f5devcentral/tmos-configdrive-builder repository overview

⁠Creating OpenStack Formatted Cloudinit ConfigDrive ISOs##

While IaaS clouds already support mechanisms to supply cloudinit userdata to declare guest instances configurations, some virtualization environments do not. For those environments, an ISO CDROM image can be attached to BIG-IP Virtual Edition guests prior to initial booting. If the ISO image is formatted as a cloudinit ConfigDrive data source, cloudinit modules can still be used, even when the virtualization environment does not directly support it.

As an example, VMWare Workstation can be use to deploy a BIG-IP Virtual Edition instance from a patched OVA archive. It will build the instance attributes per the F5-defined OVF, and the instance will be powered off. Prior to starting the instance, the user can add an IDE CDROM drive device and attach a ConfigDrive ISO file.

TMOS supports cloudinit OpenStack ConfigDrive. The ISO CDROM attached needs to have a volume label of config-2 and must follow a specific layout of files, containing a specific JSON file with a specific attribute defined.

/iso (volume label config-2)
└── openstack
    └── latest
        ├── meta_data.json
        ├───────────────────> {"uuid": "a7481585-ee3f-432b-9f7e-ddc7e5b02c27"}
        ├── user_data
        └───────────────────> THIS CAN CONTAIN ANY USERDATA YOU WANT

If you generate an ISO9660 filesystem with Rock Ridge extensions to allow TMOS cloudinit to mount your device and act on your userdata, you can treat any virtualization environment like a properly declared IaaS. You can use any ISO9660 filesystem generation tool you want, as long as it conforms to the standard for the OpenStack ConfigDrive cloudinit data source.

This repository includes a Docker image with an ISO9660 generation script which will build the CDROM ISO image file with your customized inputs.

The script takes inputs as environment variables instead of command line arguments. Content, like your declarations or JSON dictionaries, are made available via files in specific directories. Docker consumes these via volume mounts.

The CDROM is built to be used in two modes:

1. tmos_declared mode - this mode builds f5-declarative-onboarding and, optionally, f5-appsvcs-extensions declarations, phone_home_url, and phone_home_cli variables, into a CDROM ISO usable with the tmos_declared cloudinit module.

2. Fully explicit mode - this mode builds a CDROM ISO from a fully defined set of user_data, and optionally meta_data.json, vendor_data.json, and network_data.json files. This allows for the construction of any settings in your user_data you want. This can be used to work with any of the modules defined in this repository.

⁠tmos_declared Mode Environment Variables and Files

The following environment variables determine how the CDROM ISO is built:

The files specified above must be available to the Docker instance, and need to be mounted as volumes by the Docker instance.

Example: If you have a local subfolder declarations directory containing both do_declaration.json and as3_declaration.json, you could create your basic CDROM ISO in the current directory using the following bash shell command.

docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd)/declarations:/declarations -v $(pwd):/configdrives f5devcentral/tmos-configdrive-builder:latest
2019-05-30 20:00:59,009 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - building ISO9660 for tmos_declared module with declarations
2019-05-30 20:00:59,029 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - adding f5-declarative-onboarding declaration to user_data
2019-05-30 20:00:59,029 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - adding f5-appsvcs-extensions declaration to user_data
2019-05-30 20:00:59,042 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - generating OpenStack mandatory ID
2019-05-30 20:00:59,046 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - output IS09660 file: /configdrives/configdrive.iso
ls ./configdrive.iso
configdrive.iso

To define phone_home_url or phone_home_cli attributes in your tmos_declared declaration, specify them as Docker environment variables.

⁠Expected Docker Volume Mounts

The configdrive ISO builder script expects two mount points. One is a file path to your declarations, either default or explicitly defined by Docker environment variables. The other is the directory to write your ISO file.

Example: to create a configdrive.iso file in the current directory which would create metadata for the tmos_declared cloudint module, using declaration files from the ./declarations directory, while explicitly defining a phone_home_url, the Docker run syntax would look like the following.

docker run --rm -it -e PHONE_HOME_URL=https://webhook.site/5f8cd8a7-b051-4648-9296-8f6afad34c93 -v $(pwd)/declarations:/declarations -v $(pwd):/configdrives f5devcentral/tmos-configdrive-builder:latest

⁠Explicit Mode Environment Variables and Files

If the script has a USERDATA_FILE or finds a /declarations/user_data file, it will automatically prefer explicit mode.

The other defined optional files METADATA_FILE, VENDORDATA_FILE, and NETWORKDATA_FILE, should conform to the OpenStack metadata standards for use with cloudinit.

docker run --rm -it -e USERDATA_FILE=/declarations/instance2224 -v $(pwd)/declarations:/declarations -v $(pwd):/configdrives f5devcentral/tmos-configdrive-builder:latest
2019-05-30 20:04:12,158 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - building ISO9660 configdrive user_data from /declarations/instance2224
2019-05-30 20:04:12,158 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - generating OpenStack mandatory ID
2019-05-30 20:04:12,163 - tmos_image_patcher - INFO - output IS09660 file: /configdrives/configdrive.iso
ls ./configdrive.iso
configdrive.iso