These instructions cover installation on Debian. The supported versions are:
Distribution | Codename | Number | Support |
---|---|---|---|
Debian | experimental | n/a | Yes [1] |
Debian | Sid (unstable) | n/a | Yes |
Debian | Stretch (testing) | n/a | [2] |
Debian | Jessie (stable) | 8.0 | Yes [3] |
Debian uses codenames for releases (Jessie, wheezy, squeeze) and names for suites (unstable, testing, stable & oldstable). When a new Debian major release is made, the packages in “testing” are frozen and become the new “stable”. A new codename is chosen for the new “testing” suite, and that will be the name for the next major release in the cycle.
To allow the table to refer to the same package versions consistently over time, codenames are used here. When a Debian release is made, a new codename is applied to the testing suite and LAVA releases after that point will include that codename in the table.
Note
LAVA used to be supported on Ubuntu directly, but is not any more due to lack of resources to maintain and test that support. Support may be re-instated if more effort becomes available in the future. The last version of LAVA supported in Ubuntu was 2015.9.post1.
[1] | experimental allows updates to be selected on top of unstable (or the current testing) during times when testing is frozen ahead of a release of Debian stable. Experimental will typically have no LAVA packages outside of a Debian release freeze. |
[2] | stretch is the name of the next Debian release after Jessie, which is supported automatically via uploads to Sid (unstable). |
[3] | Jessie was released on April 25th, 2015. All updates to LAVA packages for Jessie will be made using jessie-backports. Systems using Debian Jessie are recommended to enable jessie-backports. LAVA packages and dependencies which are installed using jessie-backports are fully supported by upstream and are the same codebase as the relevant production release available from the LAVA repositories. |
You can track the versions of LAVA packages in the various Debian suites by following links from the Debian package trackers for lava-dispatcher and lava-server.
As well as being uploaded to Debian, Production releases of LAVA are uploaded to a Linaro production-repo repository which uses the LAVA Archive signing key - a copy of the key is available in the repository.
In times when the current production release has not made it into
jessie-backports
(e.g. due to a migration issue or a pre-release
package freeze in Debian), this repository can be used instead. The
only apt source to use with Debian Jessie, Stretch or Sid is the
production-repo for sid
because the same LAVA packages are used
on Jessie and Stretch as on Sid:
deb https://images.validation.linaro.org/production-repo sid main
Note
There are no packages currently in the repository
except in sid
.
The codename sid
is used simply as that is the codename for
unstable
which is where all Debian uploads arrive. To allow the
production repo to include precisely the same upload as was made to
Debian, we use sid
. It makes no difference to how the packages are
installed on Jessie, Stretch or Sid.
The services-trace.txt
file in the repository shows the latest
update timestamp and is accompanied by a GnuPG signature of the trace
file, signed using the LAVA Archive signing key.
Interim builds (including release candidates) are available in the staging repository:
deb https://images.validation.linaro.org/staging-repo sid main
This repository uses the same key as the production repository and
uses sid
in the same way.
pub 2048R/C77102A9 2014-06-06 LAVA build daemon (Staging) <lava-lab@linaro.org>
Key fingerprint = 45AD 50DC 41AE D421 FF5B 33D4 ECF3 C05C C771 02A9
uid LAVA build daemon (Staging) <lava-lab@linaro.org>
Each of the support archives on images.validation.linaro.org
is
signed using the same key, 0x33D4ECF3C05CC77102A9, which can be downloaded and added to
apt:
$ wget https://images.validation.linaro.org/staging-repo/staging-repo.key.asc
$ sudo apt-key add staging-repo.key.asc
OK
Then update to locate the required dependencies:
$ sudo apt update
See also
LAVA is currently packaged for Debian unstable using Django1.8 and Postgresql. LAVA packages are now available from official Debian mirrors for Debian unstable. e.g. to install the master, use:
$ sudo apt install postgresql
$ sudo apt install lava-server
If the default Apache configuration from LAVA is suitable, you can enable it immediately:
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default
$ sudo a2ensite lava-server.conf
$ sudo service apache2 restart
Edits to the /etc/apache2/sites-available/lava-server.conf
file
will not be overwritten by package upgrades unless the admin explicitly
asks dpkg
to do so.
LAVA uses tftp to serve files to a variety of device types.
The LAVA V1 dispatcher relies on TFTP downloads, NFS share
directories and master image downloads to all be made from a
single directory: /var/lib/lava/dispatcher/tmp
. To do this,
the configuration file for tftpd-hpa needs to be modified
to use the LAVA directory instead of the default, /srv/tftp
.
Note
The TFTP support in LAVA has had to be changed from the
2015.8 release onwards to stop LAVA enforcing a configuration
change on the tftpd-hpa
package without explicit configuration
by the admin. Previously, installation may have prompted about
changes in /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
; now this change needs
to be made manually as the configuration of the tftpd-hpa
package
should not have been up to LAVA to impose. If you are already running
a version of LAVA installed prior to the 2015.8 release (and
have working TFTP support), then the configuration change will have
been imposed by LAVA and then maintained by dpkg
and
tftpd-hpa
. Check that your /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
file references /var/lib/lava/dispatcher/tmp
and continue
as before.
Admins can either manually change the /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
to set the TFTP_DIRECTORY
to /var/lib/lava/dispatcher/tmp
or copy the file packaged by lava-dispatcher
:
$ sudo cp /usr/share/lava-dispatcher/tftpd-hpa /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
If you are planning to support V1 devices, this change will be required in whichever Debian-based distribution you use as your base install, including Ubuntu.
