LochDNS: MyDNS + MyDNSConfig software appliance I used rBuilder Online to make it easier to get MyDNS and MyDNSConfig set up and working together "out of the box". I call my project lochDNS, and I invite others to join the project and improve it. lochDNS is available as software appliances and as a system installer ISO image. The virtual filesystem image and tarball image work as Xen domU instances. The virtual hard drive image works with qemu and parallels. Hard drive, VMWare (Player and ESX), VHD (Microsoft and Virtual Iron), and anaconda-based installer images that can install on hardware or on fully-virtualized systems are all available. A public AMI is available for immediate use for all EC2 users. LochDNS is available both for 32-bit and 64-bit systems. If you use lochDNS, feel free to leave a comment here. Thanks!
OK, since till is interested, I created installable ISO images. The one limitation I know about right now is that the firewall settings in the installer do not actually get applied to the system, due to missing software in the image; right now, you have to write your own iptables rules if you care about having a firewall. It isn't really that important, though, since the only services running on the system are essential services that are part of the point of running the server. Please post feedback in this thread! Thanks!
New lochDNS images available I have released a new version of lochDNS . This update includes firewall configuration tools, rPath Appliance Agent for web-based system configuration and automated updates, and base operating system updates since the last release. Please post to this thread if you use lochDNS and are interested in seeing continuing updates to lochDNS. Thanks!
lochDNS 0.7 is released. lochDNS now includes Xen images, available both as a filesystem image (suitable for using with blktap or loopback mounting) and as a tarball image that you can deploy into any Xen domU instance. Of course, the existing VMware, QEMU, Parallels, and anaconda system installation options are still available. I have modified how the rPath Appliance Agent is presented; it now uses a separate web server instance (lighttpd) so that udpates to the apache web server do not halt updates. For information on making use of the domU images, take a look at Xen Solutions Using rPath Technologies in the rPath wiki.
Are these DomU easily transferable to a Xen VPS provider? Can they be bundled in such a way that a Xen provider can easily load them.
Yes. Different Xen VPS providers have different preferences for deploying images; the filesystem image is very easy to use for Xen VPS providers willing to take it, and the tarball can be turned into almost any image type they require from you. Some may be willing to take the tarball image itself and unpack it in your domU to initialize the domU for you.
Using rBuilder After reading about your appliance I went to the rBuilder website to see how it works. The documentation or forums there is rather sparse, or I am probably not looking in the right place. Is there some place there where I can acquire more help?
Yes. The central location for information on rPath technologies is the rPath wiki, and there is whole section devoted to rBuilder. When the documentation is incomplete from your perspective, we want to know about it. You can ask questions in real time on the #conary IRC channel on the freenode IRC network to get quick responses. We consider bugs in documentation to be real bugs, and you can file those bugs in our Jira issue tracking system. Thanks for asking!
Is it configured for logging in via SSH? I tried running an image I built using rBuilder online and I couldn't get it to run. The instance came up but SSH port did not respond. I searched the filesystem for ssh and couldn't find out. I think I have to get to rBuilder to dig deeper on setting SSH start at runtime
I have just managed to add ssh to a package and modified it to login on EC2. Is it possible to make a copy , cook it and build it? I am joining the lochDNS group anyway, and see what I can do from there. Great idea. voipfc
No, I didn't include ssh because lochDNS was intended to provide the web interface without requiring a console login. The images do not include a root password (of course), so no network access is exposed that would be compromised by an unset root password. The idea is that if you have console access, you should set the root password after booting the image. And since the root password is empty, ssh wouldn't let you in anyway without setting a password. However, you raise a good chicken-and-egg question; if you are deploying an image with a VPS provider, you don't have a good way of getting sshd running. For future builds, I have added openssh-server and enabled the rAA plugin for setting the root password. After you set the root password for the instance, you will be able to ssh in. Updating a current installation of lochDNS will make this work, and that is something you can do without console access; you just need access to port 8003 for rAA, which you'll need for this anyway in order to set up the root password so that ssh can work. Good point, and thanks for asking. Oh, and welcome to the lochDNS project!
If package is released tar format with openssh added, login can be possible by copying a public key into root's .ssh folder and recreating the disk image. That way once the ssh server is started only the person with the private key can login. That's how I set up a trial rpath package to launch on EC2. Thanks
lochDNS 0.9: software updates, VHD support, and backup lochDNS 0.9 has all the latest system software updates, adds a VHD image to the published image types, and includes the latest rPath Appliance Agent (rAA) which provides a backup/restore system that can be used either in an automated or manual fashion. Backups will not be done until you configure them explicitly in the rAA console. The backups are conveniently small; about 100KB plus whatever data you have in the MySQL database. The backup provides just enough data to restore to a previous snaphot of the data (not the system software version) or to do a new installation and then restore the backup on it to return to the data available at the time of the backup. Current users can update manually through the rAA console. If you have scheduled updates, your system will be updated to 0.9 during the next scheduled update. After the update, all the new features of rAA will be available to you. Enjoy!
I thought this was going to be something that would suit my technical ineptitude, thwated again. I downloaded the CD iso, burned it, went to install it, I get the splash screen, I press enter, and my pc reboots. I have had this with rPath before. For me rpath sux, and this was my final look at anything built on it. Sorry this is negative and I don't wish to detract from the fine effort made to create an appliance (something I am in favour of), but I thought I would just say that rpath seems to have some compatability issues with older equipment. FYI: equipment was an old K6-2 350 with 128Mb ram on an MS-5187 (yes I am aware that this is not a server board). This was being used as a server and was retired and is now just a test unit for such things as this. Production units are Blade servers with dual CPUs and 16Gb ram. Regards Fred
All rPath-based appliances that use rPath's standard kernels require an i686-class CPU. The K6-2 is, despite the name, a 586-class CPU. I'm sorry this bothers you; rPath chose to optimize for making better use of hardware that has been in general production in the past decade rather than much older hardware. For testing, rPath suggests virtualization, and appliances are available for most virtual "form factors".
The next release of lochDNS will include the amiconfig package, which will enable you to easily deploy AMIs in EC2, providing EC2 standard key information to a booting AMIs -- you can even share images. See rBuilder:Amazon_Elastic_Compute_Cloud for more information on how to boot rPath Xen images in the EC2 cloud.
lochDNS 0.10: MyDNSConfig 1.1.0, other software updates, more image types lochDNS has been updated to the recently-released MyDNSConfig 1.1.0 release. lochDNS 0.10 has all the latest system software updates, and adds public Amazon EC2 AMI (AMI ID ami-f1806598), VMware ESX, and Virtual Iron VHD images. Current users can update manually through the rAA console. If you have scheduled updates, your system will automatically be updated to 0.10 during the next scheduled update. Enjoy!
I have used the latest .10 version of the installation. I have web access to the "path appliance platform." I have completed all of the configuration steps, to include creating an additional user. Nowhere however, do I see anything for accessing MyDNS or MyDNSConfig in order to actually use the interface. Please tell me what I am missing.
