Ganetiviz

Graphical Visualization of a ganeti cluster is now possible with the help of ganetiviz app in GWM (should be packaged in the next GWM release, version 0.11). Ganetiviz uses the Cytoscape JS library to render network graphs, where ganeti nodes are represented as vertices and failover directions are shown as edges.

The graph is interactive and has the following features:

Features

  1. Nodes are represented as circles, which can host a number of primary instances, and mirror data for instances hosted on other secondary nodes.

  2. Any node can play the role of both a primary node or a secondary node.

  3. When you click on a node, all the instances running on that node are shown.

  4. Further, when you click on an instance an edge in the graph connecting 2 nodes is highlighted.

  5. The edge points to the secondary node for that particular instance originating at the primary node.

  6. Edge thickness between the nodes gives and idea of the total number of failover possibilities existing between two nodes.

  7. All the ‘running’ instances are shown in green and all the *_DOWN instances are shown in red. Instances “red” in color are not “running” and might require a failover.

  8. Additional instance information is shown in the bottom right corner and is fetched on demand on clicking on an instance.

  9. Zoom In - Zoom Out using mouse scroll in any region by placing mouse-pointer there first.

  10. Long-click & hold the graph at any point and pan it in any direction to shift the whole graph object or Pan by using arrow keys, or use the previous mouse method: longclick-hold-move

  11. Select any node ans press the character “s” to see all the secondary instances for a given node.

  12. Press the character “c” at any time to clear (actually hide) all the visible instances.

  13. Press the character ‘r’ to reset the whole graph orientation as in the beginning.

  14. Most of this important information is available easily pressing character the ‘h’ ie. help.

Visualizing a cluster via GWM

  1. Navigate to Cluster detail page

  2. Click the Visualize button with an ‘eye’ on it.

  3. ganetiviz - opens up and renders the appropriate cluster.

History

In the initial stages of development I wrote a blog post on Ganetiviz. It might be a little outdated now, but will help understand the ganetiviz evolution.

The ganetiviz-cytoscape project was initially created as a front end component for ganetiviz which was then ported to devganetiviz - a django application that can be run outside GWM and ships with some mock data to get started contributing to GWM in seconds.

Improving ganetiviz

Since ganetiviz is a part of GWM; improving ganetiviz actually means improving GWM. Developing for GWM can sometimes be tedious for front-end contributors who do not want to concern themselves with running a live or virtual ganeti cluster with GWM every time for development purposes.

Ganetiviz has a sister project that makes it possible for anyone to start contributing easily.

  1. Front-End code contribution: For any front end contribution you must refer to devganetiviz, a separate django project that comes with batteries included (fixture data, etc), so you do not need to run any physical or virtual server to add front-end features to ganetiviz.

  2. For any contribution that changes JSON data avaiable to the front end component. For changing the data returned by GWM to ganetiviz, it is important to run GWM the standard way along with a Virtual or real cluster.