This document provides an overview of SmartOS, an open source operating system designed for cloud computing. It discusses getting started with SmartOS through USB or PXE boot, managing disks and storage with ZFS, working with virtual machine images and creating VMs using imgadm and vmadm, and configuring networks with dladm including link aggregation. The document is intended as a primer on SmartOS and covers the basic administration tasks for getting up and running with the platform.

1. SmartOS Primer
Daniele Stroppa, ZHAW
strp@zhaw.ch, @moviolone
www.cloudcomp.ch

2. Agenda
■ Getting Started
■ Disk Administration
■ Images Administration
■ Virtual Machines Administration
■ Network Administration
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3. Getting Started - Requirements
■ System Requirements
○ Minimum 1GB RAM*
○ 64-bit x86 CPU
■ To use KVM SmartOS requires an Intel CPU
with VT-x extensions
○ http://ark.intel.com/Products/VirtualizationTechnology
* Since SmartOS is a live OS, the more RAM the better
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4. Getting Started - USB boot
■ Get the latest USB image from http://wiki.
smartos.
org/display/DOC/Download+SmartOS
■ Create a bootable USB drive from the image
○ e.g.: on Linux, dd if=smartos-$RELEASE-usb.img
of=/dev/sdb bs=1024
■ Stick the USB drive in a port and boot
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5. Getting Started - PXE boot
■ Get the latest Platform image from http://wiki.
smartos.
org/display/DOC/Download+SmartOS and
unpack it in your netboot env
○ Make sure the kernel and the boot archive have the
following path: (prefix)
/platform/i86pc/kernel/amd64/unix for the kernel and
(prefix)/platform/i86pc/amd64/boot_archive for the
boot archive. (prefix) can be any path, e.g.
/tftpboot/smartos/20130724
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6. Getting Started - PXE boot
■ Get a PXE client, e.g. iPXE, configure DHCP
for PXE chainloading, e.g. http://ipxe.
org/howto/dhcpd
■ Create a PXE boot script, e.g.
#!ipxe
kernel /smartos/20130724/platform/i86pc/kernel/amd64/unix
initrd /smartos/20130724/platform/i86pc/amd64/boot_archive
boot
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7. Getting Started - Gotcha's
■ Basic configuration is stored in
/usbkey/config
○ This is limited to networking, DNS, and NTP
○ Root password and SSH config are also in /usbkey
■ /etc is non-persistent, /opt and /var are.
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8. Disk Administration - Intro
■ ZFS is default in SmartOS
■ Pools and datasets
○ Pool: a collection of one or more virtual devices, e.g.
disks, files,..
○ Dataset: a control point for a volume or file system
■ Two commands: zpool and zfs
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9. Disk Administration - Pools
■ Create a pool
# zpool create data c0t0d0 c0t1d0
■ Grow a pool
# zpool add data c0t2d0
○ Note: as of today, pools cannot shrink.
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10. Disk Administration - Datasets
■ Create a pool
# zfs create data/db
■ Create a snapshot
# zfs snapshot -r data/db@20130724
■ Rollback a snapshot
# zfs rollback data/db@20130724
■ Clone a snapshot
# zfs clone data/db@20130724 data/db2
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11. Images Administration - Intro
■ Images are templates that contain data (ZFS
dataset) and metadata (JSON)
■ Images are used in SmartOS when creating
Virtual Machines
■ Default image server is datasets.joyent.com
○ found in /var/db/imgadm/sources.list
■ One tool: imgadm
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12. Images Administration - imgadm
■ Get images
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# imgadm update
updating local images database...
Get https://datasets.joyent.com/datasets...
done
# imgadm avail
UUID OS PUBLISHED URN
6bf31ce2-f384-11e1-a338-e39c2fe4ab59 smartos 2012-08-31 sdc:sdc:mongodb:1.3.2
a0f8cf30-f2ea-11e1-8a51-5793736be67c smartos 2012-08-30 sdc:sdc:standard64:1.0.7
3390ca7c-f2e7-11e1-8818-c36e0b12e58b smartos 2012-08-30 sdc:sdc:standard:1.0.7
9604da58-f1ee-11e1-aba1-dbda3337ec46 smartos 2012-08-29 sdc:sdc:mongodb:1.3.1
[...]

