Single Front-end Installation¶

This page describes how to install a complete OpenNebula Front-end from binary packages available in the software repositories configured in the previous section. We recommend using a Host with the supported operating system as installation from packages provides the best experience and is referenced from other places of this documentation. If there are no packages for your distribution, you might consider reading the Building from Source Code guide to build OpenNebula on your own.

Warning

Running Front-end inside an LXD container is limited! Integrations with selected public marketplaces (Docker Hub, LXC, TurnKey Linux) and building images from custom Dockerfiles won’t be available, as they require mounting of block devices. This feature is usually not available in the LXD containers.

Proceed with the following steps to get the fully-featured OpenNebula Front-end up.

Step 1. Disable SELinux on AlmaLinux/CentOS7/RHEL (Optional)¶

Depending on the type of OpenNebula deployment, the SELinux can block some operations initiated by the OpenNebula Front-end, which results in a failure of the particular operation. It’s not recommended to disable the SELinux in production environments as it degrades the security of your server, but instead to investigate and work around each individual problem based on the SELinux User’s and Administrator’s Guide. The administrator might disable the SELinux to temporarily work around the problem or on non-production deployments by changing the following line in /etc/selinux/config:

SELINUX=disabled

After the change, you have to reboot the machine.

Step 2. Add OpenNebula Repositories¶

Follow the OpenNebula Repositories guide and add software repositories for the OpenNebula edition you are going to deploy.

Step 3. Add 3rd Party Repositories¶

Not all OpenNebula dependencies are in base distribution repositories. On selected platforms below you need to enable 3rd party repositories by running the following commands under privileged user (root):

AlmaLinux 8,9

yum -y install epel-release

RHEL 8

rpm -ivh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

RHEL 9

rpm -ivh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

Step 3. Installing the Software¶

Available packages for OpenNebula clients, the Front-end and hypervisor Nodes:

Package	Description
opennebula	OpenNebula Daemon and Scheduler (EE comes with additional Enterprise Tools)
opennebula-tools	Command Line Interface
opennebula-sunstone	GUI Sunstone and noVNC Proxy Server
opennebula-fireedge	Next-generation GUI FireEdge
opennebula-gate	OneGate server which allows communication between VMs and OpenNebula
opennebula-flow	OneFlow manages services and elasticity
opennebula-migration	Database migration tools for EE (only in EE)
opennebula-migration-community	Database migration tools for CE - please request via online form
opennebula-provision	Tools to provision Edge Clusters
opennebula-provision-data	Data for Edge Clusters provisioning tools
opennebula-node-kvm	Base setup for KVM hyp. Node
opennebula-node-firecracker	Base setup for Firecracker hypervisor Node
opennebula-node-lxc	Base setup for LXC hypervisor Node (not on RHEL 7)
opennebula-node-lxd	Base setup for LXD hypervisor Node (only on Ubuntu and Debian)
opennebula-lxd-snap	Meta-package to install LXD snap (only on Ubuntu 18.04)
opennebula-guacd	Proxy daemon for Guacamole
opennebula-rubygems	Bundled Ruby gem dependencies
opennebula-libs	Shared Ruby libraries among various components
opennebula-common	Shared content for OpenNebula packages
opennebula-common-onecfg	Helpers for Configuration Management tool
rpm: opennebula-java deb: libopennebula-java deb: libopennebula-java-doc	Java OCA Bindings
python3-pyone	Python 3 OCA Bindings
docker-machine-opennebula	OpenNebula driver for Docker Machine

There are also packages with debugging symbols for some platforms, e.g. openenbula-debuginfo on AlmaLinux/RHEL and opennebula-dbgsym on Debian/Ubuntu. Other architecture-specific components might come with similarly named packages, please query your packaging database if necessary.

Note

There are a few differences in package names among distributions. Those with varying package names contain mostly integration libraries and since they are for general use on installation Hosts, their names are left to follow the distribution conventions. Above, you can find the AlmaLinux/RHEL specific packages prefixed with “rpm:” and Debian/Ubuntu specific packages prefixed with “deb:”.

