ezjailremote 0.2.1

``ezjail-remote`` is a 'remote control' and convenience wrapper for the ``ezjail-admin`` command of the most excellent `ezjail <http://erdgeist.org/arts/software/ezjail/>`_ tool (which in turn is itself a convenience wrapper for `jails <http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/jails.html>`_, `FreeBSD <http://www.freebsd.org>`_'s leight-weight virtualization solution).

Its main features are:

* more sophisticated support for flavours, i.e. interactive configuration and/or templating as opposed to ezjail's hardcoded flavours
* you can ssh into jails created by ``ezjail-remote`` immediately upon creation (no more manual mucking about with sshd config or uploading your public key!)
* unlike ``ezjail-admin``, ``ezjail-remote`` is not installed on the jail host, but on your local machine. This means *it doesn't introduce any further dependencies on the jail host whatsoever* (ezjail itself purposefully limits itself to ``sh``).

Usage
=====

ezjail-remote uses the `fabric <http://docs.fabfile.org>`_ library to remotely run its tasks. Basically it provides a so-called *fabfile* that contains all of the commands of ``ezjail-admin`` (version 3.2 as of this writing).

This means that its usage differs slightly from that of ``ezjail-admin``. In particular, you provide the hostname of the jail server via the ``-H`` switch and the parameters for the command (such as the name of the jail etc) separated with a colon, like so::

ezjail-remote -H host(s) <COMMAND>:param1,param2,param3

or::

ezjail-remote -H host(s) <COMMAND>:param1=foo,param3=bar

See the `full documentation of what fabric has to offer here <http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.2.0/usage/fab.html#command-line-options>`_.

In particualar, you can...

* run ``ezjail-remote --help`` to see a list of the available *options*
* run ``ezjail-remote -l`` to see a list of the available *commands*
* run ``ezjail-remote -d COMMAND`` to see a detailed description of a command

As a side effect of using fabric, you can run ezjail-admin commands against multiple jailhosts at the same time.

Bootstrapping
=============

ezjail-remote doesn't only make it easy to create and manage jails, it also helps you set up a jailhost environment from scratch. This is done with the ``bootstrap`` and ``install`` commands.

To successfully run the bootstrap command the following requirements need to be met on the host:

* sshd is up and running
* ssh login for root is (temporarily) enabled
* currently we also require an internet connection (to install ezjail) but this will eventually be replaced with uploading a copy of ezjail.

For example (logged in as root on the console)::

echo 'PermitRootLogin yes' >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
echo 'ifconfig_em0=DHCP' >> /etc/rc.conf
passwd # give yourself a TEMP_PASSWORD
dhclient em0 # note the IP_ADDR you get
/etc/rc.d/sshd onestart


Now you can run the bootstrap command using the temporary password you gave yourself::

ezjail-remote -H IP_ADDR bootstrap

This

* disables root login
* permanently enables SSH for the jail host (and limits it to the primary IP address)
* creates an admin user with your username and public SSH key

To install ezjail you can use the ``install`` command, which either installs it from the ports or from CVS (for the brave)::

ezjail-remote -H IP_ADDR install

If you want to use a CVS snapshot::

ezjail-remote -H IP_ADDR install:source=cvs

If you want to use ZFS (and you should!) supply the pool it should use via the jailzfs parameter::

ezjail-remote -H IP_ADDR install:jailzfs='jails/ezjail'


Commands
========

In its simplest form, ezjail remote offers the exact same commands as ezjail-admin, namely ``[archive|config|console|create|delete|install|list|restore|start|stop|update]``. In addition to that it provides enhanced versions of ``create`` and ``destroy`` (the latter a more thorough variant of the ``delete`` command.)

create
------

creates a new jail instance on the given host, creates an admin user with sudo privileges and enables ssh access via public key.

after setting up the jail it attempts to execute a method named ``setup`` from ``ezjailremote.flavours.<name-of-flavour>``, passing on all parameters, including any additional, arbitrary keyword arguments.

parameters
**********

name
name of the new jail, *required*

IP
the IP address, *required*

admin
name of the admin user for the jail, defaults to the current user. the user will be created and added to ``wheel`` (which in turn will be allowed to sudo without password).

keyfile
public key to install for the admin user, defaults to ``~/.ssh/identity.pub``.

flavour
the name of the local flavour, defaults to ``basic``.

ctype
defaults to None and refers to the ``-c`` flag, meaning, you can set it to ``simple``, ``bde``, ``eli`` or ``zfs``.


destroy
-------

stops, removes and deletes the given jail instance (but not before asking you one last time, explicitely). however, once you confirm, the jail is irrevocably *gone*.

parameters
**********

name
name of the new jail, *required*

Installation
============

Simply use easy_install::

easy_install ezjail-remote

Development
===========

To develop ezjail-remote itself, check out a copy of this repository and then::

virtualenv . --no-site-package
./bin/python setup.py develop

TODO:
*****

* document flavour development
* use a base class for flavours
* list them (with their docstr) with ezjail-remote list-flavours
* allow chaining/nesting/stacking of flavours (i.e. always include basic)


Change history
==============

0.2.1 - 2012-09-10
------------------

* add support for creating ZFS (and other image based) jails

0.2 - 2012-09-07
----------------

* split installation into ``bootstrap`` (which has proven itself useful outside of a ezjail setup) and ``install``
* added support for ZFS
* can install ezjail from CVS
* added support for flavours outside the ezjail-remote package itself (using namespace packages for ezjailremote.flavours.\*)
* added `start`, `stop` and `jls` commands.

0.1 - 2011-07-29
----------------

Initial release. Provides 'pass through' of all commands, as well as enhanced versions for ``create`` and ``destroy``.

Download
========