Getting Started With ProfitBricks¶

ProfitBricks provides an enterprise-grade Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution that can be managed through a browser-based "Data Center Designer" (DCD) tool or via an easy to use API. A unique feature of the ProfitBricks platform is that it allows you to define your own settings for cores, memory, and disk size without being tied to a particular instance size.

Dependencies¶

profitbricks >= 2.3.0

Configuration¶

Using the new format, set up the cloud configuration at /etc/salt/cloud.providers or /etc/salt/cloud.providers.d/profitbricks.conf:

my-profitbricks-config:
  # Set the location of the salt-master
  #
  minion:
    master: saltmaster.example.com

  # Configure ProfitBricks authentication credentials
  #
  username: user@domain.com
  password: 123456
  # datacenter is the UUID of a pre-existing virtual data center.
  datacenter: 9e6709a0-6bf9-4bd6-8692-60349c70ce0e
  # Connect to public LAN ID 1.
  public_lan: 1
  ssh_public_key: /path/to/id_rsa.pub
  ssh_private_key: /path/to/id_rsa

  driver: profitbricks

Note

Changed in version 2015.8.0.

The provider parameter in cloud provider definitions was renamed to driver. This change was made to avoid confusion with the provider parameter that is used in cloud profile definitions. Cloud provider definitions now use driver to refer to the Salt cloud module that provides the underlying functionality to connect to a cloud host, while cloud profiles continue to use provider to refer to provider configurations that you define.

Virtual Data Center¶

ProfitBricks uses the concept of Virtual Data Centers. These are logically separated from one another and allow you to have a self-contained environment for all servers, volumes, networking, snapshots, and so forth.

A list of existing virtual data centers can be retrieved with the following command:

salt-cloud -f list_datacenters my-profitbricks-config

Authentication¶

The username and password are the same as those used to log into the ProfitBricks "Data Center Designer".

Profiles¶

Here is an example of a profile:

profitbricks_production:
  provider: my-profitbricks-config
  size: Micro Instance
  image: 2f98b678-6e7e-11e5-b680-52540066fee9
  disk_size: 10
  disk_type: SSD
  cores: 2
  ram: 4096
  public_lan: 1
  private_lan: 2
  ssh_public_key: /path/to/id_rsa.pub
  ssh_private_key: /path/to/id_rsa
  ssh_interface: private_lan

The following list explains some of the important properties.

size: Can be one of the options listed in the output of the following command:

salt-cloud --list-sizes my-profitbricks

image: Can be one of the options listed in the output of the following command:

salt-cloud --list-images my-profitbricks

disk_size: This option allows you to override the size of the disk as defined by the size. The disk size is set in gigabytes (GB).
disk_type: This option allow the disk type to be set to HDD or SSD. The default is HDD.
cores: This option allows you to override the number of CPU cores as defined by the size.
ram: This option allows you to override the amount of RAM defined by the size. The value must be a multiple of 256, e.g. 256, 512, 768, 1024, and so forth.
public_lan: This option will connect the instance to the specified public LAN. If no LAN exists, then a new public LAN will be created. The value accepts a LAN ID (integer).
private_lan: This option will connect the instance to the specified private LAN. If no LAN exists, then a new private LAN will be created. The value accepts a LAN ID (integer).
ssh_private_key: Full path to the SSH private key file.
ssh_public_key: Full path to the SSH public key file.
ssh_interface: This option will use the private LAN IP for node connections (such as as bootstrapping the node) instead of the public LAN IP. The value accepts 'private_lan'.
deploy: Set to False if Salt should not be installed on the node.
wait_for_timeout: The timeout to wait in seconds for provisioning resources such as servers. The default wait_for_timeout is 15 minutes.

For more information concerning cloud profiles, see here.