Deployment of a Virtual Lab

• We already know the `labspec` file which is required to specify the installation and deployment steps of a lab.
• Lets look at the labspec now which is located inside the `scripts` directory.

cd ../scripts

• Open the labspec.json in an editor.
• Let's look at the following fields that are necessary for a lab specification, one by one to understand them and fill them with appropriate values.

• id: any string which can be used as an identifier for the lab. e.g - let's use three-letter discipline name followed by 2-digit numeric to represent your lab. But this can be anything.
• name: the name of the lab
• discipline: to specify the discipline name of the lab
• description -> developer: the list of the developers for the lab along with their contact details

{
    "id": "cse02",
    "name": "Computer Programming",
    "discipline": [
        "Computer Science & Engineering"
    ],
    "description": {
        "developer": [
            {
                "contact": {
                    "alternate_email": "",
                    "email": "jawahar@iiit.ac.in",
                    "mobile_number": "",
                    "office_number": ""
                },
                "department": "",
                "institute": "IIIT Hyderabad",
                "name": "Jawahar C.V",
                "organization": "",
                "role": "Lab Developer",
                "title": "",
                "web": ""
            }
        ]
}

Sample labspec to show the lab information related fields

• build steps -> build: to specify any build steps that are necessary for the lab before installation
• os, and osVersion: to mention on what OS and OS version the build steps to be performed.

"build_requirements": {
    "platform": {
        "arch": "i386",
        "build_steps": {
            "build": ["make -C ../src"],
            .
            .
        },
        "os": "ubuntu",
        "osVersion": "12"
        .
        .
    }
    .
    .
}

Sample labspec to show the build requirment related fields of a lab

• architecture: on what architecture the lab will run (i386 - 32bit or x86_64 - 64bit)
• hosting: dedicated hosting or shared hosting; default is dedicated.
• installer: the list of steps that are to be performed for the lab to get installed. This is the field where one specifies the steps to install the dependencies of a lab.

"installer": ["sudo apt-get update", 
             "sudo apt-get install -y apache2"],

• lab actions -> init: to specify the steps to run after the lab is installed. E.g - the final deployment steps, post-install steps etc.

"init": ["mv /var/www/index.html index.html.default",
         "cp -r ../src/* /var/www/"]

• lab actions -> start: the steps to start the services of a lab(if required)

"start": ["service apache2 start"],

• lab actions -> shutdown: the steps to stop the services of a lab(if required)

"shutdown": ["service apache2 stop"],

• Snippet of sample run time requirements

"runtime_requirements": {
    "platform": {
        "arch": "x86_64",
        "hosting": "dedicated",
        "installer": [
            "sudo apt-get update",
            "sudo apt-get install -y php5 apache2",
            "sudo apt-get install -y mysql memcache"
        ],
        "lab_actions": {
            "init": [
                "mv /var/www/index.html index.html.default",
                "cp -r ../build/* /var/www/"
            ],
            "shutdown": ["service apache2 stop"],
            "start": ["service apache2 start"],
            .
            .
        }
    }
}

Sample labspec to show the runtime requirment related fields of a lab

• memory: minimum required memory to be filled out. we also have a cap on the maximum memory a lab would need.
• os, osVersion: to specify OS and OS version on which the lab would run.
• storage: the minimum required storage for a lab