Provided by: ganeti_2.9.3-1_all 
Name
ganeti - cluster-based virtualization management
Synopsis
# gnt-cluster init cluster1.example.com
# gnt-node add node2.example.com
# gnt-instance add -n node2.example.com \
> -o debootstrap --disk 0:size=30g \
> -t plain instance1.example.com
DESCRIPTION
The Ganeti software manages physical nodes and virtual instances of a cluster based on a virtualization
software. The current version (2.3) supports Xen 3.x and KVM (72 or above) as hypervisors, and LXC as an
experimental hypervisor.
Quick start
First you must install the software on all the cluster nodes, either from sources or (if available) from
a package. The next step is to create the initial cluster configuration, using gnt-cluster init.
Then you can add other nodes, or start creating instances.
Cluster architecture
In Ganeti 2.0, the architecture of the cluster is a little more complicated than in 1.2. The cluster is
coordinated by a master daemon (ganeti-masterd(8)), running on the master node. Each node runs (as
before) a node daemon, and the master has the RAPI daemon running too.
Node roles
Each node can be in one of the following states:
master Only one node per cluster can be in this role, and this node is the one holding the authoritative
copy of the cluster configuration and the one that can actually execute commands on the cluster
and modify the cluster state. See more details under Cluster configuration.
master_candidate
The node receives the full cluster configuration (configuration file and jobs) and can become a
master via the gnt-cluster master-failover command. Nodes that are not in this state cannot
transition into the master role due to missing state.
regular
This the normal state of a node.
drained
Nodes in this state are functioning normally but cannot receive new instances, because the
intention is to set them to offline or remove them from the cluster.
offline
These nodes are still recorded in the Ganeti configuration, but except for the master daemon
startup voting procedure, they are not actually contacted by the master. This state was added in
order to allow broken machines (that are being repaired) to remain in the cluster but without
creating problems.
Node flags
Nodes have two flags which govern which roles they can take:
master_capable
The node can become a master candidate, and furthermore the master node. When this flag is
disabled, the node cannot become a candidate; this can be useful for special networking cases, or
less reliable hardware.
vm_capable
The node can host instances. When enabled (the default state), the node will participate in
instance allocation, capacity calculation, etc. When disabled, the node will be skipped in many
cluster checks and operations.
Node Parameters
The ndparams refer to node parameters. These can be set as defaults on cluster and node group levels,
but they take effect for nodes only.
Currently we support the following node parameters:
oob_program
Path to an executable used as the out-of-band helper as described in the Ganeti Node OOB
Management Framework (design-oob.rst) design document.
spindle_count
This should reflect the I/O performance of local attached storage (e.g. for "file", "plain" and
"drbd" disk templates). It doesn't have to match the actual spindle count of (any eventual)
mechanical hard-drives, its meaning is site-local and just the relative values matter.
exclusive_storage
When this Boolean flag is enabled, physical disks on the node are assigned to instance disks in an
exclusive manner, so as to lower I/O interference between instances. See the Partitioned Ganeti
(design-partitioned.rst) design document for more details. This parameter cannot be set on
individual nodes, as its value must be the same within each node group.
Hypervisor State Parameters
Using --hypervisor-state you can set hypervisor specific states as pointed out in
Ganeti Resource Model <design-resource-model.rst>.
The format is: hypervisor:option=value.
Currently we support the following hypervisor state values:
mem_total
Total node memory, as discovered by this hypervisor
mem_node
Memory used by, or reserved for, the node itself; note that some hypervisors can report this in an
authoritative way, other not
mem_hv Memory used either by the hypervisor itself or lost due to instance allocation rounding; usually
this cannot be precisely computed, but only roughly estimated
cpu_total
Total node cpu (core) count; usually this can be discovered automatically
cpu_node
Number of cores reserved for the node itself; this can either be discovered or set manually. Only
used for estimating how many VCPUs are left for instances
Note that currently this option is unused by Ganeti; values will be recorded but will not influence the
Ganeti operation.
Disk State Parameters
Using --disk-state you can set disk specific states as pointed out in Ganeti Resource Model <design-
resource-model.rst>.
The format is: storage_type/identifier:option=value. Where we currently just support lvm as storage
type. The identifier in this case is the LVM volume group. By default this is xenvg.
