About OpenStack-Ansible¶

OpenStack-Ansible (OSA) uses the Ansible IT automation engine to deploy an OpenStack environment on Ubuntu Linux. For isolation and ease of maintenance, you can install OpenStack components into Linux containers (LXC).

Ansible¶

Ansible provides an automation platform to simplify system and application deployment. Ansible manages systems by using Secure Shell (SSH) instead of unique protocols that require remote daemons or agents.

Ansible uses playbooks written in the YAML language for orchestration. For more information, see Ansible - Intro to Playbooks.

This guide refers to the following types of hosts:

Deployment host, which runs the Ansible playbooks
Target hosts, where Ansible installs OpenStack services and infrastructure components

Linux containers (LXC)¶

Containers provide operating-system level virtualization by enhancing the concept of chroot environments. Containers isolate resources and file systems for a particular group of processes without the overhead and complexity of virtual machines. They access the same kernel, devices, and file systems on the underlying host and provide a thin operational layer built around a set of rules.

The LXC project implements operating-system-level virtualization on Linux by using kernel namespaces, and it includes the following features:

Resource isolation including CPU, memory, block I/O, and network, by using cgroups
Selective connectivity to physical and virtual network devices on the underlying physical host
Support for a variety of backing stores, including Logical Volume Manager (LVM)
Built on a foundation of stable Linux technologies with an active development and support community

Installation workflow¶

The following diagram shows the general workflow of an OpenStack-Ansible installation.