AlmaLinux / CentOS7 / RHEL¶

Install all OpenNebula Front-end components by executing the following commands under a privileged user:

yum -y install opennebula opennebula-sunstone opennebula-fireedge opennebula-gate opennebula-flow opennebula-provision

Optional

Install dependencies for Docker Hub Marketplace:

install Docker following the official documentation <https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/>
add user oneadmin into group docker:

usermod -a -G docker oneadmin

Install dependencies for OpenNebula Edge Clusters provisioning:

Note

Ansible and Terraform can be also installed from packages if their versions are Ansible 2.9.x and Terraform 0.14.x.

yum -y install python3-pip
pip3 install 'cryptography<3.4'
pip3 install 'ansible>=2.8.0,<2.10.0'
pip3 install 'Jinja2>=2.10.0'
curl 'https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/0.14.7/terraform_0.14.7_linux_amd64.zip' | zcat >/usr/bin/terraform
chmod 0755 /usr/bin/terraform

Debian / Ubuntu¶

Install all OpenNebula Front-end components by executing the following commands under a privileged user:

apt-get update
apt-get -y install opennebula opennebula-sunstone opennebula-fireedge opennebula-gate opennebula-flow opennebula-provision

Optional

Install dependencies for Docker Hub Marketplace:

install Docker following the official documentation for Debian or Ubuntu
add user oneadmin into group docker:

usermod -a -G docker oneadmin

Install dependencies for OpenNebula Edge Clusters provisioning:

Note

Ansible and Terraform can be also installed from packages if their versions are Ansible 2.9.x and Terraform 0.14.x.

apt-get -y install python3-pip
pip3 install 'cryptography<3.4'
pip3 install 'ansible>=2.8.0,<2.10.0'
pip3 install 'Jinja2>=2.10.0'
curl 'https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/0.14.7/terraform_0.14.7_linux_amd64.zip' | zcat >/usr/bin/terraform
chmod 0755 /usr/bin/terraform

Step 4. Install Ruby Dependencies System-wide (Optional)¶

Important

For new deployments, we recommend skipping this step.

When upgrading an existing deployment which could be running OpenNebula older than 5.10.0 anytime in the past, you might need to install Ruby dependencies via install_gems if you are not yet using the shipped Ruby gems (i.e., when symbolic link /usr/share/one/gems doesn’t exist on your Front-end)!

Warning

Since OpenNebula 5.10, this step is optional and all required Ruby gems are provided within the opennebula-rubygems package. Ruby gems are installed into a dedicated directory /usr/share/one/gems-dist/, but OpenNebula uses them via the (symlinked) location /usr/share/one/gems/ which points to the gems-dist/ directory. When the gems/ directory (by default on new installations) exists, OpenNebula uses the gems inside exclusively by removing any other system Ruby gems locations from the search paths!

ls -lad /usr/share/one/gems*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    9 Aug 13 11:41 /usr/share/one/gems -> gems-dist
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 Aug 13 11:41 /usr/share/one/gems-dist

If you want to use the system-wide Ruby gems instead of the packaged ones, remove the symlink /usr/share/one/gems/ and install all required dependencies with the install_gems script described below. The removed /usr/share/one/gems/ symlink won’t be created again on the next OpenNebula upgrade. Ruby gems shipped with OpenNebula can’t be avoided or uninstalled, but their use can be disabled by removing the /usr/share/one/gems/ symlink.