Currently we support the following hypervisor state values:
disk_total
Total disk size (usually discovered automatically)
disk_reserved
Reserved disk size; this is a lower limit on the free space, if such a limit is desired
disk_overhead
Disk that is expected to be used by other volumes (set via reserved_lvs); usually should be zero
Note that currently this option is unused by Ganeti; values will be recorded but will not influence the
Ganeti operation.
Cluster configuration
The master node keeps and is responsible for the cluster configuration. On the filesystem, this is
stored under the /var/ganeti/lib directory, and if the master daemon is stopped it can be backed up
normally.
The master daemon will replicate the configuration database called config.data and the job files to all
the nodes in the master candidate role. It will also distribute a copy of some configuration values via
the ssconf files, which are stored in the same directory and start with a ssconf_ prefix, to all nodes.
Jobs
All cluster modification are done via jobs. A job consists of one or more opcodes, and the list of
opcodes is processed serially. If an opcode fails, the entire job is failed and later opcodes are no
longer processed. A job can be in one of the following states:
queued The job has been submitted but not yet processed by the master daemon.
waiting
The job is waiting for for locks before the first of its opcodes.
canceling
The job is waiting for locks, but is has been marked for cancellation. It will not transition to
running, but to canceled.
running
The job is currently being executed.
canceled
The job has been canceled before starting execution.
success
The job has finished successfully.
error The job has failed during runtime, or the master daemon has been stopped during the job execution.
Common command line features
Options
Many Ganeti commands provide the following options. The availability for a certain command can be
checked by calling the command using the --help option.
gnt-... command [--dry-run] [--priority {low | normal | high}]
[--submit] [--print-job-id]
The --dry-run option can be used to check whether an operation would succeed.
The option --priority sets the priority for opcodes submitted by the command.
The --submit option is used to send the job to the master daemon but not wait for its completion. The
job ID will be shown so that it can be examined using gnt-job info.
The --print-job-id option makes the command print the job id as first line on stdout, so that it is easy
to parse by other programs.
Defaults
For certain commands you can use environment variables to provide default command line arguments. Just
assign the arguments as a string to the corresponding environment variable. The format of that variable
name is binary_command. binary is the name of the gnt-* script all upper case and dashes replaced by
underscores, and command is the command invoked on that script.
Currently supported commands are gnt-node list, gnt-group list and gnt-instance list. So you can
configure default command line flags by setting GNT_NODE_LIST, GNT_GROUP_LIST and GNT_INSTANCE_LIST.
Debug options
If the variable FORCE_LUXI_SOCKET is set, it will override the socket used for LUXI connections by
command-line tools (gnt-*). This is useful mostly for debugging, and some operations won't work at all
if, for example, you point this variable to the confd-supplied query socket and try to submit a job.
If the variable is set to the value master, it will connect to the correct path for the master daemon
(even if, for example, split queries are enabled and this is a query operation). If set to query, it
will always (try to) connect to the query socket, even if split queries are disabled. Otherwise, the
value is taken to represent a filesystem path to the socket to use.
Field formatting
Multiple ganeti commands use the same framework for tabular listing of resources (e.g. gnt-instance
list, gnt-node list, gnt-group list, gnt-debug locks, etc.) . For these commands, special states are
denoted via a special symbol (in terse mode) or a string (in verbose mode):
*, (offline)
The node in question is marked offline, and thus it cannot be queried for data. This result is
persistent until the node is de-offlined.
?, (nodata)
Ganeti expected to receive an answer from this entity, but the cluster RPC call failed and/or we
didn't receive a valid answer; usually more information is available in the node daemon log (if
the node is alive) or the master daemon log. This result is transient, and re-running command
might return a different result.
-, (unavail)
The respective field doesn't make sense for this entity; e.g. querying a down instance for its
current memory 'live' usage, or querying a non-vm_capable node for disk/memory data. This result
is persistent, and until the entity state is changed via ganeti commands, the result won't change.
??, (unknown)
This field is not known (note that this is different from entity being unknown). Either you have
mis-typed the field name, or you are using a field that the running Ganeti master daemon doesn't
know. This result is persistent, re-running the command won't change it.
