It is now possible to start virtual machines on Chaos, however it is still experimental.

We wanted to support these features:

Start an interactive session

$ ssh chaos-cluster
(access-chaos) $ oarsub -I -l nodes=1,walltime=2:0:0

Compile Qemu 1.6.1

In your home directory, create a script named install_qemu.sh. This script will compile Qemu in $BUILDDIR and install it in $INSTALLDIR.

#!/bin/bash
set +x
BUILDDIR=/tmp
INSTALLDIR=/home/users/hcartiaux/qemu

URL=http://wiki.qemu-project.org/download/qemu-1.6.1.tar.bz2
FILENAME=qemu-1.6.1.tar.bz2

mkdir -p $INSTALLDIR

cd $BUILDDIR
wget $URL
tar xvf $FILENAME

cd qemu-1.6.1

./configure --disable-rdma --enable-kvm --prefix=${INSTALLDIR}/usr \
            --sysconfdir=${INSTALLDIR}/etc --enable-docs --enable-mixemu \
            --libexecdir=${INSTALLDIR}/usr/lib/qemu --disable-gtk \
            --enable-linux-aio --localstatedir=${INSTALLDIR}/var \
            --enable-virtfs

make
make install

Execute it:

(node) $ chmod +x install_qemu.sh
(node) $ ./install_qemu.sh

Eventually, you can build a module with this easyconfig instead. Create a file named qemu-1.6.1.eb and containing these lines:

name = 'qemu'
version = '1.6.1'

homepage = 'http://www.qemu.org/'
description = "qemu-0.16.1: CPU emulator using dynamic translation"

sources = [SOURCE_TAR_BZ2]
source_urls = ['http://wiki.qemu.org/download/']

toolchain = {'version': 'dummy', 'name': 'dummy'}

configopts = "--disable-rdma --enable-kvm --disable-rdma --enable-docs "
configopts += "--enable-mixemu --disable-gtk --enable-linux-aio --enable-virtfs"

sanity_check_paths = {
    'files': ['bin/qemu-x86_64'],
    'dirs': [],
}

moduleclass = 'tools'

Then build it

(node) $ module load EasyBuild/1.10.0
(node) $ eb qemu-1.6.1.eb

And load it :)

(node) $ module load qemu/1.6.1-20131016

Generate a new VM

On an external Debian/Ubuntu System, generate a qcow2 image with vmdebootstrap and transfer it to the cluster. In this example, we create a disk file of 3GB containing a debian system, and we enable DHCP.

# apt-get install debootstrap extlinux qemu-kvm parted mbr kpartx python-cliapp
# git clone http://git.gitorious.org/vmdebootstrap/vmdebootstrap.git
# ./vmdebootstrap --image debian_ref.qcow2 --size 3g --log test.log \
  --log-level debug --verbose --mirror http://debian.mirror.root.lu/debian \
  --package=openssh-server --serial-console --enable-dhcp --root-password=hpc

$ scp debian.qcow2 chaos-cluster:

Eventually, you can directly copy the VM available in my home directory: /home/users/hcartiaux/debian_ref.qcow2. The root password is simply hpc.

Start your VM

Copy the file in /tmp

(node) $ cp ~/debian_ref.qcow2 /tmp/debian_ref.qcow2

Create a directory /tmp/share, which will be shared with the VM. According to my tests, directories located in an NFS mount point will be shared in read only.

(node) $ mkdir /tmp/share

Start your VM with this command:

(node) $ $INSTALLDIR/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 --enable-kvm -nographic -hda /tmp/debian_ref.qcow2 \
 -m 512 -smp 4 -net nic,model=virtio -net user -redir tcp:4222::22 \
 -fsdev local,security_model=mapped,id=fsdev0,path=/tmp/share \
 -device virtio-9p-pci,id=fs0,fsdev=fsdev0,mount_tag=hostshare

Or, if you have compiled Qemu with easybuild:

(node) $ module load qemu/1.6.1-20131016
(node) $ qemu-system-x86_64 --enable-kvm -nographic -hda /tmp/debian_ref.qcow2 \
 -m 512 -smp 4 -net nic,model=virtio -net user -redir tcp:4222::22 \
 -fsdev local,security_model=mapped,id=fsdev0,path=/tmp/share \
 -device virtio-9p-pci,id=fs0,fsdev=fsdev0,mount_tag=hostshare

For more convenience, use screen

SSH into the VM

(node) $ ssh root@localhost -p 4222

          root@localhost's password: 
          Linux debian 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.46-1 x86_64
          
          The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
          the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
          individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
          
          Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
          permitted by applicable law.
          Last login: Wed Oct 16 13:50:32 2013 from 10.0.2.2
          root@debian:~#

Mount the shared directory

(VM) # mkdir /tmp/host_files
(VM) # mount -t 9p -o trans=virtio,version=9p2000.L hostshare /tmp/host_files

(VM) # df
       Filesystem  1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
       hostshare   128550388 3121768 125428620   3% /tmp/host_files

HPC @ Uni.lu

Starting Virtual Machines on Chaos