About¶

This tool is meant to ease interaction with virtualization providers:

libvirt
kubevirt
ovirt
vsphere
openstack
gcp
aws
packet
ibmcloud

You can:

manage those vms:
- create
- delete
- list
- info
- ssh
- start
- stop
- console
- serialconsole,
- create/delete disk
- create/delete nic
- clone
deploy them using profiles
define more complex workflows using plans and products.

The tool can also deploy kubernetes clusters:

kubernetes generic (kubeadm)
openshift
okd
k3s

Installation¶

Libvirt Hypervisor Requisites¶

If you don’t have libvirt installed on the target hypervisor, you can use the following command to get you going:

sudo yum -y install libvirt libvirt-daemon-driver-qemu qemu-kvm
sudo usermod -aG qemu,libvirt $(id -un)
newgrp libvirt
systemctl enable --now libvirtd

(Optional) For interaction with your local docker daemon, you also need the following:

sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker YOUR_USER
sudo systemctl restart docker

If not running as root, you’ll have to add your user to those groups

sudo usermod -aG qemu,libvirt YOUR_USER

Supported installation methods¶

The following methods are supported for installation and are all updated automatically when new pushes to kcli are made.

rpm package
deb package
container image
pypi package

Installing¶

The script can also be used for installation, which will make a guess on which method to use for deployment based on your OS, and also create the proper aliases if container method is selected, and set bash completion).

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/karmab/kcli/master/install.sh | bash

Package install method¶

If using fedora or rhel/centos8, you can run this as root:

dnf -y copr enable karmab/kcli ; dnf -y install kcli

If using a debian based distribution, you can use this :

curl -1sLf https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/karmab/kcli/cfg/setup/bash.deb.sh | sudo -E bash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install python3-kcli

The package version doesn’t bundle the dependencies for anything else than libvirt, so you have to install the extra packages for each additional cloud platforms, which are listed in the Provider specifics section.

Alternatively, the repo contains a meta package named kcli-all (python3-kcli-all in the debian case) that contains dependencies for all the providers.

NOTE: kcli-all is only available on fedora.

Container install method¶

Note that

The container image contains dependencies for all the providers.
The console/serial console functionality works better with the package version. In container mode, it only outputs the command to launch manually to get to the console.

In the commands below, use either docker or podman

Pull the latest image:

docker pull quay.io/karmab/kcli

To run it

docker run --rm karmab/kcli

There are several recommended flags:

--net host for kcli ssh
-v /var/run/libvirt:/var/run/libvirt -v /var/lib/libvirt/images:/var/lib/libvirt/images if running against a local client.
-v ~/.kcli:/root/.kcli to use your kcli configuration (also profiles and repositories) stored locally.
-v ~/.ssh:/root/.ssh to share your ssh keys. Alternatively, you can store your public and private key in the ~/.kcli directory.
--security-opt label=disable if running with selinux.
-v $PWD:/workdir to access plans below your current directory.
-v $HOME:/root to share your entire home directory, useful if you want to share secret files, ~/register.sh for instance).
-e HTTP_PROXY=your_proxy -e HTTPS_PROXY=your_proxy
-v ~/.kube:/root/.kube to share your kubeconfig.

For web access, you can switch with -p 9000:9000 --entrypoint=/usr/bin/kweb and thus accessing to port 9000.

As a bonus, you can use the following aliases:

alias kcli='docker run --net host -it --rm --security-opt label=disable -v $HOME/.ssh:/root/.ssh -v $HOME/.kcli:/root/.kcli -v /var/lib/libvirt/images:/var/lib/libvirt/images -v /var/run/libvirt:/var/run/libvirt -v $PWD:/workdir quay.io/karmab/kcli'
alias kclishell='docker run --net host -it --rm --security-opt label=disable -v $HOME/.ssh:/root/.ssh -v $HOME/.kcli:/root/.kcli -v /var/lib/libvirt/images:/var/lib/libvirt/images -v /var/run/libvirt:/var/run/libvirt -v $PWD:/workdir --entrypoint=/bin/sh quay.io/karmab/kcli'
alias kweb='docker run -p 9000:9000 --net host -it --rm --security-opt label=disable -v $HOME/.ssh:/root/.ssh -v $HOME/.kcli:/root/.kcli -v /var/lib/libvirt/images:/var/lib/libvirt/images -v /var/run/libvirt:/var/run/libvirt -v $PWD:/workdir --entrypoint=/usr/bin/kweb quay.io/karmab/kcli'

Dev installation¶

Generic platform¶

pip install kcli

Or for a full install:

pip install -e git+https://github.com/karmab/kcli.git#egg=kcli[all]

Configuration¶

If you only want to use your local libvirt, no specific configuration is needed.

kcli configuration is done in ~/.kcli directory, that you need to manually create. It will contain:

config.yml generic configuration where you declare clients.
profiles.yml stores your profiles where you combine things like memory, numcpus and all supported parameters into named profiles to create vms from.
id_rsa/id_rsa.pub/id_dsa/id_dsa.pub/id_25519/id_25519.pub You can store your default public and private keys in .kcli directory which will be the first place to look for them when connecting to a remote kvm hypervisor, virtual machine or when injecting your public key.

You can generate a default config file (with all parameters commented) pointing to your local host with:

kcli create host kvm -H 127.0.0.1 local

Or indicate a different target host

kcli create host -H 192.168.0.6 host1

On most distributions, default network and storage pool for libvirt are already defined.

If needed, you can create this default storage pool with this:

kcli create pool -p /var/lib/libvirt/images default
sudo setfacl -m u:$(id -un):rwx /var/lib/libvirt/images

And default network:

kcli create network  -c 192.168.122.0/24 default

For using several hypervisors, you can use the command kcli create host or simply edit your configuration file.

For instance, here’s a sample ~/.kcli/config.yml with two hypervisors:

default:
 client: mycli
 pool: default
 numcpus: 2
 memory: 1024
 disks:
  - size: 10
 protocol: ssh
 nets:
  - default

mycli:
 host: 192.168.0.6
 pool: default

bumblefoot:
 host: 192.168.0.4
 pool: whatever

Replace with your own client in default section and indicate the relevant parameters in the corresponding client section, depending on your client/host type.

Most of the parameters are actually optional, and can be overridden in the default, client or profile section (or in a plan file). You can find a fully detailed config.yml sample here

Storing credentials securely¶

You can hide your secrets in ~/.kcli/config.yml by replacing any value by ?secret. You can then place the real value in ~/.kcli/secrets.yml by using the same yaml hierarchy.

For instance, if you have the following in your config file:

xxx:
 password: ?secret

You would then put the real password in your secrets file this way:

xxx:
 password: mypassword

Provider specifics¶

Libvirt¶

twix:
 type: kvm
 host: 192.168.1.6

Without configuration, libvirt provider tries to connect locally using qemu:///system.

