I'll not be able to attend to the OpenStack Austin summit.

Some things I can't control.

OpenStack adventures part 3

Hi!

My Outreachy internship in OpenStack ended a week ago.

I wish the internship was longer. But for me mostly nothing has changed, I still continue contributing to OpenStack's Zaqar project like my internship still goes on and I still being paid for my work. Because, as I said earlier, the successful completion of internship is not my final destination, but just a step.

OpenStack adventures part 2

Hello

I'm doing good. My official internship task is done. =)

And in this post I'm going to describe how I made it.

Synchronize OpenStack code with Syncthing

Syncthing is free and open source cross-platform decentralized file synchronization program. It can be considered as open source alternative to btsync. And btsync in its turn is decentralized alternative to well known Dropbox.

It's very flexible program and it has many use cases. I use it on Windows 8.1, Android, Debian and Ubuntu machines to synchronize folders for more than half year and it seems pretty reliable. I even synchronize database passwords

As you may know, it is recommended to install and run DevStack on the virtual (or just dedicated) machine as it alters system configuration.
So I like to use Syncthing in my development process to synchronize the code I'm working on between my development machine and testing machines. For example, with Syncthing I'm able to modify the code on my development machine and, after automatic synchronization, quickly run this code on the virtual machine I created specifically for manual and automatic testing. The virtual machine may even reside on another physical machine, more powerful, for example, as long as it is accessible in the network (preferably local). The solution works nicely together with git: I'm able to perform git operations on development machine with configured Gerrit review system, and changes then are spreaded to testing machines.

After completing this guide you will know:

1. Nice way to install Syncthing on Ubuntu (Installation part).
2. How to synchronize OpenStack projects with Syncthing (Using Syncthing with OpenStack repositories part).
3. Some tips (Useful tips part).

Zaqar: Writing stages for the storage layer pipelines

In my previous guide I promised that my next guide will be about using Syncthing file synchronization service in development process.

I lied. =)

Maybe next time.

Instead you can check out my new tutorial in the Zaqar official developer documentation on how to create external stages for the storage layer pipelines in Zaqar. The tutorial was originally intended to become a blog post, but I decided that it's not good to spread such information over the internet. Zaqar developer documentation is the right place for it.

I'm very unsure about if the topic sounds interesting for you. The words might be not even making sense to you, if you're not user or developer of Zaqar. But here it is:

Writing stages for the storage pipelines

OpenStack adventures part 1

Yes, right, adventures...

Oh, I should have written a post like this earlier.

Well, everything is alright and I'm enjoing my Outreachy internship with Zaqar project.

MRW I find a new bug (clickable):

Caution: GIF, 44 MB

Controlling DevStack with OpenStackClient (CLI), enabling Zaqar plugin

Introduction

In the previous post I described how to install and run DevStack and also how to access OpenStack Dashboard to control it.

In this post I will tell you how to use OpenStackClient which is actually command-line interface (CLI) to all OpenStack services and can be considered as an alternative to the OpenStack Dashboard (GUI). Also I will provide few important details on how it works.

CLI can do everything OpenStack Dashboard can and even more!
For example, CLI commands can be used in automation scripts. You are already familiar with one of them: stack.sh script uses OpenStack CLI commands to tune all OpenStack services it installs.

Also many of OpenStack services can be controlled by CLI only - they still don't have their respective panels in OpenStack Dashboard now.
One of these services is Zaqar aka Messaging and Notification service.
Let's enable this non-default service in DevStack and perform some actions on it by using CLI.

Installing and running DevStack

Introduction

DevStack is like a small preconfigured OpenStack cloud.
To run it, you don't need to have your own datacenter, the average laptop would be enough for this purpose.

You can install DevStack just to taste OpenStack services, but it's mainly intended to be used in development process by OpenStack developers.
In this guide I will help you to install DevStack in a way suitable with further development process. After completing the guide you will know how to start and stop DevStack cloud and access it via OpenStack Dashboard web interface.

Instead of just providing instructions, I'll also tell you some important details and describe the obstacles you might be facing during the process of installing DevStack. When I was getting started with DevStack, I was in need of such guide. So now I'm writing this guide like for the past me.

Hello

I'm so happy I made it to Outreachy program!

Today is the official start of my internship period.

Participation in the program might be a great opportunity for me to turn my programming hobby into a career, grow professionally, learn new wonderful technologies, steal some best practices and make new friends.
I'm dreaming about migrating somewhere warmer and safer away from my country.
I believe the internship can bring this dream a bit closer to realizing.

Also I think it's a good start for me to begin programming commercially.
Selling homework projects written on Pascal in university few years ago doesn't count. =)

And what I find most cool about all of this is that I'll be working on free and open source software. Sounds like a dream.

Actually I already started working two months ago on Zaqar project, which is a part of OpenStack cloud-computing platform.
OpenStack is mostly written in Python and honestly, I really miss static typing like in Java, especially when it comes to debugging.

I made some friends in Zaqar team.
One of them is my mentor Victoria (vkmc). I met her in Zaqar chat. She was very friendly and helped me by pushing me towards making my first tiny patch. I was scared to do so, because I was still figuring out how Zaqar internally works. After the push I quickly got into the swing of making patches and reporting bugs, and by the way I finally learned how Zaqar works. Zaqar team was thankful for every patch I made, even for the first silly one.

So far all people I met in OpenStack were nice and welcoming to me. And everyone is kind to each other. I like it very much.

In this blog I'll describe my adventures and will also try to provide useful tips and guides for the future OpenStack developers.

I'm not a native English speaker, so please let me know if you notice some grammar or orthographic mistakes in my writings.
I'd really appreciate that! ♥