Provide OVF support

[bigfoot1942]

If you were to offer an OVF containing a virtual appliance that can use nVIDIA Tesla T4 videocards, using vGPU, that would greatly reduce effort to implement this in an enterprise environment.

[jchodera]

Great idea!

@jaimergp : Any chance you can look into this?

[jaimergp]

I have only tangential experience with OVF/OVA files, but I am happy to help. I have some questions though:

• Wouldn't we have license issues if we repackage things such as the Nvidia drivers or CUDA binaries?
• What's the expected OS for the OVA? I guess a Linux flavor?
• Wouldn't Docker images serve the same purpose here? Is there any chance you can use those to help you create the OVF/OVA? There's also Azure templates.

[bigfoot1942]

If you were to use docker - I guess VMware would advise you to use PhotonOS to run it in. But then I'm not sure on how to configure vGPU inside that... This would basically be the on-prem alternative to using Azure (where the PAYG model might not help the cause) If licensing were to be an issue I guess it might be wise to contact nVidia as they might be willing to hand out a waiver this specific project.

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On Wed, 18 Mar 2020 at 23:18, Jaime Rodríguez-Guerra < ***@***.***> wrote: I have only tangential experience with OVF/OVA files, but I am happy to help. I have some questions though: - Wouldn't we have license issues if we repackage things such as the Nvidia drivers or CUDA binaries? - What's the expected OS for the OVA? I guess a Linux flavor? - Wouldn't Docker images serve the same purpose here? Is there any chance you can use those to help you create the OVF/OVA? There's also Azure templates. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#36 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJHY454EPSG2TZP6WLI26BDRIFCDRANCNFSM4LOLF62Q> .

[jaimergp]

Ok, I have tried my best to export amalic's Docker image to an OVF/OVA appliance. You can get it here: https://we.tl/t-fn2IoAt8LZ

I followed these steps:

1. Cloned https://github.com/iximiuz/docker-to-linux and edited the Ubuntu recipe so it uses amalic's docker image instead.
2. Added vi, nano and network-manager to the apt install instructions.
3. make ubuntu
4. qemu-img convert -i raw -O vmdk linux.img fah.vmdk
5. Created a new VirtualBox VM using that VMDK file. At this point you can login with root:root.
6. Patched /etc/fstab to avoid read-only bugs.
7. Patched /etc/init.d/FAHClient so it uses the root user (otherwise it fails to start).
8. Exported the whole thing as an OVA appliance.

Basically, FAHClient will start in daemon mode even if you don't login, so that's all set up. You might want to edit /etc/fahclient/config.xml to specify username/team and/or enable more slots.

BUT:

• I don't have access to VMWare to test it.
• I haven't tried to expose the GPU to the VM.
• I don't have vGPU-capable hardware so I can't test it either.

Hopefully this is enough to get you started?

[bigfoot1942]

Is this some parallel work? https://twitter.com/lamw/status/1240656809796362241?s=19

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On Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 13:26 Jaime Rodríguez-Guerra ***@***.***> wrote: Ok, I have tried my best to export amalic's Docker image to an OVF/OVA appliance. You can get here: https://we.tl/t-fn2IoAt8LZ I'll add more details later, as well as the current limitations. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#36 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJHY453UUXAP54C74VS3UULRIIFOTANCNFSM4LOLF62Q> .

[jaimergp]

I am not aware of any more efforts being done, but given the popularity of F@H at this moment, I wouldn't be surprised! @seanpmassey, can you offer some more details here? Thanks!

[bigfoot1942]

It looks like VMware is building this in an internal project and making it ready to deploy and they will make the final project publicly accessible. https://twitter.com/lamw check his last posts.

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On Thu, 19 Mar 2020 at 17:08, Jaime Rodríguez-Guerra < ***@***.***> wrote: I am not aware of any more efforts being done, but given the popularity of ***@***.*** at this moment, I wouldn't be surprised! @seanpmassey <https://github.com/seanpmassey>, can you offer some more details here? Thanks! — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#36 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJHY45YA6T3QCKKAK5HMUBTRII7RFANCNFSM4LOLF62Q> .

[jaimergp]

Awesome, thanks for the report!

[jaimergp]

For those wondering, OVA support is already here:

https://flings.vmware.com/vmware-appliance-for-folding-home