Atomika Wormhole

      Enter the wormhole into Atomika Kubernetes
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 MIT License, Copyright (c) 2024 S2C Consulting (PtyLtd ZA)

Atomika wormhole automates the preparation of machines for use as Kubernetes or Ansible Control nodes. The primary vehicle are ISO images of Ubuntu 22 that

• boots up without user input;
• is minimalistic and
• is pre-installed with Ansible.

There are two images:

• The bare image augments normal Ubuntu22 server with Git and Ansible
• The Atomika image build on bare by preparing itself to run as a Kubernetes node cluster during first boot. See the k8s_init.yml Ansible playboork of the Atomika project for more details on this. As such its versioning follows that of jrb-s2c-github/atomika.

The images are opinionated in that it boots:

• Ubuntu Server minimal (No GUI and extended packages);
• UTC;
• US English keyboard;
• en_US.UTF-8 locale;
• one partition hard drive filled to maximum;
• one sudo user called ansible with unsecured (change this should hardening be required) public/private key available at GitHub root;
• sudo pwd for ansible user of 'atmin' (change this should hardening be required)
• hostname of wormhole and
• Git and Ansible
• does not allow password authentication over SSH

It is intended for local development and not for production use without custom hardening

Dzone.com articles on Atomika Wormhole

• Ansible and the Pre-Container Arts

Windows

A PowerShell script is provided that boots instances directly on the Windows Virtual Machines Hypervizor (Hyper-V). This script, furthermore, drops one into a ssh shell on the new virtual machine without further human interaction. However, it requires OpenSSH to be installed.

See links to documentation on Hyper-V lower down.

Howto create new Virtual Machine

• Register the ansible private key located next to ansible.pub in root with security agent (ssh-agent on my machines)
• Git clone atomika_wormhole.
• Download the required image from here into /startup_scripts. ISO versions follow that of the versions of Atomika they are prepared for.
• Run '/startup_scripts/liftoff.ps1 $vm_name $patt_to_image_to_boot' from a PowerShell prompt with administration privileges. The location of the wormhome image can be completed using tabbing.
• Enter a name for the virtual machine that will be created when prompted - Only when it have not been provided as $vm_name above
• Enter the location of the wormhole image to boot - Only when it have not been provided as $patt_to_image_to_boot above
• Wait to be dropped into a SSH shell on the VM.

Howto reconnect or restart existing Virtual Machine

Run /startup_scripts/startReconnect.ps1 in a PowerShell prompt with admin privileges. Since IP addresses might change after restarts, expect the prompt requesting trust to be established to appear again.

Troubleshooting

First of all check that the virtual machine is running by connecting to it directly from the Hyper-V manager application.

Should it be running, but the SSH prompt did not appear:

• Confirm that OpenSSH is installed. One can also get a shell by connecting from the Hyper-V manager application directly.
• Check that you loaded the private key of the ansible user

Tips and Tricks

• do not be scared to change the creation parameters in liftoff.sh: amount of processors (-ProcessorCount 8), ram (-MemoryStartupBytes 4GB) and virtual hard disk (-NewVHDSizeBytes 40GB), one can always revert back to the original in GitHub
• Mess around in the settings/functionalities of Hyper-V manager. Google and be brave!
• It is possible to create and change to a switch that uses a network adaptor dedicated to HyperV, I find the advantage more stable IP addresses on my home network.

Hyper-V Documentation

• Install Hyper-V on Windows 10
• Start Hyper-V Manager and create a VM manually
• How to Install and Configure Hyper-V
• A Practical Guide to Hyper-V Virtual Switch Configuration
• Configure VM memory in Hyper-V
• Hyper-V Virtual CPUs Explained
• My settings to dedicate a network adaptor for use by VM's:

Outstanding

• Test that HyperV is present and active on Windows 10&11 with Default Switch
• Script to install OpenSSH
• Tune size of Windows VM hard drive
• Switch on compression of iso images?
• Provide hash to compare iso against?
• Report failure in PowerShell scripts when not enough ram available
• Test for existence of VM before doing startReconnect.sh