VM repository folder

In private cloud, you must provide an NFS server, which shares the repository folder for each Abiquo datacenter using hypervisors. The repository folder stores the Catalogue of VM templates (disk images). The Remote Services and hypervisors mount and access the shared folder using NFS or CIFS (for Hyper-V).

When you are configuring the platform, you must enter the location of the NFS repository, which is the IP address and folder. The platform will automatically configure the NFS server as follows.

The install process will configure the platform to mount the repository on the hypervisors
In a monolithic installation, the platform will mount the repository on the Abiquo Monolithic server
In a distributed installation, the platform will mount the NFS share on the Remote Services server and V2V Services server

The firewall requirements are access to NFS on ports TCP/UDP 2049 and TCP/UDP 111 (RPC) for the following servers:

Hypervisors using NFS
In a monolithic installation, the Abiquo Server
In a distributed installation, Remote Services and V2V Server

Requirements

Abiquo VM repository folders must fulfill the requirements below:

It must be unique for each Abiquo DC
It must be writable by the Abiquo Tomcat processes
An .abiquo_repository flag file must exist in the root folder

Abiquo will configure the VM repository during the appliances' bootstrap process. If the catalogue does not work out of the box, check the repository requirements.

We strongly recommend that you configure dedicated NFS or CIFS shares for the VM repository folders.

Monitor the available space in the VM repository folder to ensure it does not fill up. If there is not enough space, users will not be able to upload templates.

Diagram of NFS repository configuration for a Monolithic installation

In order to use cloud-init on Hyper-V, create the hyperv-iso folder in the VM repository folder, which for the default platform will be:

/opt/vm_repository/hyperv-iso/

After creating the folder, remember to set the owner to the "tomcat" user.

Troubleshooting

If anything goes wrong with the automatic configuration of the NFS repository, then the NFS repository and the platform may not function correctly. Of the remote services, the Appliance Manager adds VM templates to the repository and manages them, and the Business Process Manager converts VM templates to different disk formats. Hypervisors copy VM templates from the repository to deploy them.

To configure the NFS server, the platform does the following:

Automatically creates an empty file named .abiquo_repository in the root directory of the folder. This file is essential for the proper functioning of the platform.
Automatically configures the abiquo.properties files on the Remote Services server (or the Monolithic server). For a separate NFS configuration, the abiquo.properties file should look as follows.
Abiquo properties on the monolithic and remote services appliances
abiquo.appliancemanager.localRepositoryPath = /opt/vm_repository/ abiquo.appliancemanager.repositoryLocation = <NFS-Server>:/opt/vm_repository abiquo.virtualfactory.xenserver.repositoryLocation = <NFS-Server>:/opt/vm_repository abiquo.virtualfactory.hyperv.repositoryLocation = //<CIFS-Server>/vm_repository
Automatically mounts the repository folder on the Remote Services and V2V Services servers. The install process should automatically configure the /etc/fstab with the values you enter for the NFS repository.
# cat /etc/fstab [...] <NFS-Server>:/opt/vm_repository /opt/vm_repository nfs defaults 0 0
Automatically mounts the NFS folder on the hypervisors as required based on the repository locations in abiquo.properties.

For more information, see the Troubleshooting section of the wiki, in particular Troubleshooting NFS server configuration in Abiquo and also Troubleshooting configuration problems because many configuration problems are related to NFS configuration.