Chapter 4. Deploying Appliances

Chapter 4. Deploying Appliances¶

Contents

4.1. Using Live CD/DVD
4.2. Deploying USB-, Hard Disk, or Preload Images
4.3. Using Vmware/VirtualBox/KVM Images
4.4. Using Xen Guests

Abstract

Depending on the format of your appliance, deploy it on hardware or on virtual environments. This chapter describes how to deploy your appliance.

4.1. Using Live CD/DVD¶

Live CDs or DVDs are bootable mediums to run a complete operating system. Usually they are used to demonstrate certain aspects of a full functioning operating system. For example, a KDE Live CD/DVD shows the KDE desktop and comes with lots of KDE applications bundled.

Proceed as follows to deploy a Live CD/DVD on your hardware.

Create an appliance as explained in Chapter 2, Creating Appliances and select the format Live CD/DVD (.iso) in the Build tab.
Download the Live CD/DVD from SUSE Studio and save it to your hard disk.
Burn the .iso file with your favorite burning application as K3b, Brasero, or others.
Start or reboot your computer and check the BIOS configuration of your machine. Your BIOS should allow you to start from CD/DVD drive and change the order of the media.
Boot the Live CD/DVD.

4.2. Deploying USB-, Hard Disk, or Preload Images¶

A “raw” image or a disk image is a complete, bitwise copy of a hard disk. To dump the image to your hard disk or USB stick, proceed as follows:

Procedure 4.1. Deploying USB- and Hard Disk Images

Create an appliance as explained in Chapter 2, Creating Appliances and select the format USB stick / hard disk image in the Build tab.
Download the compressed disk image. Usually it has the file extension .oem.tar.gz.
Open a shell and log in as system administrator.
Attach the USB stick or the USB hard disk to your computer. If you have a PATA hard disk, you first need to shutdown your computer, insert your hard disk, and reboot your computer.
Dump the disk image to your hard disk (usually something like /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc.) with the following commands:
```
zcat NAME.oem.tar.gz | dd of=/dev/sdb
```
Replace /dev/sdb with the correct device name, otherwise your data is lost!
Reboot your system.
If you configured your appliance to use first boot for your network, enter the hostname and domain name and decide, if you want to use DHCP. Find more information in the Deployment Guide, see http://www.novell.com/documentation/sles11/book_sle_deployment/data/cha_deployment_firstboot.html

To deploy a preload ISO image, proceed as follows:

Procedure 4.2. Deploying a Preload Image

Create an appliance as explained in Chapter 2, Creating Appliances and select the format Preload ISO (.iso) in the Build tab.
Download the ISO image and burn it to a CD/DVD.
Boot from the preloaded CD/DVD.
Select the Install/Restore item from the boot menu.
Select Yes from the question Destroying ALL data on /dev/sda, continue ? in order to dump the embedded disk image on the ISO CD/DVD to your hard disk.
After the dump, the hard disk is verified. If the verification is successfull, the system will boot the Kernel and the respective services. In case of errors, repeat the step or replace the hard disk.
Log in with the correct username and password.

4.3. Using Vmware/VirtualBox/KVM Images¶

VMware, VirtualBox, and KVM are virtualization technologies to create a guest virtual machine on a host system. All have a graphical user interface to create, import, and start virtual machines.

4.3.1. Using VirtualBox for Appliances¶

To start an appliance in VirtualBox, proceed as follows:

Procedure 4.3. Starting an Appliance in VirtualBox¶

Create an appliance as explained in Chapter 2, Creating Appliances and select the format VMware / VirtualBox (.vmdk) in the Build tab.
Download and extract your file from Step 1.
Start VirtualBox. If the program is not available, install VirtualBox with YaST.
Click File+Virtual Media Manager and select the .vmdk file extracted in Step 2.
Create a new virtual machine:
1. Click the New button or use Machine+New.
2. Insert a name for your virtual machine.
3. As operating system choose Linux and as version openSUSE or openSUSE (64 bit). The last entry is only available, if you have a 64-bit CPU. If your appliance is built for 64-bit, your host computer must support this architecture too.
4. Choose the base memory size.
5. Click Use existing hard disk and select the filename of your hard disk from Step 2.
6. Check the parameters that are displayed in the window and finialize with Finish.
If you want to customize the settings of the virtual machine, click Settings.
Execute the virtual machine by clicking the Start button.

4.3.2. Using VMware for Appliances¶

Due to license issues, we cannot offer special packages for VMware at the moment. Download and install the VMware Player on your system and proceed as follows:

Procedure 4.4. Installing VMware Player¶

Install the kernel-source package.
Download the VMware Player from https://www.vmware.com/support/product-support/player/. Registration with VMware is required, but it is free.

Run the bundle file:

sh VMware-Player-VERSION--BUILD.ARCH.bundle

Accept the EULA (end user license agreement) to continue.
Optionally select Yes or No for product updates and usage statistics.
Click Next and then Install. When VMware Player asks for the root password, it compiles and installs a Kernel module. As this is done completely without any package manager, you cannot use neither YaST nor zypper to check or uninstall it. Use /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall to uninstall.

The VMware images produced by SUSE Studio runs on VMware Player and Workstation. However, the format for VMware Server, ESX, and ESXi is different and hence it needs to be converted into a compatible .vmdk format. If you use VMware ESX 4, use the following command on your ESX host:

vmkfstools -d thin -i old.vmdk new.vmdk

To start an appliance in VMware Player, proceed as follows:

Procedure 4.5. Starting an Appliance With VMware Player¶

Create an appliance as explained in Chapter 2, Creating Appliances and select the format VMware / VirtualBox (.vmdk) in the Build tab.
Download the .vmdk file from SUSE Studio.
Unpack the .vmx.tar.gz file:
```
tar xzvf NAME.vmx.tar.gz
```
Start VMware Player by pressing Alt+F2 and entering vmplayer.
Click Open a Virtual Machine.
Select the .vmx file from the archive. You may enter a directory with the name of your appliance first to find this file.
Click Play virtual machine to start your appliance. More information can be found in the Getting Started Guide–VMware Player at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/player_pubs.html.

4.3.3. Using KVM for Appliances¶

Another method is to use a Kernel-based virtualization machine (KVM) with Qemu. Proceed as follows:

Procedure 4.6. Starting an Appliance with KVM¶

Install the qemu package.
Execute the following command and replace VMDK_FILE with the respective .vmdk file:
```
qemu-kvm VMDK_FILE
```

4.4. Using Xen Guests¶

This section is mainly for the experienced user. Xen is a hypervisor or a virtual-machine monitor; it allows several operating systems to be executed concurrently as guests on your host hardware. To execute your appliance as Xen guest, proceed as follows:

Check your host system. Your machine must be booted with a special Xen-enabled Kernel. Find more information about the prerequisites and the installation of Xen in http://www.novell.com/documentation/sles11/book_xen/data/book_xen.html.
Select the format Xen guest and build your appliance as described in Chapter 2, Creating Appliances.
Download the built Xen appliance and extract the archive (extension .xen.tar.gz).
Open the Xen configuration file (extension .xenconfig) and do the following:
1. Replace RAW with the path were your raw file is located:
```
disk=[ "tap:aio:RAW,xvda,w" ]
```
2. Replace the line beginning with vif with the following line:
```
vif=[ "bridge=br0" ]
```
Activate your Xen guest on your Xen server with the following command:
```
xm create -c PATH_TO_XENCONFIG
```