How to install and get started with OpenQRM

Figure out how to introduce and utilize OpenQRM, a free and open source pluggable structure for programmed application organization, administration, and observing. It bolsters a scope of virtualization devices and works with Nagios and Puppet.

All encompassing server farm administration and computerization devices are surprising and great instruments. Thus they can regularly be expensive and complex to actualize. Not all that OpenQRM, a free and open source pluggable structure for programmed application sending, administration and observing. It's likewise easy to introduce and actualize, as you'll find in this tip.

OpenQRM is server farm "stick". It permits brought together administration of the different segments that make up a server farm setup:

• Operating frameworks

• Applications

• Configuration

• Storage

• Network

• Monitoring

The server permits the computerized administration and organization of those parts. The OpenQRM monitors bit pictures, working framework depictions, stockpiling pools and oversees high-accessibility connections. It underpins an extensive variety of virtualization innovations including KVM, VMWare, Citrix-Xen, Xen, and Linux-VServer and permits the movement of hosts from physical to virtual and back even crosswise over various virtualization advances. It likewise performs computerized arrange mapping and formation of Nagios setup, mechanized high accessibility, provisioning by means of server pictures (and mix with the design administration device Puppet) and take depictions of existing servers and send them.

OpenQRM additionally gives a solitary administration reassure and answer for dealing with every one of your hosts and accompanies a gathering of modules and a completely highlighted API that enables you to coordinate to different instruments. The upside of the pluggable engineering is that you just need to introduce the segments you require.

Installing OpenQRM

OpenQRM can be installed via a tarball, or Debian and Ubuntu DEB packages files, or Centos, Fedora, and SuSE RPMs. Packages for these distributions are available for both 32- and 64-bit architectures.

For this precedent, I will walk you through introducing OpenQRM on a Ubuntu server. To keep things basic, utilize a new introduce or virtual machine for OpenQRM. We likewise need to introduce a few essentials: Apache 2, PHP 5, a database server (we will utilize MySQL however OpenQRM additionally underpins PostgreSQL, Oracle, or DB2), the Syslinux boot loader and the PHP ADO driver. We're likewise going to introduce DHCP and TFTPD servers so we can introduce some extra modules to deal with these administrations.

On Ubuntu we can utilize the well-suited motivate direction to introduce these. 

$ sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-mysql mysql-server libphp-adodb syslinux dhp3-server tftpd-hpa 

Next, we're now going to download and install the latest version 4.5 of the OpenQRM server. (A full list of the available OpenQRM downloads.)

 $ wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/openqrm/files/openQRM%204.5/ openqrm-server-4.5-ubuntu804.amd64.deb/download

We're also going to install three plug-ins that allow the server to manage DHCP, DNS and TFTP services. These are also required to allow OpenQRM to provision hosts and we're going to use them as examples of how to configure OpenQRM plugins. (A full list of OpenQRM plug-ins.)

 $ wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/openqrm/files/openQRM%204.5/ openqrm-plugin-tftpd-4.5.1.3-ubuntu804.amd64.deb/download 

https://sourceforge.net/projects/openqrm/files/openQRM%204.5/ openqrm-plugin-dns-4.5.1.2-ubuntu804.amd64.deb/download

https://sourceforge.net/projects/openqrm/files/openQRM%204.5/ openqrm-plugin-dhcpd-4.5.1.3-ubuntu804.amd64.deb/download

From the OpenQRM download site there is also an "entire" package available that contains the OpenQRM server and all the available plug-ins. Also available is a VMWare Applicance with OpenQRM installed.

Let's now install the server and the plug-ins.

$ sudo dpkg --install openqrm-server-4.5-ubuntu804.amd64.deb openqrm-plugin-dhcpd-4.5.1.3-ubuntu804.amd64.deb openqrm-plugin-tftpd-4.5.1.3-ubuntu804.amd64.deb openqrm-plugin-dns-4.5.1.2-ubuntu804.amd64.deb

The dpkg command will install the server, create a database for you and start the server. The default installation assumes your database server has no password defined. You can change this (and the database type) by editing the openqrm-server.conf configuration file. By default this is installed into the /usr/lib/openqrm/etc directory. Once OpenQRM is installed you can edit your database configuration and settings.

Now you can start, stop or restart the server with the openqrm-server init script.

 $ sudo /etc/init.d/openqrm-server restart

Initial configuration

After we've installed OpenQRM we can now browse to the console (replacing the host name with the name of the host you installed OpenQRM on). You will be prompted to enter a username and password. The default installation creates a user called "openqrm" with a password of "openqrm."

Click on image for larger version

Once we've signed in we want to change our default password. Click on the "openqrm" link in the top right-hand corner of the console. This will display the Account box in which we can change the default password. We can also add additional users using the Add User tab.

Click on image for larger version

Now let's enable and start the plug-ins we've installed. To do this click on the Plugins > Plugin Manager link in the left-hand menu. Select the plug-ins we've installed and then click the "Enable" button (or click on the icon in the "Enabled" column). When the plug-ins enable process is completed then select all the plug-ins and click the "Start" button to start them (or click on the icon on the "Started" column).

Each plug-in will now have an "About" link and optionally some configuration under the Plugins menu

Where to from here?

Now you have OpenQRM installed you can start using it. The next steps should be to add any additional plug-ins you need to manage your environment. For me this is the VMWare, Xen, Nagios and the LVM storage plug-ins. You then need to create storage locations to hold the images and kernels you want to manage and then start adding servers to your environment.