If additional Ruby gems are needed by custom drivers or hooks, they must be installed into the introduced dedicated directory. For example, set the gem name in $GEM_NAME and run under privileged user root:

export GEM_PATH=/usr/share/one/gems/
export GEM_HOME=/usr/share/one/gems/
gem install --install-dir /usr/share/one/gems/ --bindir /usr/share/one/gems/bin/ --no-document --conservative $GEM_NAME

Several OpenNebula components depend on Ruby and specific Ruby libraries (gems). They are distributed alongside OpenNebula but are available to and used exclusively by OpenNebula. For advanced usage, you can use the following commands to install all Ruby libraries system-wide and enforce OpenNebula to use them:

test -L /usr/share/one/gems && unlink /usr/share/one/gems
/usr/share/one/install_gems

Step 5. Enabling MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL (Optional)¶

You can skip this step if you want to deploy OpenNebula as quickly as possible for evaluation.

If you are deploying Front-end for production/serious use, make sure you read the Database Setup guide and select the suitable database Back-end. Although it is possible to switch from (default) SQLite to MySQL/MariaDB Back-end later, it’s not easy and straightforward, so we suggest to deploy and use MySQL/MariaDB Back-end from the very beginning. Also, please note it’s not possible to migrate existing databases to PostgreSQL at all.

Step 6. Configuring OpenNebula¶

OpenNebula Daemon¶

Important

This is only for initial OpenNebula deployment, not applicable for upgrades!

OpenNebula’s initial deployment on first usage creates a user oneadmin inside the OpenNebula (not to be confused with system user oneadmin in the Front-end operating system!) based on a randomly generated password read from /var/lib/one/.one/one_auth. To set your own user password from the very beginning, proceed with the following steps before starting the services:

Log in as the oneadmin system user with this command:

sudo -u oneadmin /bin/sh

Create file /var/lib/one/.one/one_auth with initial password in the format oneadmin:<password>

echo 'oneadmin:changeme123' > /var/lib/one/.one/one_auth

Warning

This will set the oneadmin’s password only upon starting OpenNebula for the first time. From that point, you must use the oneuser passwd command to change oneadmin’s password. More information on how to change the oneadmin password is here.

Check how to change oneadmin password for already running services.

Note

For advanced setup, follow the configuration references for OpenNebula Daemon and Scheduler.

FireEdge¶

OpenNebula FireEdge is a next-generation web server that delivers a GUI for remote OpenNebula clusters provisioning (OneProvision GUI) as well as additional functionality to Sunstone (Guacamole, and VMRC for VMware). It is installed and configured by default but can be skipped if you don’t need these features.

You have to configure Sunstone with the public endpoint of FireEdge so that one service can redirect users to the other. To configure the public FireEdge endpoint in Sunstone, edit /etc/one/sunstone-server.conf and update parameter :public_fireedge_endpoint with the base URL (domain or IP-based) over which end-users will access FireEdge. For example:

:public_fireedge_endpoint: http://one.example.com:2616

If you are reconfiguring any time later already running services, don’t forget to restart them to apply the changes.

Note

For advanced setup, follow the FireEdge configuration reference.

OneGate (Optional)¶

The OneGate server allows communication between VMs and OpenNebula. It’s optional and not required for basic functionality but is essential for multi-VM services orchestrated by OneFlow server below. The configuration is two-phase - configure the OneGate server to listen for the connections from outside the Front-end and configure the OpenNebula Daemon with OneGate end-point passed to the virtual machines. Neither or both must be done.

To configure OneGate, edit /etc/one/onegate-server.conf and update the :host parameter with service listening address accordingly. For example, use 0.0.0.0 to work on all configured network interfaces on the Front-end:

:host: 0.0.0.0

To configure OpenNebula Daemon, edit /etc/one/oned.conf and set the ONEGATE_ENDPOINT with the URL and port of your OneGate server (domain or IP-based). The end-point address must be reachable directly from your future virtual machines. You need to decide what virtual networks and addresses will be used in your cloud. For example:

ONEGATE_ENDPOINT="http://one.example.com:5030"

If you are reconfiguring already running services at a later point, don’t forget to restart them to apply the changes.

Note

For advanced setup, follow the OneGate configuration reference.

