VMmanager: Administrator guide

Main features

An administrator of Vmmanager can perform the following operations: 

• create virtual machines; 
• reboot, enable and disable a virtual machine;
• clone a virtual machine; 
• create disk images for virtual machines based on the configured server;
• manage networks;
• group cluster nodes into logical clusters; 
• create clusters and add servers into clusters;

• receive detailed information about every cluster node and virtual machine. 

VMmanager architecture

VMmanager architecture is based on Docker allowing to create and manage containers. A Docker container is an isolated environment where an application is running and the required environment is configured.

A docker image is required for running a docker-container. It defines the processes that will run in a container, its parameters, and environment settings.  E.g. the image can contain an operating system with the pre-installed webserver and corresponding network settings.  It is not possible to change the docker image of a running container. 

VMmanager consists of three docker containers:

• vm_box — the main container which contains services for the platform; 
• input — container with nginx web server. Provides access to all platform services;
• auth_back — service for user registration and authorization in VMmanager. It processes profile settings and SSH-keys;
• validator — POST query content check service;
• carbon_clickhouse — aggregator of VM and cluster node usage metrics;
• clickhouse_server — database of VM and cluster node usage metrics;
• graphite_clickhouse — service for converting metrics to graphite format;
• carbonapi — API service for transferring metrics to Grafana and platform interface;
• mysql — the MySQL management container;
• vm_ipmgr_1 — IPmanager service container;
• plugin — plugins container;
• registrator — the container for dynamic creation of new containers for nginx;
• consul — the container for Consul service detection system. Read more about Consul in the official documentation ;
• grafana — grafana monitoring visualization container;
• vm_dns_proxy_1 — PowerDNS integration plugin container;
• alert — container for platform notifications settings service;
• scheduler — container for VMs backup schedule.

More information about the VMmanager cluster in the article VMmanager structure.

Product operation logic