Additionally, remote libvirt hypervisors can be configured by indicating either a host, a port and protocol or a custom qemu url.

When using the host, port and protocol combination, default protocol uses ssh and as such assumes you are able to connect without password to your remote libvirt instance.

If using tcp protocol instead, you will need to configure libvirtd in your remote libvirt hypervisor to accept insecure remote connections.

You will also likely want to indicate default libvirt pool to use (although as with all parameters, it can be done in the default section).

The following parameters are specific to libvirt:

url custom qemu uri.
session Defaults to False. If you want to use qemu:///session ( locally or remotely). Not recommended as it complicates access to the vm and is supposed to have lower performance.
remotednsmasq Defaults to False. Allow to create entries in a dedicated dnsmasq instance running on a remote hypervisor to provide DNS resolution for vms using bridged networks.

Gcp¶

gcp1:
 type: gcp
 credentials: ~/myproject.json
 project: myproject
 zone: europe-west1-b

The following parameters are specific to gcp:

credentials (pointing to a json service account file). if not specified, the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS will be used
project
zone

also note that gcp provider supports creation of dns records for an existing domain and that your home public key will be uploaded if needed

To gather your service account file:

Select the “IAM” → “Service accounts” section within the Google Cloud Platform console.
Select “Create Service account”.
Select “Project” → “Editor” as service account Role.
Select “Furnish a new private key”.
Select “Save”.

To Create a dns zone:

Select the “Networking” → “Network Services” → “Cloud DNS”.
Select “Create Zone”.
Put the same name as your domain, but with ‘-’ instead.

If accessing behind a proxy, be sure to set HTTPS_PROXY environment variable to http://your_proxy:your_port

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install (from pip):

google-api-python-client
google-auth-httplib2
google-cloud-dns

Aws¶

aws:
 type: aws
 access_key_id: AKAAAAAAAAAAAAA
 access_key_secret: xxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy
 region: eu-west-3
 keypair: mykey

The following parameters are specific to aws:

access_key_id
access_key_secret
region
keypair
session_token

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install python3-boto3 rpm

Kubevirt¶

For kubevirt, you will need to define one ( or several !) sections with the type kubevirt in your ~/.kcli/config.yml

Authentication is either handled by your local ~/.kubeconfig (kcli will try to connect to your current kubernetes/openshift context or with specific token:

kubevirt:
 type: kubevirt

You can use additional parameters for the kubevirt section:

kubeconfig: kubeconfig file path
context: the k8s context to use.
pool: your default storageclass. can also be set as blank, if no storage class should try to bind pvcs.
host: k8s api node .Also used for tunneling ssh.
port: k8s api port.
ca_file: optional certificate path.
token: token, either from user or service account.
tags: additional list of tags in a key=value format to put to all created vms in their nodeSelector. Can be further indicated at profile or plan level in which case values are combined. This provides an easy way to force vms to run on specific nodes, by matching labels.
cdi: whether to use cdi. Defaults to true. A check on whether cdi is actually present will be performed.
registry: Registry where to pull containerdisk images. Defaults to none, in which case your configured registries will be used.
access_mode: Way to access vms other ssh. Defaults to NodePort,in which case a svc with a nodeport pointing to the ssh port of the vm will be created. Otherpossible values are LoadBalancer to create a svc of type loadbalancer to point to the vm or External to connect using the sdn ip of the vm. If tunnel options are set, they take precedence
volume_mode: Volume Mode. Defaults to Filesystem (Block can be specified instead).
volume_access: Volume access mode. Defaults to ReadWriteOnce.
disk_hotplug: Whether to allow to hotplug (and unplug) disks. Defaults to false. Note it also requires to enable The HotplugVolumes featureGate within Kubevirt

You can use the following indications to gather context, create a suitable service account and retrieve its associated token:

To list the context at your disposal

kubectl config view -o jsonpath='{.contexts[*].name}'

To create a service account and give it privileges to handle vms,

SERVICEACCOUNT=xxx
kubectl create serviceaccount $SERVICEACCOUNT -n default
kubectl create clusterrolebinding $SERVICEACCOUNT --clusterrole=cluster-admin --user=system:serviceaccount:default:$SERVICEACCOUNT

To gather a token (in /tmp/token):

SERVICEACCOUNT=xxx
SECRET=`kubectl get sa $SERVICEACCOUNT -o jsonpath={.secrets[0].name}`
kubectl get secret $SECRET -o jsonpath={.data.token} | base64 -d

on openshift, you can simply use

oc whoami -t

kubectl is currently a hard requirement for consoles

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install python3-kubernetes rpm

Ovirt¶

myovirt:
 type: ovirt
 host: ovirt.default
 user: admin@internal
 password: prout
 datacenter: Default
 cluster: Default
 pool: Default
 org: YourOrg
 ca_file: ~/ovirt.pem
 imagerepository: ovirt-image-repository

The following parameters are specific to ovirt:

org Organization
ca_file Points to a local path with the cert of the ovirt engine host. It can be retrieved with curl "http://$HOST/ovirt-engine/services/pki-resource?resource=ca-certificate&format=X509-PEM-CA" > ~/.kcli/ovirt.pem
cluster Defaults to Default
datacenter Defaults to Default
filtervms Defaults to True. Only list vms created by kcli.
filteruser Defaults to False. Only list vms created by own user
filtertag Defaults to None. Only list vms created by kcli with the corresponding filter=filtertag in their description. Useful for environments when you share the same user
imagerepository (Optional). A Glance image provider repository to use to retrieve images. Defaults to ovirt-image-repository.

Note that pool in Ovirt context refers to storage domain.

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install

http://resources.ovirt.org/pub/yum-repo/ovirt-release-master.rpm
python3-ovirt-engine-sdk4

Deploying Ovirt dependencies with pip¶

You will need to get ovirt-engine-sdk-python . On fedora, for instance, you would run:

dnf -y copr enable karmab/kcli
yum -y install kcli gcc redhat-rpm-config python3-devel openssl-devel libxml2-devel libcurl-devel
export PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY=openssl
pip3 install ovirt-engine-sdk-python

On rhel, set PYCURL_SSL_LIBRARY to nss instead

If you install manually from pip, you might need to install pycurl manually with the following line (and get openssl-dev headers)

pip install --no-cache-dir --global-option=build_ext --global-option="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib" --global-option="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include"  pycurl

Openstack¶

myopenstack:
 type: openstack
 user: testk
 password: testk
 project: testk
 domain: Default
 auth_url: http://openstack:5000/v3
 ca_file: ~/ca-trust.crt

The following parameters are specific to openstack:

auth_url
project
domain. Defaults to Default
ca_file (Optional)
external_network (Optional). Indicates which network use for floating ips (useful when you have several ones)
region_name (Optional). Used in OVH Openstack

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install the following rpms

python3-keystoneclient
python3-glanceclient
python3-cinderclient
python3-neutronclient
python3-novaclient
python3-swiftclient

Vsphere¶

myvsphere:
 type: vsphere
 host: xxx-vcsa67.vcenter.e2e.karmalabs.com
 user: administrator@karmalabs.com
 password: mypassword
 datacenter: Madrid
 cluster: xxx
 filtervms: true
 pool: mysuperdatastore

The following parameters are specific to vsphere:

cluster.
datacenter Defaults to Default
filtervms Defaults to True. Only list vms created by kcli. Useful for environments when you are superadmin and have a ton of vms!!!
category: Defaults to kcli. Category where to create tags in order to apply them to vms. If tags are requested for a given vm, they will be created on the fly along with the category, if missing

Note that pool in Vsphere context refers to datastore.

