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=========================
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Bazaar Windows EC2 Server
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=========================
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We have an Amazon EC2 virtual machine called Desolation_ for
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building Windows packages and general testing on Windows. As of
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2009-02-19, this is just experimental and this is a draft specification,
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but we aim to use it for the production Windows installer build of 1.13 in
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* `Bazaar Developer Documentation Catalog <index.html>`_.
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.. _Desolation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desolation_Island
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* The instance is only running (and incurring charges) when it's needed
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for testing or packaging.
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* It can be started or stopped by anyone on the team using a
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straightforward script.
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* Multiple people can get into the same instance at the same time, e.g.
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if one person needs to pass work on to some one else.
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* We keep snapshot of the OS and tool chain so that we can roll back if
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* bzr branches and similar information are kept on stable storage that
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survives rollbacks of the OS state, and that can be backed up.
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Later on we may try automated Windows testing in a similar setup.
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The working disk and the AMI images are stored in one person's account for
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Ideally we want to give other people access to run this machine without
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giving full access to the account. I'm not sure if that's feasible. If
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it's not, we might need to allow people to launch the image within their
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own account; this may be problematic if the shared volume is already in
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I don't think it's possible to have an EBS that's shared across accounts,
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and they can't be attached to multiple running instances. So for now it's
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probably best to just ignore the concept and store the working data on the
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instance's local storage, and to copy things up e.g. to Launchpad as
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On this machine, ``C:`` should be used only for the Windows system files,
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``D:`` for installed programs and working directories, and other drive
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letters can be used later for mounting EBS storage if desired.
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Through ``ec2-modify-image-attribute`` we can allow nominated users to
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access an existing image. We need to have their AWS opaque ID.
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Through ``ec2-bundle-image`` we can make a new snapshot at any point,
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which will be stored into the current user's S3 account.
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We'll (probably) have one shared account for running builds which is also
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an administrator for ease of installing software.
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You do need to have an RSA keypair to get the initial password for a
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Windows machine, even though you can't use it to log in later. As a quirk
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of the tools(?) ``ec2-get-password`` needs the full path to the keypair
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but ``ec2-add-keypair`` just wants part of the name. I guess this is
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distinct from the account identifier because the image is relatively
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untrusted(?). If the password is already set in the image, this shouldn't
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It would be nice if rdesktop could use private key authentication but
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Should check how the Launchpad ec2test scripts work.
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* Be in the bzr core team. If you are interested in helping with
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Windows packaging, testing or development just ask.
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`Amazon EC2 API tools`_ (needs-packaging `bug 330930`_)
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* Create a private key and certificate for yourself.
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Check these environment variables are set and exported, e.g. by setting
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them in the file ``~/.aws``. Make sure the files are private.::
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EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=~/.ec2/pk-XXXXXX.pem
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EC2_CERT=~/.ec2/cert-XXXXXX.pem
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EC2_HOME=~/build/ec2-api-tools-1.3-30349
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AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=XXXXXXXXX
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AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=XXXXXXXXXXX
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PATH=$PATH:$EC2_HOME/bin
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JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk
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* Install the rdesktop client, to actually access the machine.
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* Create an Amazon Web Services account, sign up for S3 and EC2, and do
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the various steps to create authentication devices
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* Possibly read some of the `EC2 documentation`_ for background.
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.. _`bug 330930`: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/330930
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.. _`Amazon EC2 API tools`:
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http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=368&categoryID=88
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.. _`EC2 documentation`: http://aws.amazon.com/
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* Create a security group for your that allows rdesktop access and icmp with::
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ec2-add-group desolation-group -d 'bzr win32 build machine'
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ec2-authorize desolation-group -p 3389 -s 1.2.3.4/32
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ec2-authorize desolation-group -t -1:-1 -P icmp
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Add your public IP there. You can repeat that command to allow others
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To start up an instance
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-----------------------
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1. Get the right AMI image ID from another developer.
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1. Start the instance::
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ec2-run-instances $image_id -g desolation-group
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This will print out some information including the image id, something
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1. Actually starting the machine will take a few minutes. Once it's in
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the *running* state, get the machine's public IP with ::
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ec2-describe-instances
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1. and then connect ::
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rdesktop -g 1200x850 -u Administrator $machine_ip
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Don't forget to shut it down when you're done, and check with
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``ec2-describe-instances`` that it did terminate.
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To save a system snapshot as an image
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-------------------------------------
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1. Bundle the current state. *Doing this will reboot the machine.*
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You need to choose a unique s3 bucket name,
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typically based on a domain or email address, which can contain
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any number of images. You also need a name unique within the bucket
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for this image, like ``desolation-vs2008-20090219``. And finally
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it needs your AWS S3 access key and secret key, which should be set in
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ec2-bundle-instance -b ec2.sourcefrog.net \
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-p desolation-vs2008-2009021 \
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-o "$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID" \
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-w "$AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"
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1. This will take several minutes: You can check progress with ::
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ec2-describe-bundle-tasks
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1. Register the files as an image, e.g.::
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ec2-register ec2.sourcefrog.net/desolation-vs2008-2009021
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This will give you an AMI id for the image.
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1. Give access to other team members identified by their Amazon account id::
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ec2-modify-image-attributes $ami_id -l -a 123412341234
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doc/developers/ec2-windows.txt