13. Images Administration - imgadm
■ Get images
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# imgadm import 9eac5c0c-a941-11e2-a7dc-57a6b041988f
9eac5c0c-a941-11e2-a7dc-57a6b041988f doesnt exist. continuing with install
9eac5c0c-a941-11e2-a7dc-57a6b041988f successfully installed
image 9eac5c0c-a941-11e2-a7dc-57a6b041988f successfully imported
# imgadm list
UUID OS PUBLISHED URN
9eac5c0c-a941-11e2-a7dc-57a6b041988f smartos 2013-04-26 sdc:sdc:base64:13.1.0

14. Virtual Machines Administration -
Intro
■ Two flavours: zone ("joyent" brand) and KVM
("kvm" brand)
○ KVM VMs still run in a zone though
■ VM = Image + manifest (JSON)
■ One tool: vmadm
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15. Virtual Machines Administration -
Creating a Zone
■ Get a zone image
○ Use imgadm avail. Images with the OS type smar
are zone images
■ Zone manifest
{
"brand": "joyent",
"image_uuid": " 9eac5c0c-a941-11e2-a7dc-57a6b041988f ",
"alias": "zone01",
"hostname": "zone01",
"max_physical_memory": 1024,
"quota": 20,
"nics": [
{
"nic_tag": "admin",
"ip": "10.20.50.24",
"netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"gateway": "10.20.50.1"
}
] www.cloudcomp.ch

16. Virtual Machines Administration -
Creating a KVM
■ Get a KVM image
○ Use imgadm avail. Images with the OS type linux are
KVM images
■ KVM manifest
{
"brand": "kvm",
"resolvers": [
"208.67.222.222",
"8.8.4.4"
],
"default-gateway": "10.20.50.1",
"ram": "2048",
"vcpus": "1",
...
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17. Virtual Machines Administration -
Creating a KVM
■ KVM manifest
"nics": [
{
"nic_tag": "admin",
"ip": "10.20.50.48",
"netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"gateway": "10.20.50.1",
"model": "virtio",
"primary": true
}
],
"disks": [
{
"image_uuid": "e42f8c84-bbea-11e2-b920-078fab2aab1f",
"boot": true,
"model": "virtio",
"image_size": 10240
}
]
}
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18. Virtual Machines Administration -
vmadm
■ Create the VM
# vmadm create -f zone01.json
Successfully created 4aac2fb2-f30a-49ef-08d2-41e6af10bde1
■ Zone login
# vmadm console 4aac2fb2-f30a-49ef-08d2-41e6af10bde1
■ VM listing
# vmadm list
UUID TYPE RAM STATE ALIAS
4aac2fb2-f30a-49ef-08d2-41e6af10bde1 OS 1024 running zone01
f144656f-41d4-460f-75ab-26f38d8f9fc6 KVM 2048 running fedora01
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19. Virtual Machines Administration -
vmadm
■ VM start/stop/reboot/delete
# vmadm start UUID
# vmadm stop UUID
# vmadm reboot UUID
# vmadm delete UUID
■ VM update, e.g. increase disk size
# vmadm update 4aac2fb2-f30a-49ef-08d2-41e6af10bde1 quota=40
■ VM migration (experimental)
# vmadm send 4aac2fb2-f30a-49ef-08d2-41e6af10bde1 |ssh 10.0.1.2 vmadm
receive
Password:
Succesfully sent VM 4aac2fb2-f30a-49ef-08d2-41e6af10bde1
Succesfully received VM 4aac2fb2-f30a-49ef-08d2-41e6af10bde1
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20. Network Administration - Intro
■ Each VM can get up to 32 VNICs
■ VRRP, Link aggregation
■ One tool: dladm
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21. Network Administration - dladm
■ Create and configure the VNIC
# dladm create-vnic -l e1000g0 -v 128 backup0
# ifconfig backup0 plumb
# ifconfig backup0 inet 10.30.50.7 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
■ To persist a VNIC across reboot store the
configuration in /usbkey/config
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22. Network Administration - Link
Aggregation
■ Get available physical NICs
# dladm show-phys -m
LINK SLOT ADDRESS INUSE CLIENT
e1000g0 primary 0:11:45:4f:a6:f5 yes e1000g0
e1000g1 primary 0:11:45:47:90:aa yes e1000g1
■ Add a <name>_aggr config in /usbkey/config
# List MAC address in the aggregation
backup_aggr=0:11:45:4f:a6:f5,0:11:45:47:90:aa
# VM nics with backup nic_tags will now have
# their vnics created on the aggregation
admin_nic=e1000g0
backup_nic=backup
■ Reboot and verify
# dladm show-aggr
LINK POLICY ADDRPOLICY LACPACTIVITY LACPTIMER FLAGS
backup L4 auto active short -----
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23. Q&A?
strp@zhaw.ch, @moviolone
Thank you!
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24. References
■ http://wiki.smartos.org
■ http://smartos.org/2012/08/22/smartos-an-sa-primer/
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