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install python3-pyvmomi and python3-requests

Using hostgroups and vm-host rules¶

The requisite is to create the hostgroup by yourself so that you can associate your hosts to it.

Then, when creating a vm, one can provide 3 extra parameters:

vmgroup: if it doesn’t exist, the group will be created and in any case, the vm will get added to it.

hostgroup and hostrule: if both are provided and the hostrule doesnt exist, it will be created as affinity rule with the vmgroup and the hostgroup to it.

Note that when using this within a plan (or a cluster), it’s enough to provide hostgroup and hostrule for the first vm of the plan so that the hostrule gets created ( though a kcli vmrule for instance), and vmgroup for all of them, so that the group gets created with the first vm, and then the remaining vm only get added.

Also note that vmgroups and hostrules dont get deleted along with vms (to ease recreation of the same assets)

Using vm anti affinity rules¶

Within a plan, you can set the keyword antipeers to a list of vms which should never land on the same esx host. When the last vm from this list gets created, the corresponding anti affinity rule will be created (and vsphere will relocate the other vms accordingly)

Packet¶

myvpacket:
  type: packet
  auth_token: xxxx
  project: kcli
  facility: ams1
  tunnelhost: wilibonka.mooo.com

The following parameters are specific to packet:

auth_token.
project
facility. Can be omitted in which case you will have to specify on which facility to deploy vms.
tunnelhost. Optional. When creating vms using ignition, the generated ignition file will be copied to the tunnelhost so it can be served (typically via web)
tunneldir. Where to copy the ignition files when using a tunnelhost. Defaults to /var/www/html

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install packet-python from pip.

IBM Cloud¶

myibm:
  type: ibm
  iam_api_key: xxxx
  region: eu-gb
  zone: eu-gb-2
  vpc: pruebak

The following parameters are specific to ibm cloud:

iam_api_key.
region
zone
vpc. Default vpc
cos_api_key. Optional Cloud object storage apikey
cos_resource_instance_id. Optional Cloud object storage resource_instance_id (something like “crn:v1:bluemix:public:cloud-object-storage:global:a/yyy:xxxx::”). Alternatively you can provide the resource name
cos_resource_instance_id. Optional Cis resource_instance_id used for DNS. Alternatively, you can provide the resource name

To use this provider with kcli rpm, you’ll need to install the following packets from pip:

ibm_vpc
ibm-cos-sdk
ibm-platform-services
ibm-cloud-networking-services
cos-aspera (optional)

Usage¶

Basic workflow¶

Cloud Images from common distros aim to be the primary source for your vms kcli download image can be used to download a specific cloud image. for instance, centos7:

kcli download image centos7

at this point, you can deploy vms directly from the template, using default settings for the vm:

kcli create vm -i centos7 vm1

By default, your public key will be injected (using cloudinit) to the vm.

You can then access the vm using kcli ssh.

Kcli uses the default ssh_user according to the cloud image. To guess it, kcli checks the image name. So for example, your centos image must contain the term “centos” in the file name, otherwise “root” is used.

Using parameters, you can tweak the vm creation. All keywords can be used. For instance:

kcli create vm -i centos7 -P memory=2048 -P numcpus=2 vm1

You can also pass disks, networks, cmds (or any keyword, really):

kcli create vm -i centos7 -P disks=[10,20] -P nets=[default,default] -P cmds=[yum -y install nc] vm1

You can use the following to get a list of available keywords, and their default value

kcli get keyword

Profiles configuration¶

Instead of passing parameters this way, you can use profiles.

Profiles are meant to help creating single vm with preconfigured settings (number of CPUS, memory, size of disk, network, whether to use a template, extra commands to run on start, whether reserving dns,….)

You use the file ~/.kcli/profiles.yml to declare your profiles. Here’s a snippet declaring the profile centos:

mycentos:
 image: CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2
 numcpus: 2
 disks:
  - size: 10
 reservedns: true
 nets:
  - name: default
 cmds:
  - echo unix1234 | passwd --stdin root

With this section, you can use the following to create a vm

kcli create vm -p mycentos myvm

Note that when you download a given cloud image, a minimal associated profile is created for you.

Cloudinit/Ignition support¶

Cloudinit is enabled by default and handles static networking configuration, hostname setting, injecting ssh keys and running specific commands and entire scripts, and copying entire files.

For vms based on coreos, ignition is used instead of cloudinit although the syntax is the same. If $name.ign or $plan.ign are found in the current directory, their content will be merged. The extension .cloudinit does the same for cloudinit.

To ease openshift deployment, when a node has a name in the $cluster-role-$num, where role can either be master, worker or bootstrap, additional paths are searched, namely $cluster-$role.ign, clusters/$cluster/$role.ign and $HOME/.kcli/clusters/$cluster/$role.ign

For ignition support on ovirt, you will need a version of ovirt >= 4.3.4. Note that this requires to use an openstack based rhcos image.

Typical commands¶

List vms
- kcli list vm
List cloud images
- kcli list images
Create vm from a profile named base7
- kcli create vm -p base7 myvm
Create vm from profile base7 on a specific client/host named twix
- kcli -C twix create vm -p base7 myvm
Delete vm
- kcli delete vm vm1
Do the same without having to confirm
- kcli delete vm vm1 --yes
Get detailed info on a specific vm
- kcli info vm vm1
Start vm
- kcli start vm vm1
Stop vm
- kcli stop vm vm1
Switch active client/host to bumblefoot
- kcli switch host bumblefoot
Get remote-viewer console
- kcli console vm vm1
Get serial console (over TCP). Requires the vms to have been created with kcli and netcat client installed on hypervisor
- kcli console vm -s vm1
Deploy multiple vms using plan x defined in x.yml file
- kcli create plan -f x.yml x
Delete all vm from plan x
- kcli delete plan x
Add 5GB disk to vm1, using pool named images
- kcli create vm-disk -s 5 -p images vm1
Delete disk named vm1_2.img from vm1
- kcli delete disk --vm vm1 vm1_2.img
Update memory in vm1 to 2GB memory
- kcli update vm -P memory=2048 vm1
Clone vm1 to new vm2
- kcli clone vm -b vm1 vm2
Connect with ssh to vm vm1
- kcli ssh vm vm1
Create a new network
- kcli create network -c 192.168.7.0/24 mynet
Create new pool
- kcli create pool -t dir -p /hom/images images
Add a new nic from network default to vm1
- kcli create nic -n default vm1
Delete nic eth2 from vm
- kcli delete nic -i eth2 vm1
Create snapshot named snap1 for vm1:
- kcli create snapshot vm -n vm1 snap1
Get info on your kvm setup
- kcli info host
Export vm:
- kcli export vm vm1

Omitting vm’s name¶

When you don’t specify a vm, the last one created by kcli on the corresponding client is used (the list of the vms created is stored in ~/.kcli/vm)

So for instance, you can simply use the following command to access your vm:

kcli ssh

How to use the web version¶

Launch the following command and access your machine at port 9000:

kweb

Multiple clients¶

If you have multiple hypervisors/clients, you can generally use the flag -C $CLIENT to point to a specific one.

