# OpenDaylight Packer

[Packer][1] is a tool for automatically creating well-defined machine
images of various types and optionally post-processing them into
Vagrant base boxes, among other options.

OpenDaylight's current use-case for Packer is to build an ODL Vagrant
base box, provisioned using upstream deployment/config tools. Reusing
the logic of our configuration management tools nicely standardizes our
deployment story, enabling good code reuse and separation of
responsibilities. Providing an upstream Vagrant base box prevents all
ODL consumers from duplicating ODL download, install and configuration
logic, data transfer and computation in every Vagrantfile we create.

We currently only support CentOS 7, output as a VirtualBox machine image,
packaged into a Vagrant box. Additional development is ongoing.

## Building an ODL Vagrant Base Box

You'll need to [install Packer][2], of course.

You can now build our ODL Vagrant base box with:

```
[~/integration/packaging/packer]$ packer build -var-file=packer_vars.json centos.json
```

This will:

* Download and verify a fresh CentOS 1503 Minimal ISO.
* Use a Kickstart template to automate a minimal install against
  a VirtualBox host.
* Run a post-install shell provisioner to do VirtualBox, Vagrant
  and Ansible-specific config.
* Install OpenDaylight using its [Ansbile role][4].
* Export, compress and package the VM as a Vagrant base box.

```
<snip>
Build 'virtualbox-iso' finished.

==> Builds finished. The artifacts of successful builds are:
--> virtualbox-iso: 'virtualbox' provider box: opendaylight-2.3.0-centos-1503.box
[~/integration/packaging/packer]$ ls -lh opendaylight-2.3.0-centos-1503.box
-rw-rw-r--. 1 daniel daniel 1.1G Jun  9 01:13 opendaylight-2.3.0-centos-1503.box
```

Import the local box into Vagrant with:

```
[~/integration/packaging/packer]$ vagrant box add --name "opendaylight" opendaylight-2.3.0-centos-1503.box --force
==> box: Adding box 'opendaylight' (v0) for provider:
    box: Downloading: file:///home/daniel/integration/packaging/packer/opendaylight-2.3.0-centos-1503.box
==> box: Successfully added box 'opendaylight' (v0) for 'virtualbox'!
```

To connect to your new box, you'll need a trivial Vagrantfile:

```
[~/integration/packaging/packer]$ vagrant init -m opendaylight
A `Vagrantfile` has been placed in this directory.<snip>
[~/integration/packaging/packer]$ cat Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
  config.vm.box = "opendaylight"
end
[~/integration/packaging/packer]$ vagrant ssh
<snip>
```

OpenDaylight will already be installed and running:

```
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ sudo systemctl is-active opendaylight
active
```

## Pre-Built ODL Base Box

While we'd eventually like to provide more official places to host ODL's
base boxes, all of this is new and under active development. For now,
you can consume the product of this Packer build configuration via
Atlas (previously called be VagrantCloud), the de facto box hosting
service at the moment. It's at [dfarrell07/opendaylight][5] for now, but
of course we'd like to transfer it to an official OpenDaylight account
eventually (a Help Desk ticket has been submitted).

```
[~/sandbox]$ vagrant init -m dfarrell07/opendaylight
[~/sandbox]$ cat Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
  config.vm.box = "dfarrell07/opendaylight"
end
[~/sandbox]$ vagrant up
# Downloads box from Atlas
# Boots box
[~/sandbox]$ vagrant ssh
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ sudo systemctl is-active opendaylight
active
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ /opt/opendaylight/bin/client
<snip>
opendaylight-user@root>
```


[1]: https://www.packer.io/
[2]: https://www.packer.io/intro/getting-started/setup.html
[3]: https://trello.com/c/OoS1aKaN/150-packaging-create-odl-vagrant-base-box
[4]: https://github.com/dfarrell07/ansible-opendaylight
[5]: https://atlas.hashicorp.com/dfarrell07/boxes/opendaylight