Placemat

Placemat is a tool to simulate data center networks and servers using QEMU/KVM virtual machines, and Linux networking stacks. Placemat can simulate virtually any kind of network topologies to help tests and experiments for software usually used in data centers.

Features

• No daemons

  Placemat is a single binary executable. It just builds networks and virtual machines when it starts, and destroys them when it terminates. This simplicity makes placemat great for a continuous testing tool.

• Declarative YAML

  Networks, virtual machines, and other kind of resources are defined in YAML files in a declarative fashion. Users need not mind the order of creation and/or destruction of resources.

• Virtual BMC

  Power on/off/reset of VMs can be done by IPMI commands and Redfish API. See virtual BMC for details.

• Automation

  Placemat supports cloud-init and ignition to automate virtual machine initialization. Files on the host machine can be exported to guests as a 9pfs. QEMU disk images can be downloaded from remote HTTP servers.

  All of these help implementation of fully-automated tests.

• UEFI

  Not only traditional BIOS, but placemat VMs can be booted in UEFI mode if OVMF is available.

Usage

This project provides these commands:

• placemat2 is the main tool to build networks and virtual machines.
• pmctl2 is a utility tool to control VMs and Pods.

placemat2 command

placemat2 reads all YAML files specified in command-line arguments, then creates resources defined in YAML. To destroy, just kill the process (by sending a signal or Control-C).

$ placemat2 [OPTIONS] YAML [YAML ...]

Options:
  --cache-dir string
        directory for cache data
  --data-dir string
        directory to store data (default "/var/scratch/placemat")
  --debug
        show QEMU's stdout and stderr
  --force
        force run with removal of garbage
  --graphic
        run QEMU with graphical console
  --listen-addr string
        listen address (default "127.0.0.1:10808")
  --run-dir string
        run directory (default "/tmp")

If --cache-dir is not specified, the default will be /home/${SUDO_USER}/placemat_data if sudo is used for placemat. If sudo is not used, cache directory will be the same as --data-dir. --force is used for forced run. Remaining garbage, for example virtual networks, mounts, socket files will be removed.

pmctl2 command

pmctl2 is a command line tool to control VMs and Networks.

See pmctl

Getting started

Prerequisites

• QEMU
• OVMF for UEFI.
• picocom for pmctl2.
• socat for pmctl2.
• (Optional) swtpm for providing TPM of Node resource.

For Ubuntu or Debian, you can install them as follows:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils ovmf picocom socat cloud-utils

Install placemat

You can choose go get or debian package for installation.

Install placemat2 and pmctl2:

$ go install github.com/cybozu-go/placemat/v2/cmd/placemat2@latest
$ go install github.com/cybozu-go/placemat/v2/cmd/pmctl2@latest

or

$ wget https://github.com/cybozu-go/placemat/releases/download/v${VERSION}/placemat2_${VERSION}_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i placemat2_${VERSION}_amd64.deb

Run examples

See examples how to write YAML files.

To launch placemat from YAML files, run it with sudo as follows:

$ sudo $GOPATH/bin/placemat2 cluster.yml

To connect to a serial console of a VM, use pmctl2 node enter:

$ sudo $GOPATH/bin/pmctl2 node enter VM

This will launch picocom. To exit, type Ctrl-Q, then Ctrl-X.

Specification

See specifications under docs directory.

License

placemat is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.