What is OpenStack Murano

Murano Key Concepts

Murano provides an application catalog service that enables end users to easily deploy applications. Internally, Murano uses the Heat orchestration service to manage the application resources. Administrators can use Heat Orchestration Templates to create application packages and import them into Murano.

Packages

A Murano package consists of the following 3 parts:

• A template for creating application resources
• An application logo
• Application metadata (e.g. ownership, author, categories, tags)

Environments

A Murano environment is a container for applications. This can be used to logically separate sets of apps.

Applications

A Murano application is a deployed package. It will be part of a Murano environment and have an associated Heat stack.

Creating A New Murano Application

Step 1 – Prepare the application template

The template will start with a version that corresponds to an OpenStack release. Since Platform9 is currently on Liberty, the following version should be used.

heat_template_version: 2015-10-15

Next comes the application description.

description: >

  The Apache HTTP Server Project is a collaborative software development

  effort aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and

  freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server.

The application may accept parameters that the user will specify when deploying. If a default is specified for a parameter, a placeholder will be shown to the end user when deploying the package from the UI.

Also, in order for the UI to show dropdowns for OpenStack resources (e.g. images), a custom constraint can be added. For more details on the template specification, check out the OpenStack documentation.

parameters:

  image:

    type: string

    description: A Linux image with the apt-get or yum commands available

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: glance.image

  key_name:

    type: string

    description: SSH public key used by the server

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: nova.keypair

  flavor:

    type: string

    description: flavor used by the server

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: nova.flavor

  network:

    type: string

    description: Network used by the server

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: nova.network

Now we will define the application resources. To keep the template short, the installation script will assume the apt-get command is available on the instance.

resources:

  apache_http_server:

    type: OS::Nova::Server

    properties:

      flavor: { get_param: flavor }

      image: { get_param: image }

      key_name: { get_param: key_name }

      networks:

        - network: { get_param: network }

      config_drive: true

      user_data_format: RAW

      user_data: |

        #!/bin/bash

        apt-get update

        apt-get -y install apache2

Putting it all together gives us the following template:

heat_template_version: 2015-10-15
description: >

  The Apache HTTP Server Project is a collaborative software development

  effort aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and

  freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server.
parameters:

  image:

    type: string

    description: A Linux image with the apt-get or yum commands available

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: glance.image

  key_name:

    type: string

    description: SSH public key used by the server

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: nova.keypair

  flavor:

    type: string

    description: flavor used by the server

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: nova.flavor

  network:

    type: string

    description: Network used by the server

    constraints:

      - custom_constraint: nova.network
resources:

  apache_http_server:

    type: OS::Nova::Server

    properties:

      flavor: { get_param: flavor }

      image: { get_param: image }

      key_name: { get_param: key_name }

      networks:

        - network: { get_param: network }

      config_drive: true

      user_data_format: RAW

      user_data: |

        #!/bin/bash

        apt-get update

        apt-get -y install apache2

Step 2 – Create and import the application package

Platform9 provides various ways of importing the package. For this step, we will use the Apache HTTP Server Template and the associated Apache HTTP Server Logo.

Option 1 – Direct Input

Click on the “Create New Application” button from the Applications view.

Ensure that the “Components” and “Text” buttons are selected. Enter (or paste) the template contents into the text area. Optionally, upload a logo. Then click on “Upload Application”.

Optionally, edit the metadata and click “Update Application”.

Option 2 – Template Upload

Click on the “Create New Application” button from the Applications view.

Ensure that the “Components” and “File” buttons are selected. Upload the template and, optionally, the logo. Then, click on “Upload Application”.

Optionally, edit the metadata and click “Update Application”.

Option 3 – Zip Upload

To install the Murano CLI, see the support article on Installing the OpenStack Clients.

First, create the Zip package using the Murano CLI. The –logo argument is optional.
[bash]murano package-create –template ApacheHttpServer.yaml –logo ApacheHttpServer.png[/bash]

Click on the “Create New Application” button from the Applications view.

Ensure that the “Zip” button is selected. Upload the Zip file. Then, click on “Upload Application”.

Optionally, edit the metadata and click “Update Application”.

Option 4 – CLI

To install the Murano CLI, see the support article on Installing the OpenStack Clients.

First, create the Zip package using the Murano CLI. The –logo argument is optional.
[bash]murano package-create –template ApacheHttpServer.yaml –logo ApacheHttpServer.png[/bash]

Then, upload the Zip package
[bash]murano package-import ApacheHttpServer.zip[/bash]

Deploying An Application From Catalog

Option 1 – 1 Click Deploy
Since a Murano application needs to be in an environment, the “1 Click Deploy” button can be used to create and environment and add an application to it.

After clicking on “1 Click Deploy”, fill out the form and click “Add to Environment”.

This will create an Environment with the same name as the application. The environment should soon be in the “ready” state as shown below.

Option 2 – Creating and Modifying an Environment
Standalone environments can also be created, and applications can be added or removed as needed.
To create one, click “Create New Environment”.

Specify a name and click “Create Environment”.

Now we are ready to add applications to the environment. Click “Add New Application” as shown below.

Select the application to add, and click “Next”.

After filling out the form, click “Add to Environment”.

The environment should soon be in the “ready” state as shown below.

Individual apps can also be removed by clicking on the trash icon on the application as shown below.

Option 3 – CLI

To install the Murano CLI, see the support article on Installing the OpenStack Clients.

First, create an environment.

Output:

Now, create a session for the environment using the environment id from above.

Output:

In order to add an app to the environment, a JSON patch file that describes changes to the environment will be used. The following template shows the JSON patch structure for adding the application.

List the packages in order to find the package FQN, which is a unique identifier for a package.

Output:

After locating the package to deploy, replace the Package FQN in the JSON patch template. Also, specify an application name and set the templateParameters, which were defined in the Heat template for the package.

Assuming the JSON patch file is named apache.json, use the environment and session ids from above to modify the environment.

To apply the changes, the environment needs to be deployed.

The environment should soon be in the “ready state”.

Output:

To verify the stack state, use the generatedHeatStackName property from above.

Editing An Existing Application

This feature is coming soon. Meanwhile, an existing package can be downloaded, modified, and re-uploaded.