You can also use the following to list the vms of all your hosts/clients:

kcli -C all list vm

plans¶

You can also define plan which are files in yaml with a list of profiles, vms, disks, and networks and vms to deploy.

The following types can be used within a plan:

vm (this is the type used when none is specified)
image
network
disk
pool
profile
ansible
container
dns
plan (so you can compose plans from several urls)
kube

plan types¶

Here are some examples of each type (more examples can be found in this samples repo):

network¶

mynet:
 type: network
 cidr: 192.168.95.0/24

You can also use the boolean keyword dhcp (mostly to disable it) and isolated . When not specified, dhcp and nat will be enabled

image¶

CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2:
 type: image
 url: http://cloud.centos.org/centos/7/images/CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2

If you point to an url not ending in qcow2/qc2 (or img), your browser will be opened for you to proceed. Also note that you can specify a command with the cmd key, so that virt-customize is used on the template once it’s downloaded.

disk¶

share1.img:
 type: disk
 size: 5
 pool: vms
 vms:
  - centos1
  - centos2

Here the disk is shared between two vms (that typically would be defined within the same plan):

pool¶

mypool:
  type: pool
  path: /home/mypool

profile¶

myprofile:
  type: profile
  template: CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2
  memory: 3072
  numcpus: 1
  disks:
   - size: 15
   - size: 12
  nets:
   - default
  pool: default

ansible¶

myplay:
 type: ansible
 verbose: false
 playbook: prout.yml
 groups:
   nodes:
   - node1
   - node2
   masters:
   - master1
   - master2
   - master3

An inventory will be created for you in /tmp and that group_vars and host_vars directory are taken into account. You can optionally define your own groups, as in this example. The playbooks are launched in alphabetical order

container¶

centos:
 type: container
  image: centos
  cmd: /bin/bash
  ports:
   - 5500
  volumes:
   - /root/coco

Look at the container section for details on the parameters

plan’s plan ( Also known as inception style)¶

ovirt:
  type: plan
  url: github.com/karmab/kcli-plans/ovirt/upstream.yml
  run: true

You can alternatively provide a file attribute instead of url pointing to a local plan file:

dns¶

yyy:
 type: dns
 net: default
 ip: 192.168.1.35

vms¶

You can point at an existing profile in your plans, define all parameters for the vms, or combine both approaches. You can even add your own profile definitions in the plan file and reference them within the same plan:

big:
  type: profile
  template: CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2
  memory: 6144
  numcpus: 1
  disks:
   - size: 45
  nets:
   - default
  pool: default

myvm:
  profile: big

Specific scripts and IPS arrays can be used directly in the plan file (or in profiles one).

The kcli-plan-samples repo contains samples to get you started. You will also find under karmab user dedicated plan repos to deploy ovirt, openstack, …

When launching a plan, the plan name is optional. If none is provided, a random one will be used.

If no plan file is specified with the -f flag, the file kcli_plan.yml in the current directory will be used.

When deleting a plan, the network of the vms will also be deleted if no other vm are using them. You can prevent this by setting keepnetworks to true in your configuration.

Remote plans¶

You can use the following command to execute a plan from a remote url:

kcli create plan --url https://raw.githubusercontent.com/karmab/kcli-plans/master/ovirt/upstream.yml

Disk parameters¶

You can add disk this way in your profile or plan files:

disks:
 - size: 20
   pool: vms
 - size: 10
   thin: False
   interface: ide

Within a disk section, you can use the word size, thin and format as keys.

thin Value used when not specified in the disk entry. Defaults to true
interface Value used when not specified in the disk entry. Defaults to virtio. Could also be ide, if vm lacks virtio drivers

Network parameters¶

You can mix simple strings pointing to the name of your network and more complex information provided as hash. For instance:

nets:
 - default
 - name: private
   nic: eth1
   ip: 192.168.0.220
   mask: 255.255.255.0
   gateway: 192.168.0.1

Within a net section, you can use name, nic, IP, mac, mask, gateway and alias as keys. type defaults to virtio but you can specify anyone (e1000,….).

You can also use noconf: true to only add the nic with no configuration done in the vm.

the ovs: true allows you to create the nic as ovs port of the indicated bridge. Not that such bridges have to be created independently at the moment

You can provide network configuration on the command line when creating a single vm with -P ip1=… -P netmask1=… -P gateway=…

ip, dns and host Reservations¶

If you set reserveip to True, a reservation will be made if the corresponding network has dhcp and when the provided IP belongs to the network range.

You can set reservedns to True to create a dns entry for the vm in the corresponding network ( only done for the first nic).

You can set reservehost to True to create an entry for the host in /etc/hosts ( only done for the first nic). It’s done with sudo and the entry gets removed when you delete the vm. On macosx, you should use gnu-sed ( from brew ) instead of regular sed for proper deletion.

If you dont want to be asked for your sudo password each time, here are the commands that are escalated:

- echo .... # KVIRT >> /etc/hosts
- sed -i '/.... # KVIRT/d' /etc/hosts

Docker/Podman support in plans¶

Docker/Podman support is mainly enabled as a commodity to launch some containers along vms in plan files. Of course, you will need docker or podman installed on the client. So the following can be used in a plan file to launch a container:

centos:
 type: container
  image: centos
  cmd: /bin/bash
  ports:
   - 5500
  volumes:
   - /root/coco

The following keywords can be used:

image name of the image to pull.
cmd command to run within the container.
ports array of ports to map between host and container.
volumes array of volumes to map between host and container. You can alternatively use the keyword disks. You can also use more complex information provided as a hash

Within a volumes section, you can use path, origin, destination and mode as keys. mode can either be rw o ro and when origin or destination are missing, path is used and the same path is used for origin and destination of the volume. You can also use this typical docker syntax:

volumes:
 - /home/cocorico:/root/cocorico

Additionally, basic commands ( start, stop, console, plan, list) accept a –container flag.