OneFlow (Optional)¶

The OneFlow server orchestrates the services and multi-VM deployments. While for most cases the default configuration fits well, you might need to reconfigure the service to be able to control the OneFlow remotely over API. Edit the /etc/one/oneflow-server.conf and update :host: parameter with service listening address accordingly. For example, use 0.0.0.0 to work on all configured network interfaces on the Front-end:

:host: 0.0.0.0

If you are reconfiguring already running services at a later point, don’t forget to restart them to apply the changes.

Note

For advanced setup, follow the OneFlow configuration reference.

Step 7. Starting and Managing OpenNebula Services¶

The complete list of operating system services provided by OpenNebula:

Service	Description	Auto-Starts With
opennebula	Main OpenNebula Daemon (oned), XML-RPC API endpoint
opennebula-scheduler	Scheduler	opennebula
opennebula-hem	Hook Execution Service	opennebula
opennebula-sunstone	GUI server Sunstone
opennebula-fireedge	Next-generation GUI server FireEdge
opennebula-gate	OneGate Server for communication between VMs and OpenNebula
opennebula-flow	OneFlow Server for multi-VM services
opennebula-guacd	Guacamole Proxy Daemon	opennebula-fireedge
opennebula-novnc	noVNC Proxy Server	opennebula-sunstone
opennebula-showback	Service for periodic recalculation of showback	opennebula
opennebula-ssh-agent	Dedicated SSH agent for OpenNebula Daemon	opennebula
opennebula-ssh-socks-cleaner	Periodic cleaner of SSH persistent connections	opennebula

Note

Since 5.12, the OpenNebula comes with an integrated SSH agent as the opennebula-ssh-agent service which removes the need to copy oneadmin’s SSH private key across your Hosts. For more information, you can look at the passwordless login section of the manual. You can opt to disable this service and configure your environment the old way.

You are ready to start all OpenNebula services with the following command (NOTE: you might want to remove the services from the command arguments if you skipped their configuration steps above):

systemctl start opennebula opennebula-sunstone opennebula-fireedge opennebula-gate opennebula-flow

Warning

Make sure all required network ports are enabled on your firewall (on Front-end or the router).

Other OpenNebula services might be started as a dependency but you don’t need to care about them unless they need to be explicitly restarted or stopped. To start these services automatically on server boot, it’s necessary to enable them by the following command:

systemctl enable opennebula opennebula-sunstone opennebula-fireedge opennebula-gate opennebula-flow

Step 8. Verifying the Installation¶

After OpenNebula is started for the first time, you should check that the commands can connect to the OpenNebula daemon. You can do this in the Linux CLI or the graphical user interface Sunstone.

Linux CLI¶

In the Front-end, run the following command as oneadmin system user and find a similar output:

oneuser show
USER 0 INFORMATION
ID              : 0
NAME            : oneadmin
GROUP           : oneadmin
PASSWORD        : 3bc15c8aae3e4124dd409035f32ea2fd6835efc9
AUTH_DRIVER     : core
ENABLED         : Yes

USER TEMPLATE
TOKEN_PASSWORD="ec21d27e2fe4f9ed08a396cbd47b08b8e0a4ca3c"

RESOURCE USAGE & QUOTAS

If you get an error message then the OpenNebula Daemon could not be started properly:

oneuser show
Failed to open TCP connection to localhost:2633 (Connection refused - connect(2) for "localhost" port 2633)

You can investigate the OpenNebula logs in /var/log/one, check files /var/log/one/oned.log (main OpenNebula Daemon log) and /var/log/one/sched.log (OpenNebula Scheduler log). Check for any error messages marked with [E].

Sunstone¶

Note

Make sure the TCP port 9869 is not blocked on your firewall.

Now you can try to log in through the Sunstone GUI. To do so, point your browser to http://<frontend_address>:9869. You should get to the login page. The access user is oneadmin and initial (or customized) password is the one from the file /var/lib/one/.one/one_auth on your Front-end.

In case of problems, you can investigate the OpenNebula logs in /var/log/one and check file /var/log/one/sunstone.log.

