You are viewing the intel version of our documentation.

Setting up on Linux using Docker

Set up your Anka Build Cloud on Linux using Docker

Welcome! This tutorial guides you through setting up your Anka Build Cloud on Linux using Docker and Docker-Compose.

Necessary Hardware

A machine running Linux to install the Anka Controller & Registry.
A Mac to install Anka CLI as a Node.

While it’s possible to run Docker on mac, it’s not recommended. An Anka Controller & Registry package exists for native macOS if absolutely necessary.

Necessary Software

Docker
Docker-Compose – Be sure to follow the Post Installation setup in order to run docker-compose without using sudo.

What we are doing in this tutorial

Install the Anka CLI + Create your first VM Template
Install the Anka Build Cloud Controller & Registry
Link the Anka CLI Node to the Controller
Start a VM instance using the Controller UI

Step 1: Get familiar with Anka Virtualization

Please go over our Getting Started guide before proceeding.

Step 2: Install the Anka Build Cloud Controller & Registry

Perform the following steps on the machine intended to run the Controller & Registry and not the node running the Anka Virtualization software.

Download and extract the Controller & Registry

FULL_FILE_NAME=$(echo $(curl -Ls -r 0-1 -o /dev/null -w %{url_effective} https://veertu.com/downloads/ankacontroller-registry-docker-latest) | cut -d/ -f5)
PARTIAL_FILE_NAME=$(echo $FULL_FILE_NAME | awk -F'.tar.gz' '{print $1}')
mkdir -p $PARTIAL_FILE_NAME
cd $PARTIAL_FILE_NAME
curl -Ls https://veertu.com/downloads/ankacontroller-registry-docker-latest -o $FULL_FILE_NAME
tar -xzvf $FULL_FILE_NAME

You can also manually download the file called “Cloud Controller & Registry (Run on Linux Instance)” from the Anka Build Download page.

Configuration

We’ll need to do two things:

Set the external registry address – This address is passed to the anka nodes so they can pull VM Templates from the Registry.
Mount a volume for the Registry data – The directory containing VM Template/Tag layers/files and configuration metadata.

First, edit the controller/controller.env:

Find the variable ANKA_ANKA_REGISTRY and set it to the proper URL (remove the comment). It should look like:
```
ANKA_ANKA_REGISTRY: http://<ip/fqdn>:8089
```

Next, edit the docker-compose.yml (in the package root, not under the registry directory):

Under anka-registry > volumes, find the line that says # - ****EDIT_ME****:/mnt/vol. Change this to include the host directory you wish to mount into the container and which will be used to store the data. It should look like:
```
- /var/registry:/mnt/vol
```

If you’re running these containers on mac (which you should avoid), you need to also change volume source from /var/etcd-data and /var/registry to a writable location on your mac.

Start the containers

In the root package directory, execute:

docker-compose up -d

Verify the containers are running

docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                 COMMAND                  CREATED              STATUS              PORTS                    NAMES
aa1de7c150e7        test_anka-controller   "/bin/bash -c 'anka-…"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute   0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp       test_anka-controller_1
0ac3a6f8b0a1        test_anka-registry     "/bin/bash -c 'anka-…"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute   0.0.0.0:8089->8089/tcp   test_anka-registry_1
03787d28d3a3        test_etcd              "/usr/bin/etcd --dat…"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute                            test_etcd_1

Anka Controller should be listening on port 80 (HTTP). Try pointing your browser to the machine’s IP or hostname. You can use localhost or 127.0.0.1 if you’re on the Controller machine.

Your new dashboard should look like the picture below

How your new dashboard looks like

Orientation

Let’s take a look at what is now running on your machine:

Anka Controller is serving web UI and REST API on port 80.
Anka Registry is serving REST API on port 8089.
ETCD database server serving on ports 2379 and 2380 (used by Anka Controller).

Configuration and scripts

Any non-default configuration changes are done by editing the .env files, or directly in docker-compose.yml.

A full configuration reference is available.

Logging

Containers are writing logs to STDOUT+ERR, making them available to Docker.

