Labenv Enterprise Linux

Setup VMs in a breeze on your local mini-cloud

What you'll learn

How to create a Linux virtualization host with enterprise Linux (Rocky or Alma).

How to use KVM, qemu and libvirt to enable the virtualization layer.

How to create Copy-On-Write enterprise Linux images.

Learn the first steps about Terraform (OpenTofu) and Cloud-init to provision VMs.

Learn the first steps about Ansible to configure VMs.

How to create a Python tool "labenv" to easily manage VMs.

How to use "labenv" by creating an Apache reverse proxy lab environment.

Requirements

Basic Linux knowledge. Students should feel comfortable on the bash command line and know a number of basic commands.

Students need a computer system, e.g. a NUC, on which Linux and the virtualization layer is installed.

Willingness to learn. Many topics are touched but not covered in detail. Hence many references are given.

Willingness to read. The course includes a course guide with step by step instructions and many appendices.

Description

In this course the student constructs a Linux virtualization host with standard technologies like KVM, qemu and libvirt. By creating Linux base images and using the provisioning tool Terraform the student learns how to quickly instantiate VMs. To ease access to the VMs, the student is introduced to Ansible for configuration management.The course material provides step by step instructions and some example sets of VMs, which we call "labenvs". Special care has been taken to make the course material usable as an instructions guide and as reference material. In the appendices extra information is provided about different topics and the references section guides the student to many sources on the Internet.Almost all of the commands are easily pasteable into a terminal. This makes getting things done on the terminal fast and avoids the risk of this course becoming a typing exercise.After introducing the different technologies, we together make a labenv tool in Python to make the management of the "labenvs" easy and efficient. This wrapper tool makes setting up Terraform and Ansible for "labenvs" literally a task of a second.The goal of the course is to enable students to setup "labenvs" for experimentation with software products. In the process all steps are explained in such a way that the student can tinker with the setup to play, understand and possibly extend the labenv tool.To demonstrate the value of labenv, we setup an Apache reverse proxy lab environment that we use to discuss some of the intricasies of Apache as a reverse proxy.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Course material

Lecture 2 Introduction

Lecture 3 Prerequisites

Lecture 4 Conventions

Lecture 5 Copy paste

Lecture 6 Fast track

Lecture 7 Network setups

Section 2: Host deployment

Lecture 8 Introduction

Lecture 9 Introduction Rocky 9.4 installation

Lecture 10 Select Rocky 9.4 mirror

Lecture 11 Create bootable USB on Linux machine

Lecture 12 Guidelines for creating bootable USB on Mac or Windows machine

Lecture 13 Boot from USB for installation

Lecture 14 Do installation

Lecture 15 SSH client options on Windows machine

Lecture 16 Post installation tasks

Lecture 17 Configure LAN

Lecture 18 Setup SSH

Lecture 19 Libvirt installation

Lecture 20 Libvirt storage

Lecture 21 Libvirt extra network

Section 3: Base images creation

Lecture 22 Base images introduction

Lecture 23 Latest Rocky 9 base installation

Lecture 24 Prepare image as template

Lecture 25 Sparsify image

Lecture 26 Create older Rocky 9 base image

Lecture 27 Exercise: latest Rocky 8 image creation

Lecture 28 Solution: latest Rocky 8 image creation

Lecture 29 Exercise: older Rocky 8 image creation

Lecture 30 Solution: older Rocky 8 image creation

Section 4: Terraform

Lecture 31 Terraform introduction

Lecture 32 Terraform deployment

Lecture 33 Terraform libvirt provider experiments introduction

Lecture 34 Terraform libvirt provider COW system disk experiment

Lecture 35 Terraform libvirt provider VM with COW system disk experiment

Lecture 36 Terraform libvirt provider cloud-init ISO experiment

Lecture 37 Oops, forgot to remove infrastructure elements

Lecture 38 Terraform libvirt provider VM with COW system disk and ISO experiment

Lecture 39 Why Terraform modules?

Lecture 40 Terraform VM module

Lecture 41 Terraform VM module single node test

Lecture 42 Terraform VM module multiple node test

Lecture 43 Why Terraform wrapper module?

Lecture 44 Terraform VMs module

Lecture 45 Terraform VMs module test

Lecture 46 Exercise: create 2 VMs with Terraform VMs module

Lecture 47 Solution: create 2 VMs with Terraform VMs module

Section 5: Ansible

Lecture 48 Ansible introduction

Lecture 49 Ansible installation

Lecture 50 Create Ansible collection

Lecture 51 Create role host

Lecture 52 Create role guest

Lecture 53 Create role etc_hosts

Lecture 54 Demo of Ansible collection

Section 6: Labenv tool

Lecture 55 Labenv tool introduction

Lecture 56 Install the labenv tool

Lecture 57 Use the labenv tool: simple example

Lecture 58 Use the labenv tool: complex example

Lecture 59 Exercise: create elastic stack labenv

Lecture 60 Solution: create elastic stack labenv

Lecture 61 Problem: change a VM's IPv4 address

Lecture 62 Problem: redeploy a VM

Lecture 63 Problem: move VMs from one labenv to another

Lecture 64 Problem: remove VM from labenv and host

Lecture 65 Problem: move VM out of a labenv while keeping it on host

Lecture 66 Problem: import VM into labenv with help of dummy labenv

Lecture 67 Problem: deal with same node type on multiple labenvs

Section 7: Labenv use cases

Lecture 68 Labenv use cases introduction

Lecture 69 Create Apache reverse proxy labenv

Lecture 70 Configure the origin server VM

Lecture 71 Configure origin server default vhosts

Lecture 72 Configure origin server named vhosts

Lecture 73 Reverse proxy message sequence diagrams

Lecture 74 Configure reverse proxy VM

Lecture 75 Create root Certificate Authority (CA) on reverse proxy

Lecture 76 Create server certificate on reverse proxy

Lecture 77 Configure Certificate Authority (CA) bundle on Linux client

Lecture 78 Configure default vhosts on reverse proxy

Lecture 79 Why redirects fail

Lecture 80 Fix the failing redirects

This course is aimed at Linux enthousiasts or Linux engineers who want to setup their own laboratory environment in which they can easily test software and technologies. By creating a "labenv" tool together an environment is setup that can be tinkered with and provides an easy and efficient way to setup sets of VMs (labenvs).