Also note that while python sdk is used when connecting locally, commands are rather proxied other ssh when using a remote hypervisor ( reasons beeing to prevent mismatch of version between local and remote docker and because enabling remote access for docker is considered insecure and needs some uncommon additional steps ).

Finally, note that if using the docker version of kcli against your local hypervisor , you’ll need to pass a docker socket:

docker run --rm -v /var/run/libvirt:/var/run/libvirt -v ~/.ssh:/root/.ssh -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock karmab/kcli

Exposing a plan¶

Basic functionality¶

You can expose through web a single plan with kcli expose so that others can make use of some infrastructure you own without having to deal with kcli themseleves.

The user will be presented with a simple UI with a listing of the current vms of the plan and buttons allowing to either delete the plan or reprovision it.

To expose your plan (with an optional list of parameters):

kcli expose plan -f your_plan.yml -P param1=value1 -P param2=value plan_name

The indicated parameters are the ones from the plan that you want to expose to the user upon provisioning, with their corresponding default value.

When the user reprovisions, In addition to those parameters, he will be able to specify:

a list of mail addresses to notify upon completion of the lab provisioning. Note it requires to properly set notifications in your kcli config.
an optional owner which will be added as metadata to the vms, so that it’s easy to know who provisioned a given plan

Precreating a list of plans¶

If you’re running the same plan with different parameter files, you can simply create them in the directory where your plan lives, naming them parameters_XXX.yml (or .yaml). The UI will then show you those as separated plans so that they can be provisioned individually applying the corresponding values from the parameter files (after merging them with the user provided data).

Using several clients¶

You can have the expose feature handling several clients at once. For this, launch the expose command with the flag -C to indicate several clients ( for instance -C twix,bumblefoot) and put your parameter files under a dedicated directory matching the client name. The code will then select the proper client for create/delete operations and report the vms belonging to those plans from the different clients declared.

Using expose feature from a web server¶

You can use mod_wsgi with httpd or similar mechanisms to use the expose feature behind a web server so that you serve content from a specific port or add layer of security like htpasswd provided from outside the code.

For instance, you could create the following kcli.conf in apache

<VirtualHost *>
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/kcli.wsgi
    <Directory /var/www/kcli>
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
#    <Location />
#   AuthType Basic
#   AuthName "Authentication Required"
#   AuthUserFile "/var/www/kcli.htpasswd"
#   Require valid-user
#    </Location>
</VirtualHost>

import logging
import os
import sys
from kvirt.config import Kconfig
from kvirt.expose import Kexposer
logging.basicConfig(stream=sys.stdout)

os.environ['HOME'] = '/usr/share/httpd'
inputfile = '/var/www/myplans/plan1.yml'
overrides = {'param1': 'jimi_hendrix', 'param2': False}
config = Kconfig()
extraconfigs = {}
for extraclient in config.extraclients:
    extraconfigs[extraclient] = Kconfig(client=extraclient)
kexposer = Kexposer(config, 'myplan', inputfile, overrides=overrides, extraconfigs=extraconfigs)
application = kexposer.app
application.secret_key = ‘XXX’

Note that further configuration will tipically be needed for apache user so that kcli can be used with it

In the example invocation, the directive config = KConfig() can be changed to config = Kconfig('client1,client2') to handle several clients at once

An alternative is to create different WSGI applications and tweak the WSGIScriptAlias to serve them from different paths.

Overriding parameters¶

You can override parameters in:

commands
scripts
files
plan files
profiles

For that, you can pass in kcli vm or kcli plan the following parameters:

-P x=1 -P y=2 and so on .
–paramfile - In this case, you provide a yaml file ( and as such can provide more complex structures ).

The indicated objects are then rendered using jinja.

centos:
 template: CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2
 cmds:
  - echo x={{ x }} y={{ y }} >> /tmp/cocorico.txt
  - echo {{ password | default('unix1234') }} | passwd --stdin root

You can make the previous example cleaner by using the special key parameters in your plans and define there variables:

parameters:
 password: unix1234
 x: coucou
 y: toi
centos:
 template: CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2
 cmds:
  - echo x={{ x }} y={{ y }} >> /tmp/cocorico.txt
  - echo {{ password  }} | passwd --stdin root

Finally note that you can also use advanced jinja constructs like conditionals and so on. For instance:

parameters:
  net1: default
vm4:
  template: CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2
  nets:
    - {{ net1 }}
{% if net2 is defined %}
    - {{ net2 }}
{% endif %}

Also, you can reference a baseplan file in the parameters section, so that parameters are concatenated between the base plan file and the current one:

parameters:
   baseplan: upstream.yml
   xx_version: v0.7.0

Keyword Parameters¶

Specific parameters for a client¶

Parameter	Default Value	Comments
host	127.0.0.1
port		Defaults to 22 if ssh protocol is used
user	root
protocol	ssh
url		can be used to specify an exotic qemu url
tunnel	False	make kcli use tunnels for console and for ssh access
keep_networks	False	make kcli keeps networks when deleting plan