In LAVA V2, behaviour has changed here. In whatever base directory is
configured for tftpd-hpa
, LAVA will use temporary subdirectories
for all TFTP operations; other LAVA operations will use the
/var/lib/lava/dispatcher/tmp
directory. If all of your
devices are exclusive, to V2 (pipeline), then the
tftpd-hpa
configuration can be set to the tftpd original value
(/srv/tftp
), the LAVA historical value
(/var/lib/lava/dispatcher/tmp
) or any other directory specified by
the admin.
The lava
metapackage brings in extra dependencies which may be
useful on some instances.
Debian Jessie was released on April 25th, 2015, containing a full set
of packages to install LAVA at version 2014.9. Debian stable releases
of LAVA do not receive updates to LAVA directly, so a simple install on
Jessie will only get you 2014.9
. All admins of LAVA instances are
strongly advised to update all software on the instance on a regular
basis to receive security updates to the base system.
For packages which need larger changes, the official Debian method is to
provide those updates using backports
. Backports do not install automatically
even after the apt source is added - this is because backports are rebuilt from the
current testing
suite, so automatic upgrades would move the base system
to testing as well. Instead, the admin selects which backported packages to add
to the base stable system. Only those packages (and dependencies, if not available
in stable already) will then be installed from backports.
The lava-server
backports and dependencies are fully supported by the
LAVA software team and admins of all LAVA instances need to update the
base 2014.9
to the version available in current backports. Subscribe to
the lava-announce mailing list for details of when new releases are
made. Backports will be available about a week after the initial release.
Updates for LAVA on Debian Jessie are uploaded to jessie-backports
Create an apt source for backports, either
by editing /etc/apt/sources.list
or adding a file with a .list
suffix into /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
. Create a line like the one below
(using your preferred Debian mirror):
deb http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main
Remember to update your apt cache whenever add a new apt source:
$ sudo apt update
Then install lava-server
from jessie-backports
using the -t
option:
$ sudo apt -t jessie-backports install lava-server
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default
$ sudo a2ensite lava-server.conf
$ sudo service apache2 restart
Once backports are enabled, the packages which the admin has selected from
backports (using the -t
switch) will continue to upgrade using backports.
Other packages will only be added from backports if the existing backports
require updates from backports. For example, when lava-server 2016.8
moved to requiring Django1.8, new installations and updates to 2016.8
using
backports automatically bring in Django1.8 and associated support, also from
backports.
The lava-server
package is the main LAVA scheduler and frontend.
See also
To install just the lava-server from the current packages, use:
$ sudo apt install lava-server
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default
$ sudo a2ensite lava-server.conf
$ sudo service apache2 restart
This will install lava-dispatcher and lava-server.
Other packages to consider:
lavapdu-client
to control a PDU to allow LAVA to
automatically power cycle a device.lavapdu-daemon
- only one daemon is required to run multiple PDUs.ntp
- some actions within LAVA can be time-sensitive, so ensuring
that devices within your lab keep time correctly can be important.linaro-media-create
for tests
which use hardware packs from LinaroProduction installs of LAVA will rarely use the full lava
set as
it includes tools more commonly used by developers and test labs. These
tools mean that the lava
package brings more dependencies than
when installing lava-server
to run a production LAVA instance.
The lava
package installs support for:
lava-dev
- scripts to build developer packages based on your current
git tree of lava-server
or lava-dispatcher
, including any local changes.linaro-media-create
for tests
which use hardware packs from Linarovmdebootstrap
for building your own Debian based KVM images.lavapdu-client
to control a PDU to allow LAVA to
automatically power cycle a device.lavapdu-daemon
is recommended or you can use a single daemon
for multiple PDUs.ntp
- some actions within LAVA can be time-sensitive, so ensuring
that devices within your lab keep time correctly can be important.All of these packages can be installed separately alongside the main
lava-server
package, the lava
package merely collects them into
one set.
$ sudo apt install postgresql
$ sudo apt -t jessie-backports install lava
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default
$ sudo a2ensite lava-server.conf
$ sudo service apache2 restart
In order to use lava-server behind a reverse proxy, configure lava-server as usual and then setup a reverse proxy. The following simple Apache configuration snippet will work for most setups:
ProxyPass / http://lava_server_dns:port/
ProxyPassReverse / http://lava_server_dns:port/
ProxyPreserveHost On
RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto "https" env=HTTPS
This configuration will work when proxifying:
http://example.com/ => http://lava.example.com/
If you want the application to answer on a specific base URL, configure lava-server to answer on this base URL and then configure the reverse proxy to proxify the same base URL. For instance you can have:
http://example.com/lava => http://lava.example.com/lava
Having two different base URLs is more awkward to setup. In this case you will have to also setup Apache modules like Substitute to alter the HTML content on the fly. This is not a recommended setup.
In LAVA instances that use external authentication mechanisms such as OpenID or LDAP, log in once with the user account that will be granted superuser privileges in the LAVA web UI. After logging in with OpenID or LDAP successfully, make use of the following command to make this user a superuser:
$ sudo lava-server manage authorize_superuser --username {username}
Note
{username} is the username of OpenID or LDAP user.
Alternatively, in LAVA instances that use LDAP as authentication mechanism, the addldapuser command can be used to populate a user from LDAP and also grant superuser privilege as follows:
$ sudo lava-server manage addldapuser --username {username} --superuser
Note
{username} is the username of LDAP user.
After initial package installation, you might wish to create a local superuser account:
$ sudo lava-server manage createsuperuser --username $USERNAME --email=$EMAIL
If you do not specify the username and email address here, this command will prompt for them.
An existing local Django superuser account can also be converted to an LDAP user account without losing data, using the mergeldapuser command, provided the LDAP username does not already exist in the LAVA instance:
$ sudo lava-server manage mergeldapuser --lava-user <lava_user> --ldap-user <ldap_user>