Infoblox

The Infoblox cookbook wraps the public APIs available in the "infoblox" gem and is capable of performing functions related to provisioning and de-provisioning vCenter server VMs. It also allows DHCP and DNS configuration to be provided from a centrally managed Infoblox appliance. The motive behind the cookbook was the integration of the DDI (DNS, DHCP and IPAM) with the virtual/Cloud provisioning. Currently it is integrated with vSphere. In future it will be available for EC2, openstack and more.

Prerequisites

Configure your Chef workstation setup. The cookbook is tested against Chef version 12.1.1 and above. The OS can be Windows or any Linux machine as the workstation. The focookbook can be run against any of the 3 types of chef-servers.

1. Hosted chef
2. Private chef-server
3. Chef-zero, without having an actual chef server configured.

In all of the above cases, it will run the workflows and create records and VMs.

As an environment presetup, You need to have the following configured before using this cookbook.

1. A single vCenter server host.
2. A single vNIOS VM acting as a grid master.
3. A chef workstation setup in a VM in the network.
4. DNS and DHCP configured/objects created in the grid master.

Note: While running the chef-client, Please make sure that you have set the environment variable "WAPI_VERSION".

EX: export WAPI_VERSION=1.4.2

Configuration

In order to communicate with the vCenter API you will have to provide your credentials in the infoblox cokkbooks attributes files.

Ex: In infoblox/attributes/default.rb

	default['vcenter']['vcenter_host'] = ''
	default['vcenter']['username'] = ''
	default['vcenter']['password'] = ''

In order to communicate with the grid master you will have to provide your vNIOS credentials.

	default['infoblox']['nios_appliance'] = '' # ip address of the vNIOS appliance
	default['infoblox']['username'] = ''       # username of the vNIOS appliance
	default['infoblox']['password'] = ''       # password of the vNIOS appliance

VM Specific Configurations

Provide the below details related to the VM that will be provisioned.

Ex: In infoblox/attributes/vm.rb

	default['vcenter']['template_name'] = 'redhat'  #Name of the template/image using which the VM will be cloned
	default['vcenter']['datacenter'] = 'IB'	        #Name of the datacenter
	default['vcenter']['datastore'] = 'datastore1'  #Name of the datastore
	default['vcenter']['domain'] = 'demo.com'	    #Name of the domain for the VM
	default['vcenter']['network_name'] = ["VM Network"]      #Provide in array as shown
	default['vcenter']['gateway'] = ['172.26.1.1']	         #Provide in array as shown
	default['vcenter']['subnet_mask'] = '255.255.255.0'
	default['vcenter']['dns_server_list'] = ['172.26.1.2']   #Provide in array as shown
	default['vcenter']['network_adapter'] = 'Network adapter 1'
	default['vcenter']['resource_pool'] = '172.26.1.4'

	# provisioned VM details
	default['vcenter']['vm']['username'] = 'root'     #Login username for the VM
	default['vcenter']['vm']['password'] = 'xyz'	  #Login password for the VM
	default['vcenter']['vm']['num_cpus'] = 2
	default['vcenter']['vm']['memory_mb'] = 1024

	# override this attributes for next available ip in range and network.
	default['vcenter']['vm']['ipaddress'] = nil

Recipe: reserve_static_ip

The following attributes are required while running reserve_static_ip recipe. So provide the values in the file infoblox/attributes/reserve_static_ip.rb

	default['reserve_static_ip']['vm_name'] = 'staticVM-3'  # required for reserve and remove workflows
	default['reserve_static_ip']['ipv4addr'] = '172.26.1.52'
	default['reserve_static_ip']['record_type'] = ['host']  # or %w(A PTR host fixedaddress)
	
