Open Stack VM Resizing

April 2, 2014 2 minutes read Christoph Hartmann

Once in a while you need to upgrade a VM with more CPU or storage.

Step 1: VM preparation

A normal VM running on Openstack is well prepared for flavor resizing. Our observations just brought up the network configuration as a central point of failure. Especially RedHat-based machines fix the network config in various files. e.g. for CentOS

# ensure the vm is properly prepared
rm /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules 
touch /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

# remove hardware specific settings /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
sed -i '/UUID/d' /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
sed -i '/HWADDR/d' /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
sed -i '/IPADDR/d' /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

The vm is properly prepared by now.

Step 2: Take a snapshot

# create a snapshot and not down the image id
nova image-create $INSTANCEID $IMAGENAME

Step 3: Test the snapshot

Before we delete the old machine, we need to test the snapshot to ensure the network config is properly done and we are able to log into the new machine.

Step 4: Gather machine details

Now, we collect all the information of the existing instance

# show instance details
nova show $INSTANCEID

# display the network details (you need the id and the subnet id)
neutron net-list

# select the new flavor id
nova flavor-list

Destroy the old machine

nova delete $INSTANCEID

Create network port

In some cases you need to keep the same ip adress. Neutron helps to assign a specific port with the new machine.

neutron port-create --fixed-ip subnet_id=$SUBNET_ID,ip_address=$IP $NETWORK_ID

Recreate machine

Now we are ready to re-create the machine

#!/bin/bash
VMNAME=machine1
FLAVOR=4
IMAGE=63924226-e5ca-4ee6-a663-b2c89b0aa985
SG=ssh,http,default
PORT=f3999e60-9e53-4929-a9b2-ed3ab8ecf25d
KEYNAME=key
nova boot $VMNAME --flavor=$FLAVOR --image=$IMAGE --security-groups=$SG --nic port-id=$POST --key_name=$KEYNAME

In case you do not use the specific port, switch port-id with net-id and the network id gathered with neutron net-list

Happy resizing.

If you have any questions contact me via Twitter @chri_hartmann or Github