This is my homelab! It allows me to launch system containers to emulate real nodes in an environment and even bootstrap container based workflows like Kubernetes! I chose LXD because of its ease of install and the ability to use cloud-config which is a big plus in a local environment.
This will setup a python environment and install ansible using anaconda
conda config --add channels conda-forge
conda env create -f conda.yaml
conda activate ansible
Install tools locally that will be needed
brew bundle
From the server, run these commands
$ apt -y update && apt install -y python-minimal zfsutils-linux
$ snap install lxd
$ cat <<EOF | lxd init --preseed
config:
core.https_address: '[::]:8443'
core.trust_password: "octolab"
networks:
- config:
ipv4.address: auto
ipv6.address: none
description: ""
managed: false
name: lxdbr0
type: ""
storage_pools: []
profiles:
- config: {}
description: ""
devices:
eth0:
name: eth0
nictype: bridged
parent: lxdbr0
type: nic
name: default
cluster: null
EOF
$ sudo visudo
Change the sudo line to have NOPASSWD
%sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
%sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
$ lxc remote add $URL:8443
$ lxc remote switch $REMOTE_NAME
Containers can be created with Ansible and then managed with them:
ansible-playbook -i inventory/hashistack plays/hashistack.yml
This will build a full consul/nomad stack! UI will be available at http://nomad-server1.lan:4646, http://consul1.lan:8500 and http://proxy.lan:8080
To teardown you can then run:
ansible-playbook -i hashistack destroy.yml
export NOMAD_ADDR="http://nomad-server1.lan:4646"
nomad node status
The container to be managed by Ansible must have python and use the base role, here is an example of how to launch one:
lxc launch -p lan -p base ubuntu:16.04 my-container
After launching a container through LXD (or Ansible) it needs to be entered into an inventory using this format:
[group]
$name ansible_connection=lxd ansible_host=$remote:$name
If you launch a container named my-container on your remote host lab the entry would look like this:
[all]
my-container ansible_connection=lxd ansible_host=lab:my-container
Then you can run to test
ansible all -i inventory -m ping -vvvv
my-container | SUCCESS => {
"changed": false,
"invocation": {
"module_args": {
"data": "pong"
}
},
"ping": "pong"
}
In this example, I'm launching an ubuntu container on my LAN which installs Docker and exposes the remote api on :2375. From there, I will launch NGINX and be able to see it on my LAN!
$ lxc launch -p lan -p docker ubuntu:16.04 docker1
$ export DOCKER1_IP=$(lxc ls docker1 --format json | jq -r '.[].state.network.eth0.addresses[] | select(.family == "inet").address')
$ export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://$DOCKER1_IP:2375
$ docker run -p 80:80 -d --name nginx nginx:latest
$ curl $DOCKER1_IP
- https://medium.com/@ali_oguzhan/lxd-assigning-static-ip-to-containers-ecf558982071
- https://dev.to/livioribeiro/using-lxd-and-ansible-to-simulate-infrastructure-2g8l
- https://github.com/Netflix/titus/blob/master/docs/docs/install/cloud-init.yml
- https://linuxacademy.com/containers/training/course/name/lxc-containers-essentials
- https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/01/26/lxd-5-easy-pieces
- https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/05/03/lxd-clusters-a-primer
- https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/lxd-clustering-single-node-cluster-or-convert-standalone-to-cluster/2982/2