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Install Glance

Updated Sep 15, 2023 ·

Overview​

Glance is the OpenStack Image Service. It stores and serves virtual machine images and other compute-related images. The installation is straightforward and is done on the controller node.

  1. Set up the SQL database for Glance
  2. Create the Glance user and assign roles
  3. Create the Glance service and endpoints
  4. Install the Glance package
  5. Configure API and registry files
  6. Populate the database and restart services

These steps ensure Glance is ready to manage and serve images in your OpenStack cloud.

NOTE: The succeeding steps are performed on the controller node only.

Lab diagram:

Configure SQL Database​

Start on the controller node as a superuser.

ssh -i ~/.ssh/vbox jmeden@10.0.0.11
sudo su

Create the database and grant privileges to the glance user:

sudo mysql
CREATE DATABASE glance;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON glance.* TO 'glance'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'openstack';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON glance.* TO 'glance'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'openstack';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT

Notes:

  • glance user has full access to the Glance database
  • Password for glance is openstack

This prepares the database for Glance to store its state and image metadata.

Create Glance User and Assign Role​

Authenticate to OpenStack CLI using the client environment script:

source admin-openrc.sh

Create the Glance user in Keystone:

openstack user create \
--domain default \
--password-prompt glance

Provide a password when prompted:

User Password:
Repeat User Password:

Assigns admin role in the service project:

openstack role add \
--project service \
--user glance admin

This allows Glance to authenticate with Keystone and operate as a service.

Create Glance Service and Endpoints​

Register the Glance service and its three endpoints (public, internal, admin), all pointing to the same URL for simplicity:

openstack service create \
--name glance \
--description "OpenStack Image" image

openstack endpoint create \
--region RegionOne image public http://controller:9292

openstack endpoint create \
--region RegionOne image internal http://controller:9292

openstack endpoint create \
--region RegionOne image admin http://controller:9292

This exposes the image service to users and other OpenStack components.

Verify:

  1. Confirm Glance is registered:

    openstack service list

    Output:

    +----------------------------------+----------+----------+
    | ID                               | Name     | Type     |
    +----------------------------------+----------+----------+
    | 2527ec34edbc471b9fcd4d22390b5b17 | keystone | identity |
    | 81096520cafe403384b652442a6c00d9 | glance   | image    |
    +----------------------------------+----------+----------+

  2. List the Glance endpoints:

    openstack endpoint list --service image

    Output:

    +----------------------------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+---------+-----------+------------------------+
    | ID                               | Region    | Service Name | Service Type | Enabled | Interface | URL                    |
    +----------------------------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+---------+-----------+------------------------+
    | 0f0a4ded78fd4b45af3946b3d1622f9b | RegionOne | glance       | image        | True    | public   
    | http://controller:9292 |
    | 45c5095f9b004ae2993fe557630dba8c | RegionOne | glance       | image        | True    | admin    
    | http://controller:9292 |
    | 6a19f9490ad246c09cebabb699f158bd | RegionOne | glance       | image        | True    | internal 
    | http://controller:9292 |
    +----------------------------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+---------+-----------+------------------------+

Install Glance Package​

Update repositories and install Glance:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y glance

This installs the API and registry services needed for Glance to operate.

Check the status:

systemctl status glance-api

Configure API and Registry​

Glance API​

Update the /etc/glance/glance-api.conf and setup database connection, Keystone authentication, and image storage.

  1. In our setup, we can use Crudini to configure the database for Glance.

    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf \
    database connection mysql+pymysql://glance:openstack@controller/glance

  2. Next, configure the identity service access.

    If you are using modern OpenStack, Keystone should use port 5000 only. Port 35357 is no longer required.