Available parameters for client/profile/plan files¶

Parameter	Default Value	Comments
client	None	Allows to target a different client/host for the corresponding entry
virttype	None	Only used for libvirt where it evaluates to kvm if acceleration shows in capabilities, or qemu emulation otherwise. If a value is provided, it must be either kvm, qemu, xen or lxc
cpumodel	host-model
cpuflags	[]	You can specify a list of strings with features to enable or use dict entries with name of the feature and policy either set to require,disable, optional or force. The value for vmx is ignored, as it’s handled by the nested flag
numcpus	2
cpuhotplug	False
numamode	None	numamode to apply to the workers only.
cpupinning	[]	cpupinning conf to apply
memory	512M
memoryhotplug	False
flavor		Specific to gcp, aws, openstack and packet
guestid	guestrhel764
pool	default
image	None	Should point to your base cloud image(optional). You can either specify short name or complete path. If you omit the full path and your image lives in several pools, the one from last (alphabetical) pool will be used\
diskinterface	virtio	You can set it to ide if using legacy operating systems
diskthin	True
disks	[]	Array of disks to define. For each of them, you can specify pool, size, thin (as boolean), interface (either ide or virtio) and a wwn.If you omit parameters, default values will be used from config or profile file (You can actually let the entire entry blank or just indicate a size number directly)
iso	None
nets	[]	Array of networks to define. For each of them, you can specify just a string for the name, or a dict containing name, public and alias and ip, mask and gateway, and bridge. Any visible network is valid, in particular bridge networks can be used on libvirt, beyond regular nat networks
gateway	None
dns	None	Dns server
domain	None	Dns search domain
start	true
vnc	false	if set to true, vnc is used for console instead of spice
cloudinit	true
reserveip	false
reservedns	false
reservehost	false
keys	[]	Array of ssh public keys to inject to the vm. Note it’s the actual content of the public key
cmds	[]	Array of commands to run
profile	None	name of one of your profile
scripts	[]	array of paths of custom script to inject with cloudinit. It will be merged with cmds parameter. You can either specify full paths or relative to where you’re running kcli. Only checked in profile or plan file
nested	True
sharedkey	False	Share a private/public key between all the nodes of your plan. Additionally, root access will be allowed
privatekey	False	Inject your private key to the nodes of your plan
files	[]	Array of files to inject to the vm. For each of them, you can specify path, owner ( root by default) , permissions (600 by default ) and either origin or content to gather content data directly or from specified origin. When specifying a directory as origin, all the files it contains will be parsed and added
insecure	True	Handles all the ssh option details so you don’t get any warnings about man in the middle
client	None	Allows you to create the vm on a specific client. This field is not used for other types like network
base	None	Allows you to point to a parent profile so that values are taken from parent when not found in the current profile. Scripts and commands are rather concatenated between default, father and children
tags	[]	Array of tags to apply to gcp instances (usefull when matched in a firewall rule). In the case of kubevirt, it s rather a dict of key=value used as node selector (allowing to force vms to be scheduled on a matching node)
networkwait	0	Delay in seconds before attempting to run further commands, to be used in environments where networking takes more time to come up
rhnregister	None	Auto registers vms whose template starts with rhel Defaults to false. Requires to either rhnuser and rhnpassword, or rhnactivationkey and rhnorg, and an optional rhnpool
rhnserver	https://subscription.rhsm.redhat.com	Red Hat Network server (for registering to a Satellite server)
rhnuser	None	Red Hat Network user
rhnpassword	None	Red Hat Network password
rhnactivationkey	None	Red Hat Network activation key
rhnorg	None	Red Hat Network organization
rhnpool	None	Red Hat Network pool
enableroot	true	Allows ssh access as root user
rootpassword	None	Root password to inject (when beeing to lazy to use a cmd to set it)
storemetadata	false	Creates a /root/.metadata yaml file whith all the overrides applied. On gcp, those overrides are also stored as extra metadata
sharedfolders	[]	List of paths to share between a kvm hypervisor and vm. You will also make sure that the path is accessible as qemu user (typically with id 107) and use an hypervisor and a guest with 9p support (centos/rhel lack it)
yamlinventory	false	Ansible generated inventory for single vms or for plans containing ansible entries will be yaml based.
autostart	false	Autostarts vm (libvirt specific)
kernel	None	Kernel location to pass to the vm. Needs to be local to the hypervisor
initrd	None	Initrd location to pass to the vm. Needs to be local to the hypervisor
cmdline	None	Cmdline to pass to the vm
pcidevices	[]	array of pcidevices to passthrough to the first worker only. Check here for an example
tpm	false	Enables a TPM device in the vm, using emulator mode. Requires swtpm in the host
rng	false	Enables a RNG device in the vm
notify	false	Sends result of a command or a script run from the vm to one of the supported notify engines
notifymethod	[pushbullet]	Array of notify engines. Other options are slack and mail
notifycmd	None	Which command to run for notification. If none is provided and no notifyscript either, defaults to sending last 100 lines of the cloudinit file of the machine, or ignition for coreos based vms
notifyscript	None	Script to execute on the vm and whose output will be sent to notification engines
pushbullettoken	None	Token to use when notifying through pushbullet
slacktoken	None	Token to use when notifying through slack. Should be the token of an app generated in your workspace
slackchannel	None	Slack Channel where to send the notification
mailserver	None	Mail server where to send the notification (on port 25)
mailfrom	None	Mail address to send mail from
mailto	[]	List of mail addresses to send mail to
zerotier_net	[]	List of zerotier public networks where to join. Will trigger installation of zerotier on the node
zerotier_kubelet	False	Whether to configure kubelet to use the first zerotier address as node ip
playbook	False	Generates a playbook for the vm of the plan instead of creating it. Useful to run parts of a plan on baremetal
vmrules	[]	List of rules with an associated dict to apply for the corresponding entry, if a regex on the entry name is matched. The profile of the matching vm will be updated with the content of the rule
wait	False	Whether to wait for cloudinit/ignition to fully apply
waitcommand	None	a specific command to use to validate that vm is ready
waittimeout	0	Timeout when waiting for a vm to be ready. Default zero value means the wait wont timeout

Ansible support¶

klist.py is provided as a dynamic inventory for ansible.

The script uses sames conf as kcli (and as such defaults to local if no configuration file is found).

vms will be grouped by plan, or put in the kvirt group if they dont belong to any plan.

Try it with:

klist.py --list
KLIST=$(which klist.py)
ansible all -i $KLIST -m ping

If you’re using kcli as a container, you will have to create a script such as the following to properly call the inventory.

#!/bin/bash
docker run -it --security-opt label:disable -v ~/.kcli:/root/.kcli -v /var/run/libvirt:/var/run/libvirt --entrypoint=/usr/bin/klist.py karmab/kcli $@

Additionally, there are ansible kcli modules in ansible-kcli-modules repository, with sample playbooks:

kvirt_vm allows you to create/delete vm (based on an existing profile or a template)
kvirt_plan allows you to create/delete a plan
kvirt_product allows you to create/delete a product (provided you have a product repository configured)
kvirt_info allows you to retrieve a dict of values similar to kcli info output. You can select which fields to gather

Those modules rely on python3 so you will need to pass -e 'ansible_python_interpreter=path_to_python3' to your ansible-playbook invocations ( or set it in your inventory) if your default ansible installation is based on python2.

Both kvirt_vm, kvirt_plan and kvirt_product support overriding parameters:

- name: Deploy fission with additional parameters
  kvirt_product:
    name: fission
    product: fission
    parameters:
     fission_type: all
     docker_disk_size: 10

Finally, you can use the key ansible within a profile:

ansible:
 - playbook: frout.yml
   verbose: true
   variables:
    - x: 8
    - z: 12

In a plan file, you can also define additional sections with the ansible type and point to your playbook, optionally enabling verbose and using the key hosts to specify a list of vms to run the given playbook instead.

You wont define variables in this case, as you can leverage host_vars and groups_vars directory for this purpose.

myplay:
 type: ansible
 verbose: false
 playbook: prout.yml

When leveraging ansible this way, an inventory file will be generated on the fly for you and let in /tmp/$PLAN.inv.

You can set the variable yamlinventory to True at default, host or profile level if you want the generated file to be yaml based. In this case, it will be named /tmp/$PLAN.inv.yaml.

