Operating CORD in China

Different community members reported problems operating CORD in China. This section provides a practical guide and some suggestions on how to install the main platform, the use cases, as well as how to manage them after their setup.

Install the CORD platform (4+)

The guide explains how to install the CORD platform in China, providing some specific suggestions and customizations.

Note: the guide assumes you've already read the main CORD installation guide, that you've understood the hardware and software requirements, and that you're well aware of how the standard installation process works.

Update Ubuntu repositories

We know that the default Ubuntu repositories are quite slow in China. The following repository should work faster:

https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/help/ubuntu/

Update your Ubuntu repository, both on the development machine and on the head node.

Prepare the dev node machine

By default, CORD uses an automated script to prepare the development machine. Unfortunately, the script won't work in China, since the standard Vagrant repositories are not reachable.

As a work-around, you can execute some manual commands. Copy and paste to your dev node the following:

Install essential software

sudo apt-get update &&
sudo apt-get -y install apt-transport-https build-essential curl git python-dev python-netaddr python-pip software-properties-common sshpass qemu-kvm libvirt-bin libvirt-dev nfs-kernel-server &&

Install Ansible and related software

sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:ansible/ansible &&
sudo apt-get update &&
sudo apt-get install -y ansible &&
sudo pip install gitpython graphviz

Install Vagrant and related plugins

curl -o /tmp/vagrant.deb https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/1.9.3/ vagrant_1.9.3_x86_64.deb &&
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/vagrant.deb &&
vagrant plugin list | grep -q vagrant-libvirt || vagrant plugin install vagrant-libvirt --plugin-version 0.0.35 &&
vagrant plugin list | grep -q vagrant-mutate || vagrant plugin install vagrant-mutate &&
vagrant plugin list | grep -q vagrant-hosts || vagrant plugin install vagrant-hosts &&

Download Vagrant VMs and mutate it to be used with Libvirt

wget https://github.com/opencord/platform-install/releases/download/vms/trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-vagrant-disk1.box &&
vagrant box add ubuntu/trusty64 trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-vagrant-disk1.box &&
vagrant mutate ubuntu/trusty64 libvirt --input-provider virtualbox

Install repo

curl -o /tmp/repo 'https://gerrit.opencord.org/gitweb?p=repo.git;a=blob_plain;f=repo;hb=refs/heads/stable' &&
echo "$REPO_SHA256SUM  /tmp/repo" | sha256sum -c - &&
sudo mv /tmp/repo /usr/local/bin/repo &&
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/repo

Note: repo is a tool from Google, that CORD uses to automatically manage multiple git repositories used in the project together. The original version of repo connects to Google at every initialization to download some software. This special version will let you connect to ONF instead at every initialization.

Download the CORD software

Before it wasn't possible to download directly the CORD repository using repo, since the tool was trying to connect at every initialization to Google to check for updates. With the custom version (see above) this is not anymore an issue. You can now download the code as anyone else!

To download the code, follow the steps below:

git config --global user.name 'Test User' &&
git config --global user.email 'test@null.com' &&
git config --global color.ui false &&
repo init -u https://gerrit.opencord.org/manifest -b master
repo sync

Warning: please, note that master is just an example. You can replace it with the branch you prefer.

From now on in the guide, the cord directory just extracted will be referenced as CORD_ROOT. The CORD_ROOT directory should be ~/cord.

Replace google.com address with opennetworking.org

The repository has been generally cleaned-up from references to Google to avoid issues. Anyway, there are still some portions of code referring to it. We suggest you to look carefully in the entire repositories and replace any google.com occurrence with opennetworking.org (or any other preferred address).

Replace Google DNS

Google DNS won't work over there. Unfortunately, it is still the default for all CORD services. Look in the entire repository for all the occurrences of 8.8.8.8, 8.8.8.4, or 8.8.4.4, and replace them with your preferred DNS server.

Replace Maven mirror

Maven is used to build ONOS apps. The default Maven mirror doesn't work. In CORD_ROOT/onos-apps/settings.xml, add:

<mirror>
    <id>nexus-aliyun</id>
    <mirrorOf>*</mirrorOf>
    <name>Nexus aliyun</name>
    <url>http://maven.aliyun.com/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
</mirror>

Replace Docker mirror

The default Docker mirror won't work. Docker just opened a new mirror in China, which should be used instead.

Reference guide can be found at: https://www.docker-cn.com/registry-mirror Set the option --registry-mirror=https://registry.docker-cn.com in the following files:

• CORD_ROOT/build/ansible/roles/docker/templates/docker.cfg
• CORD_ROOT/build/maas/roles/compute-node/tasks/main.yml

Replace NPM mirrors

Add a line npm config set registry https://registry.npm.taobao.org just before the “npm install” command is invoked, in the following files:

• CORD_ROOT/orchestration/xos-gui/Dockerfile
• CORD_ROOT/orchestration/xos-gui/Dockerfile.xos-gui-extension- builder

Create a file named npmrc in CORD_ROOT/orchestration/xos-gui/ and add the following content:

registry = https://registry.npm.taobao.org
sass-binary-site = http://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/node-sass
phantomjs_cdnurl = https://npm.taobao.org/dist/phantomjs

Add the line COPY ${CODE_SOURCE}/npmrc /root/.npmrc to the following files, before the npm install command is invoked, and after the CODE_SOURCE variable is defined:

• CORD_ROOT/orchestration/xos-gui/Dockerfile
• CORD_ROOT/orchestration/xos-gui/Dockerfile.xos-gui-extension-builder

Fix Google Maps for China

This is specific to E-CORD, which uses Google Maps to visualize where Central Offices are located. Default Google Maps APIs are not available from China. To fix this, replace

<div map-lazy-load="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?key={API_KEY}">

with

<div map-lazy-load="http://maps.google.cn/maps/api/js?key={API_KEY}">

in

CORD_ROOT/orchestration/xos_services/vnaas/xos/gui/src/app/components/vnaasMap.component.html

You're all set!

You're finally ready to deploy CORD following the standard installation procedure described here!

Developing for CORD

Now that repo issues have been solved, you can start developing for CORD also from China, and go through the default developer workflow described here. Happy coding!

Mailing lists

CORD mailing lists are hosted on Google, but this doesn't mean you can't send and receive emails!

Mailing lists are:

You don't need to join the mailing list to be able to write to it, but you need that in order to receive automated updates. To subscribe to a mailing list, so to see emails from the rest of the community, send a blank email to NAME_OF_THE_ML+subscribe@opencord.org, for example cord-dev+subscribe@opencord.org.