Directory Structure¶

The following table lists few significant directories on your OpenNebula Front-end:

Path	Description
`/etc/one/`	Configuration files
`/var/log/one/`	Log files, e.g. `oned.log`, `sched.log`, `sunstone.log` and `<vmid>.log`
`/var/lib/one/`	`oneadmin` home directory
`/var/lib/one/datastores/<dsid>/`	Storage for the datastores
`/var/lib/one/vms/<vmid>/`	Action files for VMs (deployment file, transfer manager scripts, etc…)
`/var/lib/one/.one/one_auth`	`oneadmin` credentials
`/var/lib/one/remotes/`	Probes and scripts that will be synced to the Hosts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/etc`	Configuration files for probes and scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/hooks/`	Hook scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/vmm/`	Virtual Machine Manager Driver scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/auth/`	Authentication Driver scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/im/`	Information Manager (monitoring) Driver scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/market/`	MarketPlace Driver scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/datastore/`	Datastore Driver scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/vnm/`	Networking Driver scripts
`/var/lib/one/remotes/tm/`	Transfer Manager Driver scripts

Firewall Configuration¶

The list below shows the ports used by OpenNebula. These ports need to be open for OpenNebula to work properly:

Port	Description
`22`	Front-end host SSH server
`2474`	OneFlow server
`2616`	Next-generation GUI server FireEdge
`2633`	Main OpenNebula Daemon (oned), XML-RPC API endpoint
`4124`	Monitoring daemon (both TCP/UDP)
`5030`	OneGate server
`9869`	GUI server Sunstone
`29876`	noVNC Proxy Server

Note

These are only the default ports. Each component can be configured to bind to specific ports or use a HTTP Proxy.

OpenNebula connects to the hypervisor Nodes over SSH (port 22). Additionally, the main OpenNebula Daemon (oned) may connect to various remote Marketplace servers to get a list of available appliances, e.g.:

OpenNebula Marketplace (https://marketplace.opennebula.io/)
Linux Containers Makerplace (https://images.linuxcontainers.org/)
TurnKey Linux (http://mirror.turnkeylinux.org/)
Docker Hub (https://hub.docker.com/)

You should open the outgoing connections to these services.

Step 9. Stop and Restart Services (Optional)¶

To stop, start or restart any of the listed individual services, follow the examples below for a selected service:

systemctl stop        opennebula
systemctl start       opennebula
systemctl restart     opennebula
systemctl try-restart opennebula

Use following command to stop all OpenNebula services:

systemctl stop opennebula opennebula-scheduler opennebula-hem \
    opennebula-sunstone opennebula-fireedge opennebula-gate opennebula-flow \
    opennebula-guacd opennebula-novnc opennebula-showback.timer \
    opennebula-ssh-agent opennebula-ssh-socks-cleaner.timer

Use the following command to restart all already running OpenNebula services:

systemctl try-restart opennebula opennebula-scheduler opennebula-hem \
    opennebula-sunstone opennebula-fireedge opennebula-gate opennebula-flow \
    opennebula-guacd opennebula-novnc opennebula-ssh-agent

Learn more about Managing Services with Systemd.

In production environments the services should be stopped in a specific order and with extra manual safety checks:

Stop opennebula-scheduler to stop planning deployment of VMs.
Stop opennebula-sunstone and opennebula-fireedge to disable GUI access to users.
Stop openenbula-flow to disable unattended multi-VM optations.
Check and wait until there are no active operations with VMs and images.
Stop opennebula and rest services.

Step 10. Next steps¶

Now that you have successfully started your OpenNebula services, you can continue with adding content to your cloud. Add hypervisor Nodes, storage, and Virtual Networks. Or you can provision Users with Groups and permissions, Images, define and run Virtual Machines.

Continue with the following guides:

Open Cluster Deployment to provision hypervisor Nodes, storage, and Virtual Networks.
VMware Clustre Deployment to add VMware vCenter Nodes.
Management and Operations to add Users, Groups, Images, define Virtual Machines, and a lot more …