Setting up a LAVA instance¶

The LAVA design designates the machine running Django and PostgreSQL as the lava-server and all other machines connected to that server which will actually be running the jobs are termed lava-worker machines.

Installing just lava-server¶

The lava-server package is the main LAVA scheduler and frontend.

To install just the lava-server from the current packages, use:

$ sudo apt install lava-server
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default
$ sudo a2enmod proxy
$ sudo a2enmod proxy_http
$ sudo a2ensite lava-server.conf
$ sudo service apache2 restart

This will install lava-dispatcher and lava-server.

Other packages to consider:

ntp - some actions within LAVA can be time-sensitive, so ensuring that devices within your lab keep time correctly can be important.

Note

There is no support in V2 for linaro-media-create to manipulate hardware packs from Linaro, so this package can be removed once there are no V1 devices on the worker.

Installing the full lava set¶

Production installs of LAVA will rarely use the full lava set as it includes tools more commonly used by developers and test labs. These tools mean that the lava package brings more dependencies than when installing lava-server to run a production LAVA instance.

Note

Debian has the concept of Dependencies which must be installed and Recommends which are optional but expected to be useful by most users of the package in question. Opting out of installing Recommends is supported when installing packages, so if admins have concerns about extra packages being installed on the slaves (e.g. if using ARMv7 slaves or simply to reduce the complexity of the install) then Recommends can be omitted for the installation of these dependencies.

The lava package installs support for:

lava-dev - scripts to build developer packages based on your current git tree of lava-server or lava-dispatcher, including any local changes.

Note

lava-dev includes a lot of packages which are not typically used on a production master or worker.
vmdebootstrap for building your own Debian based KVM images.
ntp - some actions within LAVA can be time-sensitive, so ensuring that devices within your lab keep time correctly can be important.

Note

There is no support in V2 for linaro-media-create to manipulate hardware packs from Linaro, so this package can be removed once there are no V1 devices on the worker.

All of these packages can be installed separately alongside the main lava-server package, the lava package merely collects them into one set.

$ sudo apt install postgresql
$ sudo apt install lava
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default
$ sudo a2enmod proxy
$ sudo a2enmod proxy_http
$ sudo a2ensite lava-server.conf
$ sudo service apache2 restart

Installing master without Recommends¶

The lava-common binary package is new in 2018.5 and allows admins to choose not to install lava-dispatcher on the master if there are to be no devices assigned to the machine running lava-master. This is common for installations where there are multiple workers and the master is regularly busy. lava-server now _Recommends_ lava-dispatcher which means that admins can choose not to install it alongside lava-server:

$ sudo apt --no-install-recommends install lava-server lava-server-doc

Depending on the local configuration, some of the other recommended packages may also be desirable:

lava-coordinator
ntp

lava-server-doc can be omitted but this would be unusual - instances would need to be configured to have some other Help option in the menu using the CUSTOM_DOCS dictionary setting in /etc/lava-server/settings.conf and the Help links from pages within the LAVA UI would cause a 404 error for users, unless the Apache configuration was adjusted.

Installing lava-dispatcher¶

If this machine is only meant to be a dispatcher for connected devices, then just install lava-dispatcher. The lava-server package is only needed on the master in each LAVA instance.

$ sudo apt install lava-dispatcher

Change the dispatcher configuration in /etc/lava-dispatcher/lava-worker to allow lava-worker to connect to the relevant lava-server instead of localhost:

/etc/lava-dispatcher/lava-worker

# Configuration for lava-worker daemon

# worker name
# Should be set for host that have random hostname (containers, ...)
# The name can be any unique string.
# WORKER_NAME="--name <hostname.fqdn>"

# Logging level should be uppercase (DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR)
# LOGLEVEL="DEBUG"

# Server connection
# URL="http://localhost/"
# TOKEN="--token <token>"
# WS_URL="--ws-url http://localhost/ws/"

Restart lava-worker once the changes are complete:
```
$ sudo service lava-worker restart
```
The administrator of the master will then be able to allocate pipeline devices to this slave.

Note

For security reasons, the slave does not declare the devices connected to it to the master. The LAVA configuration on the worker actually needs no knowledge of what is connected or where as long as services like ser2net are configured. All the LAVA configuration data is stored solely in the database of the master. Once this data is entered by the admin of the master, the worker then needs to connect and the admin can then select that slave for the relevant devices. Once selected, the worker can immediately start running pipeline jobs on those devices.

The administrator of the master will require the following information about the devices attached to each slave:

Confirmation that a suitable template already exists, for each device i.e. Adding support for a device of a known type
A completed and tested device dictionary for each device.

This information contains specific information about the local network setup of the slave and will be transmitted between the master and the worker in clear text over HTTP. Any encryption would need to be arranged separately between the slave and the master. Information typically involves the hostname of the PDU, the port number of the device on that PDU and the port number of the serial connection for that device. The slave is responsible for ensuring that these ports are only visible to that slave. There is no need for any connections to be visible to the master.

Configuring apache2 on a worker¶

Some test job deployments will require a working Apache2 server to offer deployment files over the network to the device:

$ sudo cp /usr/share/lava-dispatcher/apache2/lava-dispatcher.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/
$ sudo a2ensite lava-dispatcher
$ sudo service apache2 restart
$ wget http://localhost/tmp/
$ rm index.html

You may also need to disable any existing apache2 configuration if this is a default apache2 installation:

$ sudo a2dissite 000-default
$ sudo service apache2 restart

Adding workers to the master¶

A new worker needs to be manually added to the master so that the admins of the master have the ability to assign devices in the database and enable or disable the worker.

To add a new worker:

$ sudo lava-server manage workers add <HOSTNAME>

To add a worker with a description:

$ sudo lava-server manage workers add --description <DESC> <HOSTNAME>

To add a worker in a disabled state:

$ sudo lava-server manage workers add --description <DESC> --disabled <HOSTNAME>

Workers are enabled or disabled in the Django admin interface by changing the display field of the worker. Jobs submitted to devices on that worker will fail, so it is also recommended that the devices would be made offline at the same time. (The django admin interface has support for selecting devices by worker and taking all selected devices offline in a single action.)

See also

Create a device in the database

Adding devices to a worker¶

Admins use the Django admin interface to add devices to workers using the worker drop-down in the device detail page.

Note

A worker may have a description but does not have a record of the IP address, uptime or architecture in the Worker object.