Optional Attributes:
    default['reserve_static_ip']['mac'] = ''
    default['reserve_static_ip']['view'] = 'default'
	default['reserve_static_ip']['ptrdname'] = 'clogeny01.test.local''
    default['reserve_static_ip']['canonical'] = 'clogeny1.qa.com'
	default['reserve_static_ip']['extattrs'] = { 'Site' => { 'value' => 'Test Value' } }
	default['reserve_static_ip']['comment'] = "Test Record for Reserve Static IP workflow"
	default['reserve_static_ip']['aliases'] = ['aliases1', 'aliases2']
	default['reserve_static_ip']['disable'] = false

Recipe: reserve_ip_in_network

The following attributes are required while running reserve_ip_in_network recipe. So provide the values in the file infoblox/attributes/reserve_ip_in_network.rb

	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['vm_name'] = 'networkVM-3'
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['network'] = '10.10.70.0/24'
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['record_type'] = ['A', 'PTR', 'host', 'fixedaddress']

Optional Attributes:
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['exclude'] = ['10.10.70.1', '10.10.70.2', '10.10.70.3'] # ips to exclude
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['ptrdname'] = 'clogeny01.test.local'
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['aliases'] = ['aliases1', 'aliases2']
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['canonical'] = 'clogeny01.test.local'
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['comment'] = "Test Record for Reserve Static IP workflow"
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['extattrs'] = { 'Site' => { 'value' => 'Test Value' } }
	default['reserve_ip_in_network']['mac'] = ''
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['view'] = 'default'
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['disable'] = false

Recipe: reserve_ip_in_range

The following attributes are required while running reserve_ip_in_range recipe. So provide the values in the file infoblox/attributes/reserve_ip_in_range.rb

	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['vm_name'] = 'rangeVM-3'
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['start_addr'] = '10.10.70.100'
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['end_addr'] = '10.10.70.220'
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['record_type'] = ['A', 'PTR', 'host', 'fixedaddress']
	

Optional Attributes:
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['exclude'] = ['10.10.70.100', '10.10.70.101']
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['ptrdname'] = 'clogeny01.test.local'
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['aliases'] = ['aliases1', 'aliases2']
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['canonical'] = 'clogeny01.test.local'
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['comment'] = "Test Record for Reserve Static IP workflow"
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['extattrs'] = { 'Site' => { 'value' => 'Test Value' } }
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['mac'] = ''
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['view'] = 'default'
	default['reserve_ip_in_range']['disable'] = false

Recipe: remove_reserved_ip

--The following attributes are required while running remove_reserved_ip recipe. So provide the values in the file infoblox/attributes/remove_reserved_ip.rb

	default['remove_reserved_ip']['vm_name'] = 'clogeny01'
	default['remove_reserved_ip']['ipv4addr'] = '172.26.1.62'
	default['remove_reserved_ip']['record_type'] = ['host'] # %w(A PTR host fixedaddress)

Optional Attributes:	
	default['remove_reserved_ip']['ptrdname'] = 'clogeny01.test.local'
	default['remove_reserved_ip']['canonical'] = 'clogeny1.test.local'

Creating A specific Record without provisioning VM

Here we show only for PTR record. Other records can be created just by setting their attribute values and running their recipes.

The following attributes are required while Creating a PTR record. So provide the values in the file infoblox/attributes/ptr_record.rb

- If the IP Address belongs to a reverse-mapped authoratative zone 
	default['ptr_record']['ipv4addr'] = '' # IPv4 address eg. 10.10.70.100
	default['ptr_record']['ptrdname'] = '' # domain name of DNS PTR record in FQDN format. eg. clogeny.test.local

- If the IP doesn't belong to a reverse-mapped authoratative zone 
	default['ptr_record']['name'] = '' # name of record in FQDN format eg. infoblox01.test.local
	default['ptr_record']['ptrdname'] = '' # domain name of DNS PTR record in FQDN format. eg. clogeny.test.local

Optional Attributes:
  default['ptr_record']['view'] = 'default' # name of DNS view in which record resides.
default['ptr_record']['extattrs'] = {}