This is dz - the "deploy zone" utility.

It allows you to manage zone deployments on a fleet of SmartOS systems without the need for cloud orchestration. It uses ssh for transport and authentication. There are no daemons or other changes to your SmartOS global zone.

# npm install -g deploy-zone

First register some SmartOS Hosts (make sure your user has ssh access):

# dz host add host-a.dev.example.com
# dz host add host-b.dev.example.com
# dz host add host-c.prod.example.com

That way dz knows your servers. It will also retrieve some metadata like ram and storage size. If you configured your datacenter name on the SmartOS system this will also be shown:

# dz host list
datacenter  host                     ram        storage  tags
----------  -----------------------  ---------  -------  ----
de-bln-f15  host-a.dev.example.com   3.87 GB    2.63 TB      
de-bln-f15  host-b.dev.example.com   7.87 GB    2.63 TB      
de-muc-ipx  host-c.prod.example.com  107.99 GB  5.25 TB      

With dz list you can view all running zones across your servers:

# dz list
host                     uuid                                  type  ram    quota  state    hostname              alias               
-----------------------  ------------------------------------  ----  -----  -----  -------  --------------------  --------------------
 host-a.dev.example.com  ab68ea68-d192-40a8-97c6-deca4f1710b1  OS     4096     10  running      fifo.f.fruky.net  fifo                
 host-a.dev.example.com  8662a174-12c9-412d-8e23-b0110c68a107  OS     2048     10  running      blog.example.com  blog                
 host-a.dev.example.com  0b1660f2-0894-48d0-9434-3320bab94c88  OS     1024   6000  running               store-a  store-a             
 host-a.dev.example.com  c11f26ba-0395-4723-9c2b-0d98931ce182  KVM    1024     10  stopped                        netbsd              
 host-b.dev.example.com  06709ee8-ae32-48e4-a690-78276eb13825  LX     2048    100  running                        lx                  
 host-b.dev.example.com  594f44de-1bb4-417e-895b-c6bc129299e9  OS      256     10  stopped                        dhcpv6-a            
host-c.prod.example.com  a4f7644b-4508-4721-ab73-57e3855fbfab  OS     2048     64  running  datasets.example.com  datasets.example.com
host-c.prod.example.com  261b3522-8ec6-40f3-ad48-e5882d8e0a98  OS     2048     10  running  graphite.example.com  graphite.example.com
host-c.prod.example.com  782c2631-85d1-44d4-9645-d5701fa42736  OS     2048     10  running   jenkins.example.com  jenkins.example.com 

This command also builds a local cache. If you want don't want to query all servers you can view the cached state with dz list -c.

The cache also enables you to start and stop zones with just passing the uuid. No need for a host parameter as dz will know where to look:

# dz start c11f26ba-0395-4723-9c2b-0d98931ce182

And there is a dz shell command to zlogin:

# dz shell d61b272f-2aea-4944-b8da-20c7b2c5331a
[Connected to zone 'd61b272f-2aea-4944-b8da-20c7b2c5331a' pts/6]
Last login: Thu Nov  6 07:55:53 on pts/2

╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ✜ CORE.IO NS                                                         │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

[ core-ns 14.2.1 | https://github.com/skylime/mi-core-ns ]

[root@ns ~]#

The dz build command provides an easy way to generate new vm images. If you have used MIBE before you can reuse your mi-repository. If not take a look at the mi-example.

This repository contains a copy folder with files that will be copied into the vm. It also contains a packages file with information which pkgsrc packages to install. And finally there is a customize shell script which allows you to execute commands.

While this is all very simple it can be combined with zoneinit, delegated zfs datasets and the mdata tools to create a powerful deployment method for software.

There are plenty mi-* repositories on github which can serve as examples.

In contrast to MIBE (which requires modifications to the global zone) the dz build command uses imgadm create. This is also more flexible with regards to publishing datasets to remote IMGAPI servers.

This is still very experimental. It started out as one weekends proof of concept. There are many bugs and user interface issues. Some commands (dz images, ...) are simply not working. There is no tab completion. There is no way to create new zones just yet. These are all bugs that I wish to fix and help with that is definitly welcome!

Just be warned that this far from a finished product.

SmartOS is a hypervisor for cloud deployments. If you want a cloud look at Project FiFo or SDC. A real cloud provides you with real tools for automation and management.

Yet SmartOS is a useful hypervisor on its own and deployments of many systems accross different datacenters or in constrained networks might not be the best fit for a cloud. Here dz can provide basic functionality without the need for a central management system.

The dz build command may also be useful in standard cloud environments.