Skyline Console - Modern Dashboard for OpenStack

Ach.Chusnul Chikam
6 min readDec 26, 2023

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Skyline Console is one part of OpenStack Modern Dashboard, which provides a web based user interface to OpenStack services including Nova, Swift, Keystone, etc. Skyline was optimized by UI and UE, support OpenStack Train+.

Skyline’s mascot is the nine-color deer. The nine-color deer comes from Dunhuang mural “the nine-color king deer”, whose moral is Buddhist cause-effect and gratefulness, which is consistent with 99cloud’s philosophy of embracing and feedback community since its inception. We also hope Skyline can keep light, elegant and powerful as the nine-color deer, to provide a better dashboard for the openstack community and users.

More about Skyline: https://docs.openstack.org/skyline-console/latest/

Prerequisites:

  • OpenStack Environment Installed
  • Instance to run Skyline (image: Ubuntu 20.04)
  • Skyline server can reach Keystone API

Setup Skyline on Ubuntu 20.04

Let’s take a look at the steps required to setup Skyline. The steps look something like the following:

1. Add Skyline Account

Login to your Openstack administration node to manage OpenStack from CLI. In my case is Controller node

### Source the admin credentials
(kolla-venv) root@controller1:~# source /etc/kolla/admin-openrc.sh

### Create the skyline user
(kolla-venv) root@controller1:~# openstack user create \
--domain default --password-prompt skyline
User Password:
Repeat User Password:
+---------------------+----------------------------------+
| Field | Value |
+---------------------+----------------------------------+
| domain_id | default |
| enabled | True |
| id | 1cdbd41bcb374603af22c2e05e835823 |
| name | skyline |
| options | {} |
| password_expires_at | None |
+---------------------+----------------------------------+

### Add the admin role to the skyline user
(kolla-venv) root@controller1:~# openstack role add \
--project service --user skyline admin

2. Configure MySQL DB

Login to your Skyline Server

### Install MySQL
$ sudo -i
# apt-get install mariadb-server -y

### Create database
# mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 36
Server version: 10.3.38-MariaDB-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 Ubuntu 20.04

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS skyline DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.000 sec)

### Grant proper access to the databases
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON skyline.* TO 'skyline'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Skyline123';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.003 sec)
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON skyline.* TO 'skyline'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'Skyline123';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.001 sec)

3. Setup Docker

### Install docker
# apt-get install docker.io -y
# docker version
Client:
Version: 24.0.5
API version: 1.43
Go version: go1.20.3
Git commit: 24.0.5-0ubuntu1~20.04.1
Built: Mon Aug 21 19:50:14 2023
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Context: default

Server:
Engine:
Version: 24.0.5
API version: 1.43 (minimum version 1.12)
Go version: go1.20.3
Git commit: 24.0.5-0ubuntu1~20.04.1
Built: Mon Aug 21 19:50:14 2023
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Experimental: false
containerd:
Version: 1.7.2
GitCommit:
runc:
Version: 1.1.7-0ubuntu1~20.04.1
GitCommit:
docker-init:
Version: 0.19.0
GitCommit:

4. Setup Skyline app

Clone skyline repository from https://opendev.org/openstack/skyline-apiserver

# git clone https://opendev.org/skyline/skyline-apiserver

Edit the /etc/skyline/skyline.yaml file in linux server. We can refer to the sample file, and modify the following parameters according to the actual environment:

  • database_url
  • keystone_url
  • default_region
  • interface_type
  • system_project_domain
  • system_project
  • system_user_domain
  • system_user_name
  • system_user_password

Configure Skyline usingskyline.yaml file

# mkdir /etc/skyline; cp skyline-apiserver/etc/skyline.yaml.sample /etc/skyline/skyline.yaml

Below config are going to provide our openstack environment keystone_url to fetch all endpint so skyline will be able to access openstack. Here is in my case:

### cat /etc/skyline/skyline.yaml
default:
access_token_expire: 3600
access_token_renew: 1800
cafile: ''
cors_allow_origins: []
database_url: mysql://skyline:Skyline123@localhost:3306/skyline
debug: false
log_dir: ./log
log_file: skyline.log
policy_file_path: /etc/skyline/policy
policy_file_suffix: policy.yaml
prometheus_basic_auth_password: ''
prometheus_basic_auth_user: ''
prometheus_enable_basic_auth: false
prometheus_endpoint: http://localhost:9091
secret_key: aCtmgbcUqYUy_HNVg5BDXCaeJgJQzHJXwqbXr0Nmb2o
session_name: session
ssl_enabled: true
openstack:
base_domains:
- heat_user_domain
default_region: RegionOne
enforce_new_defaults: true
extension_mapping:
floating-ip-port-forwarding: neutron_port_forwarding
fwaas_v2: neutron_firewall
qos: neutron_qos
vpnaas: neutron_vpn
interface_type: public
keystone_url: https://public.achikam.net:5000/v3/