    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken auth_uri http://controller:5000
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken auth_url http://controller:5000
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken memcached_servers controller:11211
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken auth_type password
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken project_domain_name default
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken user_domain_name default
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken project_name service
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken username glance
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf keystone_authtoken password openstack
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf paste_deploy flavor keystone

  3. Set the local filesystem as the default image store

    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf glance_store stores "file,http"
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf glance_store default_store file
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-api.conf glance_store filesystem_store_datadir /var/lib/glance/images/

  4. Check the configuration file (/etc/glance/glance-api.conf).

    [database]
    connection = mysql+pymysql://glance:openstack@controller/glance

    [glance_store]
    stores = file,http
    default_store = file
    filesystem_store_datadir = /var/lib/glance/images/

    [image_format]
    disk_formats = ami,ari,aki,vhd,vhdx,vmdk,raw,qcow2,vdi,iso,ploop.root-tar

    [keystone_authtoken]
    auth_uri = http://controller:5000
    auth_url = http://controller:5000
    memcached_servers = controller:11211
    auth_type = password
    project_domain_name = default
    user_domain_name = default
    project_name = service
    username = glance
    password = openstack

    [paste_deploy]
    flavor = keystone

Glance Registry​

glance-registry has been removed in newer releases (OpenStack Queens and later). Glance now runs API-only mode. You can skip this step.

The steps for configuring database and Keystone authentication for Glance registry is similar with the Glance API.

  1. Configure the database access for Glance Registry.

    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf \
    database connection mysql+pymysql://glance:openstack@controller/glance

  2. Configure the identity service access for Glance Registry.

    If you are using modern OpenStack, Keystone should use port 5000 only. Port 35357 is no longer required.

    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken auth_uri http://controller:5000
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken auth_url http://controller:5000
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken memcached_servers controller:11211
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken auth_type password
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken project_domain_name default
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken user_domain_name default
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken project_name service
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken username glance
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf keystone_authtoken password openstack
    crudini --set /etc/glance/glance-registry.conf paste_deploy flavor keystone

  3. Check the configuration file (/etc/glance/glance-registry.conf).

    [database]
    connection = mysql+pymysql://glance:openstack@controller/glance

    [keystone_authtoken]
    auth_uri = http://controller:5000
    auth_url = http://controller:5000
    memcached_servers = controller:11211
    auth_type = password
    project_domain_name = default
    user_domain_name = default
    project_name = service
    username = glance
    password = openstack

    [paste_deploy]
    flavor = keystone

  4. (Optional) You can verify if the services are using the correct ports.

    Check if Glance is listening on 9292:

    root@controller:/home/jmeden# ss -ltnp | grep 9292

    LISTEN 0      4096         0.0.0.0:9292       0.0.0.0:*    users:(("glance-api",pid=28136,fd=4),("glance-api",pid=28135,fd=4),("glance-api",pid=28128,fd=4))

    Check if Keystone is listening on 5000:

    root@controller:/home/jmeden# ss -ltnp | grep 5000

    LISTEN 0      511                *:5000             *:*    users:(("apache2",pid=17401,fd=6),("apache2",pid=17400,fd=6),("apache2",pid=17394,fd=6))

    Verify Glance API directly with curl:

    curl http://controller:9292 | jq

  5. After changing the config files, restart the services.

    systemctl restart glance-api  
    systemctl restart glance-registry

    UPDATE: You may get this error when restarting glance-registry:

    Failed to restart glance-registry.service: Unit glance-registry.service not found.

    This is normal in modern OpenStack. In OpenStack Queens (and other newer releases),the glance-registry service is fully removed. Glance runs in API-only architecture.

Populate Database and Restart Services​

Populates database tables required for Glance:

su -s /bin/sh -c "glance-manage db_sync" glance

Output:

Upgraded database to: wallaby_contract01, current revision(s): wallaby_contract01
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Context impl MySQLImpl.
INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Will assume non-transactional DDL.
Database is synced successfully.

