Deploy a Testflinger Agent Host¶

This guide outlines how to deploy a Testflinger agent host using Juju, and configure it to run Testflinger agents that can communicate with your Testflinger Server and devices. To learn how to maintain a deployed agent host, read the Maintain a Testflinger Agent Host how-to guide.

Initialize the environment¶

Dependencies¶

Install the following dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install git
$ sudo snap install juju lxd

LXD¶

Make sure LXD is initialized.

$ lxd init --auto

Note

Feel free to initialize LXD with a configuration that suits your needs.

Juju¶

Set up the Juju controller and model that will host the Testflinger agent host deployment.

$ juju bootstrap localhost localhost-controller
$ juju add-model testflinger-agents localhost

Note

For this example, the Juju model containing the agent hosts is called testflinger-agents. Feel free to change the name in your own deployment.

Prepare input for Juju Charm¶

Agent Configurations¶

The Testflinger agent host charm expects the agent configurations to be in a git repository.

For a simple example, use the following repository layout:

lab/
├─ agent-host-1/
│  ├─ agent-1/
|  │  ├─ default.yaml
|  │  ├─ testflinger-agent.conf
├─ agent-host-2/
│  ├─ agent-2/
|  │  ├─ default.yaml
|  │  ├─ testflinger-agent.conf

For more information on the agent configuration syntax, refer to section on the device connector configuration (default.yaml) and the agent configuration (testflinger-agent.conf)

Note

The above example shows the configuration structure for two agent hosts in a single “lab”, each with one agent. In this case, lab/ is the root directory and each of its subdirectories are the agent host directories to use in the charm configuration e.g. --config config-dir='lab/agent-host-1'.

Tip

As a best practice, name each of the agent directories with the same name as the one defined for the agent in the Testflinger server. In the above example, the agents defined in the Testflinger server are named agent-1 and agent-2 respectively.

SSH Key¶

Create an SSH key pair that the agent host will use to connect to the devices.

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -f id_rsa

Deploy the Agent Host¶

Deploy the Testflinger agent host charm from Charmhub.

$ juju deploy testflinger-agent-host \
--channel=stable \
--config config-repo='<agent_config_repo>' \
--config ssh-private-key='<contents_of_id_rsa>' \
--config ssh-public-key='<contents_of_id_rsa.pub>' \
--config config-dir='<path_to_agent_configs>'

Note

For additional configuration options, refer to the charm’s configuration documentation on Charmhub.

Configure server authentication¶

Testflinger Credentials¶

You must create credentials from the CLI with --role agent. For information on how to create credentials for Testflinger, refer to the Testflinger Manage Client Permissions documentation.

Important

Authentication is required starting from Testflinger Server v1.5.0. Unauthenticated agents will not be able to get jobs from the server.

Juju Secret¶

The Testflinger agent host charm expects a Juju secret containing credentials to authenticate with the Testflinger server.

Create a Juju secret with the necessary key/value pairs and take note of the secret’s URI returned by Juju.

$ juju add-secret <secret_name> client-id='<client_id>' client-secret='<client_secret>'
secret:<secret URI>

Note

The keys in the secret must be client-id and client-secret as shown above.

Grant the Testflinger agent host application access to the secret.

$ juju grant-access <agent-host-application> secret:<secret URI>

Finally, add the secret URI to the agent host charm’s configuration:

$ juju config <agent-host-application> credentials-secret='secret:<secret URI>'

For more information on how to manage Juju secrets, refer to the Juju Secrets documentation.

Configure server connectivity¶

Make sure that the agent host is able to access the Testflinger server defined by the agent configurations. In most cases this means editing your DNS records. If that is not an option, you will need to add the name resolution to the agent host’s /etc/hosts.

Access the agent host.

$ juju ssh <agent-host-charm-unit>

Then add a line to your /etc/hosts file that may look like the following:

127.0.0.1  testflinger.local

Additional Setup¶

You will need to do some additional setup depending on your provision setup.

MAAS¶

MAAS Account¶

Access your MAAS server and create a testflinger account. When prompted for the SSH keys to import, add the public SSH key you generated earlier.

MAAS Profile¶

After you’ve created your testflinger MAAS account, find the API key for this user.

Access the agent host and create a MAAS profile with the testflinger account’s API key.

$ juju ssh <agent-host-charm-unit>
$ maas login <maas_profile> '<maas_server>' '<maas_api_key>'

No Provision¶

If you have agents with the provision type of noprovision, you need to make sure that your public SSH key is added to the device so that the agent is able to communicate with the device.

Terraform¶

If you want to deploy the Testflinger agent host using Terraform, you can refer to the Terraform README for instructions.