Key-value parameters
Multiple options take parameters that are of the form key=value,key=value,... or category:key=value,....
Examples are the hypervisor parameters, backend parameters, etc. For these, it's possible to use values
that contain commas by escaping with via a backslash (which needs two if not single-quoted, due to shell
behaviour):
# gnt-instance modify -H kernel_path=an\\,example instance1
# gnt-instance modify -H kernel_path='an\,example' instance1
Query filters
Most commands listing resources (e.g. instances or nodes) support filtering. The filter language is
similar to Python expressions with some elements from Perl. The language is not generic. Each condition
must consist of a field name and a value (except for boolean checks), a field can not be compared to
another field. Keywords are case-sensitive.
Examples (see below for syntax details):
• List webservers:
gnt-instance list --filter 'name =* "web*.example.com"'
• List instances with three or six virtual CPUs and whose primary nodes reside in groups starting with
the string "rack":
gnt-instance list --filter
'(be/vcpus == 3 or be/vcpus == 6) and pnode.group =~ m/^rack/'
• Nodes hosting primary instances:
gnt-node list --filter 'pinst_cnt != 0'
• Nodes which aren't master candidates:
gnt-node list --filter 'not master_candidate'
• Short version for globbing patterns:
gnt-instance list '*.site1' '*.site2'
Syntax in pseudo-BNF:
<quoted-string> ::= /* String quoted with single or double quotes,
backslash for escaping */
<integer> ::= /* Number in base-10 positional notation */
<re> ::= /* Regular expression */
/*
Modifier "i": Case-insensitive matching, see
http://docs.python.org/library/re#re.IGNORECASE
Modifier "s": Make the "." special character match any character,
including newline, see http://docs.python.org/library/re#re.DOTALL
*/
<re-modifiers> ::= /* empty */ | i | s
<value> ::= <quoted-string> | <integer>
<condition> ::=
{ /* Value comparison */
<field> { == | != | < | <= | >= | > } <value>
/* Collection membership */
| <value> [ not ] in <field>
/* Regular expressions (recognized delimiters
are "/", "#", "^", and "|"; backslash for escaping)
*/
| <field> { =~ | !~ } m/<re>/<re-modifiers>
/* Globbing */
| <field> { =* | !* } <quoted-string>
/* Boolean */
| <field>
}
<filter> ::=
{ [ not ] <condition> | ( <filter> ) }
[ { and | or } <filter> ]
Operators:
== Equality
!= Inequality
< Less than
<= Less than or equal
> Greater than
>= Greater than or equal
=~ Pattern match using regular expression
!~ Logically negated from =~
=* Globbing, see glob(7), though only * and ? are supported
!* Logically negated from =*
in, not in
Collection membership and negation
Common daemon functionality
All Ganeti daemons re-open the log file(s) when sent a SIGHUP signal. logrotate(8) can be used to rotate
Ganeti's log files.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to project website (http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/) or contact the developers using the
Ganeti mailing list (ganeti@googlegroups.com).
SEE ALSO
Ganeti overview and specifications: ganeti(7) (general overview), ganeti-os-interface(7) (guest OS
definitions), ganeti-extstorage-interface(7) (external storage providers).
Ganeti commands: gnt-cluster(8) (cluster-wide commands), gnt-job(8) (job-related commands), gnt-node(8)
(node-related commands), gnt-instance(8) (instance commands), gnt-os(8) (guest OS commands), gnt-
storage(8) (storage commands), gnt-group(8) (node group commands), gnt-backup(8) (instance import/export
commands), gnt-debug(8) (debug commands).
Ganeti daemons: ganeti-watcher(8) (automatic instance restarter), ganeti-cleaner(8) (job queue cleaner),
ganeti-noded(8) (node daemon), ganeti-masterd(8) (master daemon), ganeti-rapi(8) (remote API daemon).
Ganeti htools: htools(1) (generic binary), hbal(1) (cluster balancer), hspace(1) (capacity calculation),
hail(1) (IAllocator plugin), hscan(1) (data gatherer from remote clusters), hinfo(1) (cluster information
printer), mon-collector(7) (data collectors interface).
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Google Inc. Permission is granted to copy,
distribute and/or modify under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-
licenses/GPL.
Ganeti ganeti(7)