Using products¶

To easily share plans, you can make use of the products feature which leverages them:

Repos¶

First, add a repo containing a KMETA file with yaml info about products you want to expose. For instance, mine

kcli create repo -u https://github.com/karmab/kcli-plans karmab

You can also update later a given repo, to refresh its KMETA file ( or all the repos, if not specifying any)

kcli update repo REPO_NAME

You can delete a given repo with

kcli delete repo REPO_NAME

Product¶

Once you have added some repos, you can list available products, and get their description

kcli list products

You can also get direct information on the product (memory and cpu used, number of vms deployed and all parameters that can be overriden)

kcli info product YOUR_PRODUCT

And deploy any product. Deletion is handled by deleting the corresponding plan.

kcli create product YOUR_PRODUCT

Deploying kubernetes/openshift clusters (and applications on top!)¶

You can deploy generic kubernetes (based on kubeadm), k3s or openshift/okd on any platform and on an arbitrary number of masters and workers. The cluster can be scaled aferwards too.

Getting information on available parameters¶

For each supported platform, you can use kcli info kube

For instance, kcli info kube generic will provide you all the parameters available for customization for generic kubernetes clusters.

Deploying generic kubernetes clusters¶

kcli create kube generic -P masters=X -P workers=Y $cluster

Deploying openshift/okd clusters¶

DISCLAIMER: This is not supported in anyway by Red Hat (although the end result cluster would be).

for Openshift, the official installer is leveraged with kcli creating the vms instead of Terraform, and injecting some extra pods to provide a vip and self contained dns.

The main benefits of deploying Openshift with kcli are:

Auto download openshift-install binary specified version.
Easy vms tuning.
Single workflow regardless of the target platform
Self contained dns. (For cloud platforms, cloud public dns is leveraged instead)
For libvirt, no need to compile installer or tweak libvirtd.
Vms can be connected to a physical bridge.
Multiple clusters can live on the same l2 network.
Support for disconnected registry and ipv6 networks

Requirements¶

Valid pull secret (for downstream)
Ssh public key.
Write access to /etc/hosts file to allow editing of this file.
An available ip in your vm’s network to use as api_ip. Make sure it is excluded from your dhcp server. An optional ingress_ip can be specified, otherwise api_ip will be used.
Direct access to the deployed vms. Use something like this otherwise sshuttle -r your_hypervisor 192.168.122.0/24 -v).
Target platform needs:
- Ignition support
  - (for Ovirt/Rhv, this means >= 4.4).
  - For Libvirt, support for fw_cfg in qemu (install qemu-kvm-ev on centos for instance).
- On Openstack:
  - swift available on the install.
  - a flavor. You can create a dedicated one with openstack flavor create --id 6 --ram 32768 --vcpus 16 --disk 30 m1.openshift
  - a port on target network mapped to a floating ip. If not specified with api_ip and public_api_ip parameters, the second-to-last ip from the network will be used.
For ipv6, you need to run the following sysctl net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra=2

How to Use¶

Create a parameters.yml¶

Prepare a parameter file with valid variables:

A minimal one could be the following one

cluster: mycluster
domain: karmalabs.com
version: stable
tag: '4.8'
masters: 3
workers:2
memory: 16384
numcpus: 16

Here’s the list of all variables that can be used (you can list them with kcli info cluster openshift)

Parameter	Default Value	Comments
version	nightly	You can choose between nightly, ci or stable. ci requires specific data in your secret
tag	4.5
async	false	Exit once vms are created and let job in cluster delete bootstrap
notify	false	Whether to send notifications once cluster is deployed. Mean to be used in async mode
pull_secret	openshift_pull.json
image	rhcos45	rhcos image to use (should be qemu for libvirt/kubevirt and openstack one for ovirt/openstack)
helper_image	CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2	which image to use when deploying temporary helper vms
network	default	Any existing network can be used
api_ip	None
ingress_ip	None
masters	1	number of masters
workers	0	number of workers
fips	False
cluster	testk
domain	karmalabs.com	For cloud platforms, it should point to a domain name you have access to
network_type	OpenShiftSDN
minimal	False
pool	default
flavor	None
flavor_bootstrap	None
flavor_master	None
flavor_worker	None
numcpus	4
bootstrap_numcpus	None
master_numcpus	None
worker_numcpus	None
memory	8192
bootstrap_memory	None
master_memory	None
worker_memory	None
master_tpm	False
master_rng	False
worker_tpm	False
worker_rng	False
disk_size	30	disk size in Gb for final nodes
autostart	False
keys	[]
apps	[]
extra_disks	[]
extra_master_disks	[]
extra_worker_disks	[]
extra_networks	[]
extra_master_networks	[]
extra_worker_networks	[]
master_macs	[]
master_ips	[]
bootstrap_mac	None
bootstrap_ip	None
worker_macs	[]
worker_ips	[]
pcidevices	None	array of pcidevices to passthrough to the first worker only. Check here for an example
numa	None	numa conf dictionary to apply to the workers only. Check here for an example
numa_master	None
numa_worker	None
numamode	None
numamode_master	None
numamode_worker	None
cpupinning	None
cpupinning_master	None
cpupinning_worker	None
disconnected_url	None
disconnected_user	None
disconnected_password	None
imagecontentsources	[]
ca	None	optional string of certificates to trust
ipv6	False
baremetal	False	Whether to also deploy the metal3 operator, for provisioning physical workers
baremetal_machine_cidr	None
provisioning_net	provisioning
provisioning_nic	ens4
cloud_tag	None
cloud_scale	False
cloud_api_internal	False
apps	[]	Extra applications to deploy on the cluster, available ones are visible with `kcli list app openshift`

Deploying¶

kcli create kube openshift --paramfile parameters.yml $cluster

You will be asked for your sudo password in order to create a /etc/hosts entry for the api vip.
Once that finishes, set the following environment variable in order to use oc commands export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.kcli/clusters/$cluster/auth/kubeconfig

Providing custom machine configs¶

If a manifests directory exists in the current directory, the *yaml assets found there are copied to the directory generated by the install, prior to deployment.

Architecture¶

Check This documentation

SNO (single node openshift ) support¶

You can deploy a single node setting masters to 1 and workers to 0 in your parameter file. On Cloud platforms, you can use an extra parameter, sno_cloud_remove_lb, to remove loadbalancer and point dns directly to the public ip of your node, making the resulting cluster only rely on the corresponding instance.

Alternatively, you can leverage bootstrap in place (bip) and rhcos live iso with the flag sno, which allows you to provision a baremetal sno by creating a custom iso stored in your specified libvirt pool. The following extra parameters are available with this workflow:

sno_disk: You can indicate which disk to use for installing Rhcos operating system in your node. If none is specified, the disk will be autodiscovered
sno_dns: Defaults to true. A static pod leveraging coredns and pointing the relevant dns records to the ip of the node is injected after master ignition is generated, removing the need for external dns. Use this if you can’t provide the DNS requirements for the single node
sno_virtual: Defaults to false. If you set it to true, a vm leveraging the generated iso will be created and install will be monitored up until the end. This is mostly available for dog fooding the bip approach.
extra_args: You can use this variable to specify as a string any extra args to add to the generated iso. A common use case for this is to set static networking for the node, for instanc with something like ip=192.168.1.200::192.168.1.1:255.255.255.0:mysupersno.dev.local:enp1s0:none nameserver=192.168.1.1
api_ip: This is normally not needed but if you already have some DNS records in place pointing to a given api vip or you don’t know your baremetal ip, you can specify the vip so that an extra keepalived static pod is injected.

