Last updated on: 2019-04-15
Authored by: Rose Contreras
To deliver a Managed Cloud experience, Rackspace runs support automation
on every cloud server that we build. We have extended this capability by
creating a build_config
metadata key that you can use to specify the
Rackspace-provided common tools that you want installed on your Rackspace
cloud servers configured with Rackspace-recommended best practices.
Many of the build_config
metadata key options are available only when
you use the Cloud Servers API to build your servers. Building your
servers through the API gives you increased flexibility to configure the
server how you want it and ensures that it does not
conflict with any automation that you have running. If you build servers
through the Cloud Control Panel, you can select
only from the most common of these options.
To take advantage of this feature when using the API, you use any of the
defined build_config
metadata key options that are available for your
specific service level (Managed Infrastructure or Managed Operations)
and pass your specified values to the scripts.
Note: This functionality is available only when you create a server. If you want any of the tools installed after you have created the server, you must download the tools and configure them individually on the servers. If you have the Managed Operations SysOps service level, ask a Rackspace cloud engineer to install the tools on your behalf.
Depending upon your service level, the following options are available for the
build_config
metadata key:
gateway
rack_user_only
base_mgdops_config
backup_agent_only
backup_defaults
Available to Managed Infrastructure customers.
Available to Managed Operations customers.
Installs the Cloud Backup agent and configures a default backup set and schedule.
By default, the following directories are backed up:
For Linux® Managed Cloud servers:
/etc
/home
/var/www
/var/lib/mysqlbackup
For Windows® Managed Cloud servers:
c:\users
c:\InetPub
monitoring_agent_only
monitoring_defaults
Available to Managed Infrastructure customers.
Available to Managed Operations customers.
Installs the Rackspace Monitoring agent and configures default monitoring, disk, and CPU checks.
For Managed Operations service level customers, this option also configures default file system alerts that are sent to Rackspace.
auto_updates
You can combine the build_config
options, for example:
monitoring_defaults
with auto_updates
installs the monitoring
agent configured with Rackspace best practices and turns on
automatic updates.
backup_agent_only
installs the Cloud Backup agent
but does not configure Rackspace backups. You must separately
identify the directories that you want backed up after the agent
is installed.
Using the API to build a server with a core option passed does not
conflict with configuration management software. Such builds have a
Rackspace account and nothing more. If you want additional components,
you must pass them with the build_config
metadata key.
The following example shows the build option for a Managed Infrastructure server:
nova boot --flavor 2 --image [image] --meta build_config=core www.example.com
The following example shows the build option for building a Managed Operations server with a Rackspace username and password only and backup ability:
nova boot --flavor 2 --image [image] --meta build_config= rack_user_only,driveclient fileserver.example.com
The following example shows a good option for a customer who wants a Managed Infrastructure server that has monitoring and backups available, but no updates or additional packages:
nova boot --flavor 2 --image [image] --meta build_config=core,driveclient,monitoring db.example.com
If you use configuration management software, wait for the post-build
configuration to complete before performing your configuration management. For
standard and workload-optimized cloud servers only, you can obtain the Managed
Operations or Managed Infrastructure post-build automation status via the
Cloud Servers API. Look for the metadata key value
informationrax_service_level_automation
. Depending on the current status of
the Managed Cloud post-build automation process, the metadata key has
one of the following values:
Pending
In Progress
Complete
Build Error
Authentication Error
When the metadata key is Complete
, you can begin your
configuration management.
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