About yucon (yucon is a UML Controller)

yucon is a UML Controller project designed to reduce the work required to administer multiple UMLs on one or more hosts. It's not designed for running and managing a single UML, but is intended for use by an administrator. This page talks about the project, and gives links to screenshots and sourcecode.

Screenshots
Source Code

yucon has a UML host portion, as well as a web-based configuration portion. yucon is designed to work with a database for configuration, management and control, and monitoring. The database schema is here.

yucon is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL.

Installing and Configuration

yucon uses libnss-mysql to store all UML user accounts in a MySQL database. This database is also used for authenticating users to the web-based configuration tool. This allows for a single account, with no user accounts required on the host. Inside the Host tarball, there are sample libnss-mysql configuration files.

yucon requires GNU screen for connecting and disconnecting with UML consoles. screen needs to be setuid, so it will work correctly in multi-user mode.

A UML kernel should be compiled and placed in the ${UML_HOME} directory as 'linux'. Future versions of yucon will allow for the selection of multiple UML kernels, which will be placed in ${UML_HOME}/Kernels/

Any initial root filesystems should be placed inside the ${UML_HOME}/Filesystems/ directory.

yucon utilizes two 'services' that constantly run on each UML Host machine. These services, 'ControlUML' and 'MonitorUML', communicate with the database and control (boot, shutdown, deploy, etc.) and monitor (report UML status) the UMLs on the host. To start them, use the 'yucon' initscript inside the Host tarball.

Development

In my opinion, this project needs a near-complete rewrite. When I began writing it, I did not really know what I would really be needing, and therefore had very little plan heading into it. I'd like to see yucon turn into more of a general UML creation and management tool that could be used to run a UML hosting company.

I will be putting more details on how yucon works here in the coming days. An understanding of yucon's operation is very helpful, not just for developers, but for anyone attempting to install and run yucon (it needs some work :).

TODO: I am working on compiling a list of things that should really be done to improve yucon


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