Note that in the baremetal context, you are responsible for attaching the generated iso to your target node.

Adding more workers¶

The procedure is the same independently of the type of cluster used.

kcli scale kube <generic|openshift|okd|k3s> -w num_of_workers --paramfile parameters.yml $cluster

In openshift case, for baremetal workers you can use the following command:

kcli create openshift-iso --paramfile parameters.yml $cluster

Interacting with your clusters¶

All generated assets for a given cluster are stored in $HOME/.kcli/clusters/$cluster.

In particular, the kubeconfig file to use to interact with the cluster is stored at $HOME/.kcli/clusters/$cluster/auth/kubeconfig

Cleaning up¶

The procedure is the same independently of the type of cluster used.

kcli delete kube $cluster

Deploying applications on top of kubernetes/openshift¶

You can use kcli to deploy applications on your kubernetes/openshift (regardless of whether it was deployed with kcli)

Applications such as the following one are currently supported:

argocd
kubevirt
rook
istio
knative
tekton

To list applications available on generic kubernetes, run:

kcli list kube generic

To list applications available on generic openshift, run:

kcli list kube openshift

For any of the supported applications, you can get information on the supported parameters with:

kcli info app generic|openshift $app_name

To deploy an app, use the following, with additional parameters passed in the command line or in a parameter file:

kcli create app generic|openshift $app_name

Applications can be deleted the same way:

kcli delete app generic|openshift $app_name

Running on kubernetes/openshift¶

You can run the container on those platforms and either use the web interface or log in the pod to run kcli commandline

On openshift, you’ll need to run first those extra commands:

oc new-project kcli
oc adm policy add-scc-to-user anyuid system:serviceaccount:kcli:default
oc expose svc kcli

Then:

kubectl create configmap kcli-config --from-file=~/.kcli
kubectl create configmap ssh-config --from-file=~/.ssh
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/karmab/kcli/master/extras/k8sdeploy.yml

Alternatively, look at https://github.com/karmab/kcli-controller for a controller/operator handling vms and plans as crds and creating the corresponding assets with kcli/kvirt library.

Using Jenkins¶

Requisites¶

Jenkins running somewhere, either:
- standalone
- on K8s/Openshift
Docker running if using this backend
Podman installed if using this backend

Credentials¶

First, create the following credentials in Jenkins as secret files:

kcli-config with the content of your ~/.kcli/config.yml
kcli-id-rsa with your ssh private key
kcli-id-rsa-pub with your ssh public key

You can use arbitrary names for those credentials, but you will then have to either edit Jenkinsfile later or specify credentials when running your build.

Kcli configuration¶

Default backend is podman . If you want to use Docker or Kubernetes instead, add the corresponding snippet in ~/.kcli/config.yml.

For instance, for Kubernetes:

jenkinsmode: kubernetes

Create Jenkins file¶

Now you can create a Jenkinsfile from your specific, or from default kcli_plan.yml

kcli create pipeline

You can see an example of the generated Jenkinsfile for both targets from the sample plan provided in this directory.

Parameters from the plan get converted in Jenkins parameters, along with extra parameters: - for needed credentials (kcli config file, public and private ssh key) - a wait boolean to indicated whether to wait for plan completion upon run. - a kcli_client parameter that can be used to override the target client where to launch plan at run time.

Your Jenkinsfile is ready for use!

Openshift¶

You can create credentials as secrets and tag them so they get synced to Jenkins:

oc create secret generic kcli-config-yml --from-file=filename=config.yml
oc annotate secret/kcli-config-yml jenkins.openshift.io/secret.name=kcli-config-yml
oc label secret/kcli-config-yml credential.sync.jenkins.openshift.io=true

oc create secret generic kcli-id-rsa --from-file=filename=~/.ssh/id_rsa
oc annotate secret/kcli-id-rsa jenkins.openshift.io/secret.name=kcli-id-rsa
oc label secret/kcli-id-rsa credential.sync.jenkins.openshift.io=true

oc create secret generic kcli-id-rsa-pub --from-file=filename=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
oc annotate secret/kcli-id-rsa-pub jenkins.openshift.io/secret.name=kcli-id-rsa-pub
oc label secret/kcli-id-rsa-pub credential.sync.jenkins.openshift.io=true

You will also need to allow anyuid scc for kcli pod, which can be done with the following command (adjust to your project):

PROJECT=kcli
oc adm policy add-scc-to-user anyuid system:serviceaccount:$PROJECT:default

Auto Completion¶

You can enable autocompletion if running kcli from package or pip. It’s enabled by default when running kclishell container alias

Bash/Zsh¶

Add the following line in one of your shell files (.bashrc, .zshrc, …)

eval "$(register-python-argcomplete kcli)"

Fish¶

Add the following snippet in .config/fish/config.fish

function __fish_kcli_complete
    set -x _ARGCOMPLETE 1
    set -x _ARGCOMPLETE_IFS \n
    set -x _ARGCOMPLETE_SUPPRESS_SPACE 1
    set -x _ARGCOMPLETE_SHELL fish
    set -x COMP_LINE (commandline -p)
    set -x COMP_POINT (string length (commandline -cp))
    set -x COMP_TYPE
    if set -q _ARC_DEBUG
        kcli 8>&1 9>&2 1>/dev/null 2>&1
    else
        kcli 8>&1 9>&2 1>&9 2>&1
    end
end
complete -c kcli -f -a '(__fish_kcli_complete)'

Api Usage¶

Locally¶

You can also use kvirt library directly, without the client or to embed it into your own application.

Here’s a sample:

from kvirt.config import Kconfig
config = Kconfig()
k = config.k

You can then either use config for high level actions or the more low level k object.

Using grpc¶

Server side¶

Kcli provides an api using grpc protocol. This allows to run one or several instances of kcli as proxies and use a lightweight client written in the language of your choice.

To make use of it:

On a node with kcli installed, launch krpc. If installing from rpm, you will need python3-grpcio package which:
- comes out of the box on fedora
- is available through RDO repo for centos8/rhel8
On the client side, you can then access the api by targetting port 50051 of the server node (in insecure mode)

Note that the server doesn’t implement all the features yet. Most notably, create_plan isn’t available at the moment. Check the following doc to see the status of the implementation.

Client side¶

You can use a GRPC client such grpcurl. To list services, you need krpc to have grpcio-reflection package, which is only available through pip (and is installed when running kcli as container). You can use grpcurl -plaintext $KCLI_SERVER:50051 list to see objects at your disposal.
kclirpc can be used as a cli mimicking kcli but with grpc calls.
There is also a terraform provider for kcli using GRPC you can get from here