nginx_prefix: /api/openstack
reclaim_instance_interval: 604800
service_mapping:
baremetal: ironic
compute: nova
container: zun
container-infra: magnum
database: trove
dns: designate
identity: keystone
image: glance
instance-ha: masakari
key-manager: barbican
load-balancer: octavia
network: neutron
object-store: swift
orchestration: heat
placement: placement
sharev2: manilav2
volumev3: cinder
sso_enabled: false
sso_protocols:
- openid
sso_region: RegionOne
system_admin_roles:
- admin
- system_admin
system_project: service
system_project_domain: Default

system_reader_roles:
- system_reader
system_user_domain: Default
system_user_name: skyline
system_user_password: Skyline123

setting:
base_settings:
- flavor_families
- gpu_models
- usb_models
flavor_families:
- architecture: x86_architecture
categories:
- name: general_purpose
properties: []
- name: compute_optimized
properties: []
- name: memory_optimized
properties: []
- name: high_clock_speed
properties: []
- architecture: heterogeneous_computing
categories:
- name: compute_optimized_type_with_gpu
properties: []
- name: visualization_compute_optimized_type_with_gpu
properties: []
gpu_models:
- nvidia_t4
usb_models:
- usb_c

5. Deploy Skyline app

Run the skyline_bootstrap container to bootstrap

### Run the skyline_bootstrap container to bootstrap
# rm -rf /tmp/skyline && mkdir /tmp/skyline && mkdir /var/log/skyline
# docker run -d --name skyline_bootstrap -e KOLLA_BOOTSTRAP="" -v /etc/skyline/skyline.yaml:/etc/skyline/skyline.yaml --net=host 99cloud/skyline:latest

### Check bootstrap is normal `exit 0`
# docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
0122f89e1daf 99cloud/skyline:latest "start_service.sh" 7 seconds ago Exited (0) 5 seconds ago skyline_bootstrap

# docker logs skyline_bootstrap
+ echo '/usr/local/bin/gunicorn -c /etc/skyline/gunicorn.py skyline_apiserver.main:app'
+ mapfile -t CMD
++ tail /run_command
++ xargs -n 1
+ [[ -n 0 ]]
+ cd /skyline-apiserver/
+ make db_sync
alembic -c skyline_apiserver/db/alembic/alembic.ini upgrade head
2023-12-26 01:38:33.711 | INFO | alembic.runtime.migration:__init__:205 - Context impl MySQLImpl.
2023-12-26 01:38:33.712 | INFO | alembic.runtime.migration:__init__:208 - Will assume non-transactional DDL.
2023-12-26 01:38:33.843 | INFO | alembic.runtime.migration:run_migrations:619 - Running upgrade -> 000, init
+ exit 0

Run the skyline service after bootstrap is complete

  • If you need to modify skyline port, add -e LISTEN_ADDRESS=<ip:port> in the following command LISTEN_ADDRESS defaults to 0.0.0.0:9999
  • If you need to modify the policy rules of a service, add -v /etc/skyline/policy:/etc/skyline/policy in the following command

Rename the service policy yaml file to <service_name>_policy.yaml, and place it in /etc/skyline/policy folder

### Remove bootstrap container
# docker rm -f skyline_bootstrap

### Run skyline container using docker
# docker run -d --name skyline --restart=always -v /etc/skyline/skyline.yaml:/etc/skyline/skyline.yaml --net=host 99cloud/skyline:latest
4043b16b3b231e12f3b88441b79486e4122de15e0d21b9ad791d13a5466aaf96

6. Verify Skyline app

### Verify skyline app was running
# docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
4043b16b3b23 99cloud/skyline:latest "start_service.sh" 4 seconds ago Up 3 seconds skyline

We can now access the dashboard: http://<IP_ADDRESS>:9999/base/overview-admin
Used OpenStack user credentials.

Login Page Skyline Dashboard
Home Overview Admin
Home Overview
Hypervisor Admin List
Instances List
Volumes List
Network Topology
Create Instance

Using Skyline we can set password very easy way when creating Instance (^_^)

Form System Config when Creating Instance

Also using Skyline we can choose manually where Compute to running our new Instance (^_^). Continue until last form and click Confirm

Form System Config when Creating Instance

Verify New Instance was successfully running

Instance Detail

Verify from Horizon Dashboard

List Instance from Horizon

Let’s Enjoy Skyline Dashboard for your OpenStack management GUI

See other content

References :

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Ach.Chusnul Chikam

Cloud Consultant | RHCSA | CKA | AWS SAA | OpenStack Certified | OpenShift Certified | Google Cloud ACE | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/achchusnulchikam