To see the Controller’s logs:

docker logs --tail 100 -f test_anka-controller_1

To see the Registry’s logs:

docker logs --tail 100 -f test_anka-registry_1

By default, docker does not do log-rotation. As a result, log-files stored by the default json-file logging driver logging driver can cause a significant amount of disk space to be used for containers that generate much output, which can lead to disk space exhaustion.

Troubleshooting tip

The log level can be modified from the default 0 value. The higher the number, the more verbose the logging. (reference)

Step 3: Link the Anka CLI Node to the Controller

Great! Now that we have our Anka Controller & Registry up and running, let’s add Nodes!

Perform the following steps on the host machine/node where you created your first VM.

Add the Registry

We now need to configure the Registry on this machine so we can push/upload the local VM Template we created earlier. Uploading the Template to the Registry makes it possible to download and run it from other nodes.

Assuming you haven’t changed the default port configuration, your Registry is serving requests on port 8089.

sudo anka registry add <registry name here> http://<ip>:8089

Verify the configuration:

sudo anka registry list-repos
++
++

<registry name you set> (default)

+--------+------------------+
| host   | <the ip you set> |
+--------+------------------+
| scheme | http             |
+--------+------------------+
| port   | 8089             |
+--------+------------------+

Then, confirm the registry list command doesn’t throw any failures:

sudo anka registry list

Push the VM to the Registry

sudo anka registry push 12.X -t vanilla

Terminology note: A “VM” becomes a “Template” once it has been pushed to the registry.

After the push completes, you should see your new Template in the Templates section of the Controller UI.

Your first template

Join to the Controller & Registry

In order for the host/node to perform controller tasks (pull, start, delete, etc), it must be joined to the Anka Build Cloud. You can do this by executing:

If you have any issues with this step, please see our troubleshooting guide.

sudo ankacluster join http://<ip>
Password:
Testing connection to controller...: Ok
Testing connection to the registry...: Ok
Ok
Cluster join success

Replace <ip> with the IP of the machine hosting your controller:
If you changed the default port for the controller from 80, you’ll need to use the new port at the end of the IP. Otherwise, leave it off.

The command will hang for a few moments before displaying Cluster join success.

Step 4: Start a VM instance using the Controller UI

Go to your Controller dashboard and click on the Instances tab:
Click on Create Instance(s), and the Create New Instances view displays:
Select the VM Template and click Start. The Create New Instances view closes and returns you to the Instances view. You should now see the Instance in a Scheduling or Pulling State:
After the Scheduling and Pulling finishes, the VM starts on one of the Nodes and shows a Started State in the Controller UI:

You can now confirm the Instance is running from inside the Node:

JSON output is available for scripting/automation using anka --machine-readable

sudo anka --machine-readable list | jq
{
  "status": "OK",
  "body": [
    {
      "status": "suspended",
      "name": "catalina",
      "stop_date": "2020-04-01T21:30:59.798697Z",
      "creation_date": "2020-04-01T00:00:13.656296Z",
      "version": "base",
      "uuid": "10c720eb-dcce-46f7-baa3-28bacef0ec0f"
    },
    {
      "status": "running",
      "name": "mgmtManaged-catalina-1585776660490226000",
      "stop_date": "2020-04-01T21:36:11.742662Z",
      "creation_date": "2020-04-01T21:31:01.055250Z",
      "version": "",
      "uuid": "dcbeb319-421a-4d30-8466-194eb7fa5f75"
    }
  ],
  "message": ""
}

Timestamp format: https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3339.txt

Helpful notes about the containers

Anka Controller

Default Ports: 80
Binaries and scripts: /bin/anka-controller
Configuration files: Configuration is done through docker-compose file or through environment variables.
Logs will be written to: /var/log/anka-controller. It’s also possible to get the logs through docker logs command.
Data Storage: No data is saved on the container.

Anka Registry

Default Ports: 8089
Binaries and scripts: /bin/anka-registry
Configuration files: Configuration is done through docker-compose file or through environment variables.
Logs will be written to: /var/log/anka-registry. It’s also possible to get the logs through docker logs command.
Registry data will be written to: /mnt/vol

What next?

Browse the Anka CLI Command Reference.
Connect the cloud to your CI software.
Find out how to use the Controller REST API.
Learn how to work with USB devices