Peter Pouliot, a cybersecurity expert with experience in Hyper-V and OpenStack, discusses his work automating the deployment and configuration of Hyper-V using Puppet on Windows. He details the history and challenges faced while integrating these technologies, especially in a Windows environment, and emphasizes the need for a unified Puppet community for Windows IT professionals. The document outlines specific Puppet projects developed for provisioning and managing OpenStack with Hyper-V and addresses the obstacles of using Puppet on Windows systems.

1. Puppet, Hyper-V
And OpenStack
PETER POULIOT, CISSP
MICROSOFT N.E.R.D., CAMBRIDGE, MA

2. Bio
u Peter Pouliot, CISSP
u Email: ppouliot@microsoft.com
u Education:
u BA Philosophy - Rhode Island College
u Certificate Windows NT Administration - Boston University CEC
u Oracle DBA 8i – Oracle University
u MS Telecommunication Security - Boston University MET College
u Graduate Certificate Digital Forensics - Boston University MET College
u Certifications:
u CISSP, MCSE+I, MCT (NT4/2000), OCP (8i), Network+
u 9 years working on Datacenter/Network Infrastructure and Linux/Windows interoperability for
Ximian/Novell/SuSE.
u May 2011 Deployed first Openstack/Hyper-V cloud while working in the Novell/Microsoft Joint
Interoperability Lab
u March 2012 Started working for Microsoft to return Hyper-V support to Folsom release
u Currently tasked with building a CI infrastructure to support Hyper-V in OpenStack

3. Agenda
u Puppet at MS
u Brief introduction to Hyper-V and OpenStack
u Why Puppet?
u A history of the OpenStack Hyper-V puppet modules
u Challenges of Using Puppet on Windows.
u State of Devops for Windows IT Pros

4. OpenStack/Hyper-V
u Nova: Hyper-V can be used as a compute node in OpenStack
u Python application running on Hyper-V
u Publically Available MSI
u MSI Includes Neutron/(formerly Quantum) agent for Hyper-V
u Neutron
u Currently has VLAN Support
u OpenVSwitch for Hyper-V coming
u Cinder: Windows can be used as a block storage node.
u Cloudinit functionality for windows provided by Cloudbaseinit.
u Public MSI available.

5. Puppet at MS
u Currently using puppet to build the OpenStack CI Infrastructure for
Hyper-V
u Puppet 3.2+ on Windows and Linux.
u Running Puppetmaster/Passenger
u Using Kickstart/Preseed/Unattend.xml/Cloudinit as entry for puppet
deployment and registration
u Using both centralized and decentralized puppet.

6. Puppet on Windows?
u Needed a way to configure Windows Hyper-V nodes consistently
and rapidly.
u OpenStack deployments on Hyper-V using public binaries is
complicated.
u Lots of Hyper-V tidbits need to be configured.
u Lots of additional software requirements.
u Manual process does not scale.
u Wanted to help CERN deploy Hyper-V into their OpenStack
infrastructure.

7. Brief History of Puppet and
Openstack on Hyper-V
u 8 months ago Began automating deployment and configuration of
Hyper-V using puppet 2.7+ on windows server 2012.
u Created a basic framework for deploying OpenStack nova using
public python binaries, with locally served files on Windows.
u Included Windows configuration, vswitch creation and nova
configuration.
u Deployment of additional software. (Git, 7zip, Python, python Modules)
u After initial configuration moved to building supporting linux
deployment automation.
u Development pace quickened and skill level increased.

8. Hyper-V/Puppet History Continued
Began automation of windows PE creation for windows pxe
automation, including integration with Linux PXE infrastructure.
Refactor of original Hyper-V/OpenStack module to automatically
retrieve all components with help from Octavian Ciuhandu from
Cloudbase Solutions.
Inclusion of deployment from MSI using Cloudbase Solutions prebuilt
MSI for Nova Compute on Hyper-V
A move to puppet 3.2+ on Windows 2012 and Hyper-V Server 2012
Major refactor including a Virtual Switch type/provider from Luis
Fernández Álvarez of CERN including dependency on Josh Cooper’s
Powershell Modules

9. Puppet Projects
Puppet-quartermaster: A pxe provisioning infrastructure for deploying linux (kickstart,
preseed, unattend.xml) based installations of linux and windows puppetized nodes.
https://github.com/ppouliot/puppet-quartermaster
Puppet-petools: Generates a x86_64 Windows PE image using the Automated
Deployment Kit. Includes retrieval and installation of the adk. Slipstreaming of virtio-
drivers for windows and other
https://github.com/ppouliot/puppet-petools
Puppet-openstack_hyper_v: hyper-v compute node configuration and openstack nova
deployment.
https://github.com/ppouliot/puppet-openstack_hyper_v

10. puppet-openstack_hyper_v
u Installs a complete Python environment
u Creates external virtual switches
u Enables live migration
u Enables the iScsi initiator service
u Enables RDP Remote access
u Configures NTP
u Joins node to Domain
u Installs Git, 7zip, and other dependancies
u Installs OpenStack (Package, Public Binaries, Source)

11. puppet-quartermaster
u Creates a basic PXE infrastructure
u TFTP, HTTP, Samba, NFS
u Squid-Proxy (package caching)
u DNSMasq (Proxy DHCP)
u Puppetmaster
u Retrieves necessary pxe kernels and files, generates menus, and
necessary automation (kickstart, preseed, unattend.xml) for
deploying operating system
u Includes as OS automation retrieval and installation of puppet and
registration with puppetmaster.

12. Puppet-petools
u Downloads and Installs Microsoft’s Automated Deployment Kit
u Creates a Windows PE x86_64 image
u Mounts the Windows PE Image
u Installs necessary Windows PE Packages
u Retrieves and Installs KVM VirtIO drivers into WinPE Images
u Installs additional Windows Drivers into winpe image.
u Modifies startnet.cmd to map appropriate drives to launch a script
on a windows share.
u Finalizes WinPE image and Copies all necessary files to allow for
WinPE to PXE onto a windows file share.

13. Challenges of Puppet on Windows
u Windows isn’t Linux.
u Lack of public modules for Windows.
u No windows package management
u Spaces in path naming
u Reboots
u Previously was no powershell provider for puppet/windows.
u Move from using native .exe commands to the powershell
equivalent.

14. Windows IT Professionals and
Devops: A problem
u Problem:
u Devops is a new concept for the Windows IT Pro
u Continuous Integration and Delivery are also new concepts for Windows
IT Pro
u Skills need to updated
u Enterprise shops usually have highly segregated skill sets.
u Typical windows workflows are not automated or automation

15. How do we fix the problem?
u Organize the Windows Puppet Community.
u Share experiences
u Share code
u Create a rich catalog of public Puppet Modules for the Windows IT
Pro
u Evangelism: Windows can be automated too
u Education:
u Remember, It’s only computer science!

16. More information
u http://wiki.openstack.org/Hyper-V
u IRC: Freenode: #openstack-hyper-v
u Meetup: OpenStack Boston
u Hyper-V MSIs for OpenStack:
u http://www.cloudbase.it
u Email: ppouliot@microsoft.com