle version introducing extra spaces in the syntax. In the PDF there are no such spaces:

book-format

How to give feedback

Please contact any of us on Twitter, or email book @ openstackbook.com, fill in bug information on GitHub regarding the environment and scripts not working, or directly with the Publisher. You can follow us and comment on G+ and you can like or post messages on Facebook. You can even leave a comment below.

Installing and Configuring OpenLDAP

In order to operate OpenStack Identity service with an external authentication source, it is necessary that one have an external authentication service available. In the OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook, we used OpenLDAP. As installing and configuring OpenLDAP is beyond the scope of the book, that information is provided here.

Getting ready

We will be performing an installation and configuration of OpenLDAP on it’s own Ubuntu 14.04 server.

How to do it…

We will break this into two steps: installing OpenLDAP, and configuring it for use with OpenStack.

Installing OpenLDAP

Once you are logged in, to your Ubuntu 14.04 node, run the following commands to install OpenLDAP:
We set the Ubuntu installer to non-interactive, as we will be providing the configuration values for OpenLDAP prior to installation:

export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

Next we provide an admin password so OpenLDAP will install:

echo -e " \
slapd slapd/internal/generated_adminpw password openstack
slapd slapd/password2 password openstack
slapd slapd/internal/adminpw password openstack
slapd slapd/password1 password openstack
" | sudo debconf-set-selections

Finally, we install OpenLDAP via slapd package:

sudo apt-get install -y slapd ldap-utils

Configuring

OpenStack has a few requirements regarding which attribute types are used for user information. To accomodate this in our OpenLDAP we need to add these values to the new-attributes schema file:

sudo echo "
 attributetype ( 1.2.840.113556.1.4.8 NAME 'userAccountControl'
 SYNTAX '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27' )
objectclass ( 1.2.840.113556.1.5.9 NAME 'user'
 DESC 'a user'
 SUP inetOrgPerson STRUCTURAL
 MUST ( cn )
 MAY ( userPassword $ memberOf $ userAccountControl ) )
" >> /etc/ldap/schema/new-attributes.schema

Finally, restart OpenLDAP:

sudo service slapd restart

How it works…

What we have done here is install OpenLDAP on Ubuntu 14.04. Additionally we created an LDAP schema, configuring the userAccountControl property, and configuring a ‘user’ object to provide login authorization.

Pre-Requisites for the OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook lab

The OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook has been written in such a way so that our readers can follow each section to understand, install and configure each component of the OpenStack environment. We cover Compute (Nova), Identity (Keystone), Image (Glance), Networking (Neutron), Storage (Cinder and Swift) as well as many other services such as how to install these components using Ansible. As such, there are elements of the OpenStack environment that don’t fit in any particular chapter. These supporting services are: