README

mptools Is a utility package for macOS to help to create customized virtual machine nodes using multipass.

The customization of nodes are done through cloud-init files. A set of template cloud-init files are provided in this package During installed the templates are initiated based on the current user to setup SSH keys and user names to make it easy to access the nodes from other tools (e.g. as Jenkins nodes)

The package offers two different utilities to help with the creation of nodes, mpn and mkmpnode. The first utility uses a basic naming convention (similar to AWS EC2 size convention) to simplify the node creation, the second utility offers full levels of customization to create any node setup.

The usage of these tools are fully described in the included documentation as well as through the mpn -h and mkmpnode -h respectively.

Usage

mpn

Creates a multipass node with a simple text based specification of a node. In the background this will be translated to the appropriate call (with all details) of mkmpnode.

% mpn -h
NAME
   mpn - Create multipass node by naming convention
USAGE
   mpn [-b] [-h] [-v] [-s] NODE_NAME [NODE_NAME [NODE_NAME ... ]]
SYNOPSIS
      -b        : Bridge the nodes (make them available on the local network)
      -h        : Print help and exit
      -n        : No execution. Only display actions.
      -s        : Silent
      -v        : Print version and exit

The node name will control the size and capacity of the node.
ub<MAJOR_RELEASE><CONFIG><SIZE><NODE_NUMBER>
MAJOR_RELEASE = [20|22|24]
CONFIG        = [f=Full dev|m=Minimal dev|b=Basic none-dev node]
SIZE          = [s=small|m=medium|l=large|x=x-larg|h=humungous]
NODE_NUMBER   = [0-9]{2}

mkmpnode

Creates a multipass node where all the details have to be specified as options to the script.

% mkmpnode -h
NAME
   mkmpnode - Create multipass nodes with a specified (or default) cloud-init file
USAGE
   mkmpnode [-r RELEASE] [-c FILE] [-d SIZE] [-p CPUS] [-m SIZE] [-b] [-q] [-v] [-h] NODE_NAME
SYNOPSIS
      -r RELEASE: Valid ubuntu release [focal impish jammy noble docker] (jammy)
      -c FILE   : Cloud config file (minidev-config.yaml)
      -m SIZE   : Memory size, defaults (500M)
      -d SIZE   : Disk size, defaults (5GGB)
      -p NUM    : Number of CPUs (2)
      -b        : Bridge the node. NOTE requires "local.bridged-network" to be specified
      -M        : Mount /Users/ljp/Devel inside node
      -n        : No execution. Only display actions.
      -q        : Quiet  (no output to stdout)
      -v        : Print version and exit
      -h        : Print help and exit

Documentation

Full documentation can be found in the ./docs directory in the distributed tar-ball both HTML and PDF format as

1. (HTML) ./docs/out/html/index.html
2. (PDF) ./docs/out/latex/refman.pdf

The documentation is also available directly online in github as

1. (HTML) mptools User guide
2. (PDF) mptools User guide