Operating Systems Support

Besides Ubuntu, MAAS allows users to deploy different operating systems, such as CentOS. Ubuntu Advantage customers can additionally deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), OpenSUSE, SLES, Window Server and Windows HyperV.

Generated Images vs. Custom Images

MAAS supports two different classes of OS images, Generated images and Custom images.

Generated images are images of the OS' that MAAS team fully supports. Currently supported OS' are CentOS and Windows.

Custom images are images that MAAS can deploy, but may have been customized and differ from those that the MAAS team supports. Custom images can include any Ubuntu, CentOS or Windows image. Additionally, Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), OpenSUSE and SLES images also fall under this category.

Installing MAAS Images

Installing Generated Images

Installing MAAS Generated Images (CentOS or Windows) can be done with the command:

maas admin boot-resources create name=<os/series> \
     architecture=<architecture> [filetype=ddtgz] \
     content@=<image-name>

The list of supported Operating Systems under Generated Images is: - CentOS 6.5 (centos/centos65) - CentOS 7 (centos/centos7) - Windows Server 2012 (windows/win2012) - Windows Server 2012 R2 (windows/win2012r2) - Windows Hyper-V (windows/win2012hv) - Windows Hyper-V R2 (windows/win2012hvr2)

Examples:

maas admin boot-resources create name=centos/centos7 \
    architecture=amd64/generic content@=centos7-amd64-root-tgz

maas admin boot-resources create name=windows/win2012 \
    architecture=amd64/generic filetype=ddtgz \
    content@=win2012-amd64-ddtgz

Installing Custom Images

Installing custom images require the user to specify a unique identifier for the OS and Release, as well as the title of the Image:

maas admin boot-resources create name=custom/<os-release-id> \
    title=<title> architecture=amd64/generic content@=<image-name>

Examples:

maas admin boot-resources create name=custom/rhel7 \
    title="RedHat Enterprise Linux 7" architecture=amd64/generic \
    content@=rhel7-amd64-root-tgz

The list of tested Operating Systems under Custom Images is:

OpenSUSE
SLES 11 and SLES 12
Redhat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL7)

MAAS Image Builder

The MAAS Image Builder is a script that allows users to generate their own images. However, maas-image-builder only supports the generation of CentOS and RHEL images. To install maas-image-builder, please follow the instructions:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:maas-maintainers/stable
sudo apt-get install maas-image-builder

Creating and Installing CentOS MAAS Images

Note: Supported CentOS versions are CentOS 6.5 (centos65) and CentOS 7 (centos7).

To create a MAAS CentOS image, no ISO is needed as all of the required software to create the image is downloaded (from CentOS repositories) as part of the image generation process. To create the MAAS CentOS image, maas-image-builder can be used as:

maas-image-builder -a amd64 -o centos7-amd64-root-tgz centos --edition 7

The created image, centos7-amd64-root-tgz, needs to be uploaded into the MAAS Region Controller. This image will be listed under the Generated Image Section in the MAAS Image page. This image can be uploaded with:

maas admin boot-resources create name=centos/centos7 \
   architecture=amd64/generic content@=./build-output/centos7-amd64-root-tgz