Git clone ceph-cookbook repositories to your VirtualBox host machine:

$ git clone https://github.com/ksingh7/ceph-cookbook.git

Under the cloned directory, you will find Vagrantfile, which is our Vagrant configuration file that basically instructs VirtualBox to launch the VMs that we require at different stages of this book. Vagrant will automate the VM's creation, installation, and configuration for you; it makes the initial environment easy to set up:

$ cd ceph-cookbook ; ls -l

Next, we will launch three VMs using Vagrant; they are required throughout this chapter:

$ vagrant up ceph-node1 ceph-node2 ceph-node3

Check the status of your virtual machines:

$ vagrant status ceph-node1 ceph-node2 ceph-node3

Vagrant will, by default, set up hostnames as ceph-node<node_number>, IP address subnet as 192.168.1.X, and will create three additional disks that will be used as OSDs by the Ceph cluster. Log in to each of these machines one by one and check if the hostname, networking, and additional disks have been set up correctly by Vagrant:

$ vagrant ssh ceph-node1
$ ip addr show
$ sudo fdisk -l
$ exit

Vagrant is configured to update hosts file on the VMs. For convenience, update the /etc/hosts file on your host machine with the following content.

192.168.1.101 ceph-node1
192.168.1.102 ceph-node2
192.168.1.103 ceph-node3

Generate root SSH keys for ceph-node1 and copy the keys to ceph-node2 and ceph-node3. The password for root user on these VMs is vagrant. Enter the root user password when it's asked by the ssh-copy-id command and proceed with the default settings:

$ vagrant ssh ceph-node1
$ sudo su -
# ssh-keygen
# ssh-copy-id root@ceph-node2
# ssh-copy-id root@ceph-node3

Once the ssh keys are copied to ceph-node2 and ceph-node3, the root user from ceph-node1 can do an ssh login to VMs without entering the password:

# ssh ceph-node2 hostname
# ssh ceph-node3 hostname

Enable ports that are required by the Ceph MON, OSD, and MDS on the operating system's firewall. Execute the following commands on all VMs:

# firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=6789/tcp --permanent
# firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=6800-7100/tcp --permanent
# firewall-cmd --reload
# firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-all

Disable SELINUX on all the VMs:

# setenforce 0
# sed –i  s'/SELINUX.*=.*enforcing/SELINUX=disabled'/g /etc/selinux/config

Install and configure ntp on all VMs:

# yum install ntp ntpdate -y
# ntpdate pool.ntp.org
# systemctl restart ntpdate.service
# systemctl restart ntpd.service
# systemctl enable ntpd.service
# systemctl enable ntpdate.service

Add repositories on all nodes for the Ceph giant version and update yum:

# rpm -Uhv http://ceph.com/rpm-giant/el7/noarch/ceph-release-1-0.el7.noarch.rpm
# yum update -y