Finally, enable and restart API and registry services:

sudo systemctl restart glance-api
sudo systemctl enable glance-api
sudo systemctl status glance-api

## SKIP: glance-registry has been removed in OpenStack
sudo systemctl restart glance-registry 
sudo systemctl enable glance-registry 
sudo systemctl status glance-registry

Glance is now fully installed and ready to manage images in OpenStack.

Verify Glance: Upload a Test Image​

After installing Glance, test it by uploading a small image. This will confirm that the image service works correctly.

  1. Download a small test image
  2. Upload the image to OpenStack
  3. Verify the image appears in the list
  4. Optionally upload another version

Download a Test Image​

Use a small Linux test image like Cirros. It is lightweight and made for OpenStack testing. Download the cirros-0.3.5-x86_64-disk.img file using wget.

wget http://download.cirros-cloud.net/0.3.5/cirros-0.3.5-x86_64-disk.img

Result:

  • The file downloads successfully
  • The file appears in your current directory

You can confirm:

root@controller:/home/jmeden# ls -lh

total 32M
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root    264 Feb 28 17:26 admin-openrc.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root    13M Dec  7  2021 cirros-0.3.5-x86_64-disk.img
-rw------- 1 root   root    262 Feb 28 17:09 demo-openrc.sh
drwxr-xr-x 3 jmeden jmeden 4.0K Feb 28 11:54 etcd-v3.5.0-linux-amd64
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jmeden jmeden  19M Dec  6  2021 etcd-v3.5.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz

If the file exists, the download worked and you are ready to upload it.

Upload the Image to Glance​

Now create an image in OpenStack using the downloaded file.

In the example below:

  • The image name is cirros-0.3.5
  • The file is cirros-0.3.5-x86_64-disk.img
  • The disk format is qcow2
  • The container format is bare
  • The image is public
openstack image create "cirros-0.3.5" \
  --file cirros-0.3.5-x86_64-disk.img \
  --disk-format qcow2 \
  --container-format bare \
  --public

Output:

+------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Field            | Value
+------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| container_format | bare
| created_at       | 2023-08-03T21:16:11Z
| disk_format      | qcow2
| file             | /v2/images/a3900299-cd8e-4d78-887a-dfb047fa4d12/file
| id               | a3900299-cd8e-4d78-887a-dfb047fa4d12
| min_disk         | 0
| min_ram          | 0
| name             | cirros-0.3.5
| owner            | 2448a3bc5e264464a3d20ed6012206bf
| properties       | os_hidden='False', owner_specified.openstack.md5='', owner_specified.openstack.object='images/cirros-0.3.5', owner_specified.openstack.sha256='' |
| protected        | False
| schema           | /v2/schemas/image
| status           | queued
| tags             |
| updated_at       | 2023-02-28T21:16:11Z
| visibility       | public
+------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

This confirms that Glance successfully stored the image.

Verify the Image List​

List all images currently stored in Glance.

openstack image list

Output:

+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+
| ID                                   | Name         | Status |
+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+
| a3900299-cd8e-4d78-887a-dfb047fa4d12 | cirros-0.3.5 | active |
+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+

This confirms that the image service can list stored images correctly.

Upload Another Version​

You can upload another version to confirm multiple images work properly.

In the example below, we download cirros-0.4.0-x86_64-disk.img.

wget http://download.cirros-cloud.net/0.4.0/cirros-0.4.0-x86_64-disk.img

Now create the second image named cirros-0.4.0.

openstack image create "cirros-0.4.0" \
  --file cirros-0.4.0-x86_64-disk.img \
  --disk-format qcow2 \
  --container-format bare \
  --public

List images again:

openstack image list

Output:

+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+
| ID                                   | Name         | Status |
+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+
| a3900299-cd8e-4d78-887a-dfb047fa4d12 | cirros-0.3.5 | active |
| b76c870f-944a-47af-acf1-7996f92b18e8 | cirros-0.4.0 | active |
+--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+

This confirms that Glance handles multiple images correctly.