vSphere Integrated Containers

vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC) is a container runtime for vSphere, allowing developers familiar with Docker to develop in containers and deploy them alongside traditional VM-based workloads on vSphere clusters, and allowing for these workloads to be managed through the vSphere UI in a way familiar to existing vSphere admins.

See VIC Containers Architecture for a high level overview.

Project Status

VIC now provides:

basic function for most of the core lifecycle operations: pull, create, start, attach, run, stop, rm
short IDs and names are supported in most places
experimental vCenter support
early volume support --volume-store
direct mapping of vSphere networks --container-network
port forwarding on bridge network

The function is still basic and there are some specific limitations worth pulling out:

stop is not polite - it currently powers off the VM directly without providing for filesystem sync
run does not block the process from starting until attach is complete so may result in missed output and attempt to attach to stopped container

We are working hard to add functionality while building out our foundation so continue to watch the repo for new features. Initial focus is on the production end of the CI pipeline, building backwards towards developer laptop scenarios.

This extremely limited set of current capabilities may come as a surprise to people who are familiar with Project Bonneville that was reasonably fully featured when demonstrated at VMworld in 2015. Project Bonneville was research aimed at determining best approaches to enabling container workflows in a vSphere environment and therefore enabled a broad set of features, but not in a manner that made it a viable product for large scale consumption. Building on top of research code is a great shortcut for fast time-to-market, but does not provide a good foundation for an enterprise quality product. vSphere Integrated Containers is a full re-architecture and re-write, building off the knowledge gained during Project Bonneville while keeping almost zero code.

Installing

Once built, pick up the correct binary based on your OS, and then the result can be installed with the following command.

bin/vic-machine-linux create --target target-host[/datacenter] --image-datastore <datastore name> --name <vch-name> --user <username> --password <password> --compute-resource <cluster/a/resource/pool/path>

See vic-machine-XXX create --help for usage information.

A more indepth example can be found here

Container output is found in a log file on the datastore ([datastore]/containerid/containerid.log).

Deleting

The installed Virtual Container Host can be deleted through vic-machine-XXX delete.

See vic-machine-XXX delete --help for usage information.

A more indepth example can be found here

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING for details on submitting changes and the contribution workflow.

Building

Building the project is done with a combination of make and containers, with golang:1.6.3 being the common container base. This is done so that it's possible to build directly, without a functional docker, if using a Debian based system with the Go 1.6.3 toolchain and Drone.io installed.

To build as closely as possible to the formal build:

drone exec -trusted -cache -e VIC_ESX_TEST_URL=""

To build without modifying the local system:

docker run -v $(pwd):/go/src/github.com/vmware/vic -w /go/src/github.com/vmware/vic golang:1.6.3 make all

To build directly:

make all

There are three primary components generated by a full build, found in $BIN (the ./bin directory by default). The make targets used are the following:

vic-machine - make vic-machine
appliance.iso - make appliance
bootstrap.iso - make bootstrap

Building binaries for development

Some of the project binaries can only be built on Linux. If you are developing on a Mac or Windows OS, then the easiest way to facilitate a build is by utilizing the project's Vagrantfile. The Vagrantfile will share the directory where the file is executed and set the GOPATH based on that share.

To build the component binaries, ensure GOPATH is set, then issue the following command in the root directory:

$ make components

This will install required tools and build the component binaries tether-windows, tether-linux, rpctool and server binaries docker-engine-server, port-layer-server. The binaries will be created in the $BIN directory, ./bin by default.

To run tests after a successful build, issue the following:

$ make test

Managing vendor/ directory

To build the VIC dependencies, ensure GOPATH is set, then issue the following. $ make gvt vendor

This will install the gvt utility and retrieve the build dependencies via gvt restore

Building the ISOs

The component binaries above are packaged into ISO files, appliance.iso and bootstrap.iso, that are used by the installer. The generation of the ISOs is split into the following targets: iso-base, appliance-staging, bootstrap-staging, appliance, and bootstrap. Generation of the ISOs involves authoring a new root filesystem, meaning running a package manager (currently yum) and packing/unpacking archives. To install packages and preserve file permissions while unpacking these steps should be run as root, whether directly or in a container. To generate the ISOs:

$ make isos

The appliance and bootstrap ISOs are bootable CD images used to start the VMs that make up VIC. To build the image using docker, ensure GOPATH is set and docker is installed, then issue the following.

docker run -v $(pwd):/go/src/github.com/vmware/vic -w /go/src/github.com/vmware/vic golang:1.6.3 make isos

Alternatively, the iso image can be built locally. Again, ensure GOPATH is set, but also ensure the following packages are installed. This will attempt to install the following packages if not present using apt-get:

	curl \
	cpio \
	tar \
	xorriso \
	rpm \
	ca-certificates \
	yum

Package names may vary depending on the distribution being used. Once installed, issue the following (the targets listed here are those executed when using the iso target.

make iso-base appliance-staging appliance bootstrap-staging bootstrap

The iso image will be created in $BIN

Building with CI

PRs to this repository will trigger builds on our Drone CI.

To build locally with Drone:

Ensure that you have Docker 1.6 or higher installed. Install the Drone command line tools. From the root directory of the vic repository run drone exec -trusted -cache -e VIC_ESX_TEST_URL=""

Common Build Problems

Builds may fail when building either the appliance.iso or bootstrap.iso with the error: cap_set_file failed - Operation not supported

Cause: Some Ubuntu and Debian based systems ship with a defective aufs driver, which Docker uses as its default backing store. This driver does not support extended file capabilities such as cap_set_file

Solution: Edit the /etc/default/docker file, add the option --storage-driver=overlay to the DOCKER_OPTS settings, and restart Docker.

Integration Tests

VIC Integration Test Suite includes instructions to run locally.

License

VIC is available under the Apache 2 license.

hartsock/vic