How to install MAAS
MAAS is relatively easy to install and configure. Let’s give it a try.
NOTE: MAAS will run on just about any modern hardware configuration, even a development laptop. If you’re not sure whether your target server will handle MAAS, you can always double-check.
NOTE:
IMPORTANT: If you’re having trouble accessing your MAAS, double-check your URL. It should be of the form http://nn.nn.nn.nn:5240/MAAS, where nn.nn... is the IP address. Note that this is http and not https. ALSO check whether the IP of your MAAS host may have changed, e.g., due to the MAAS host using a DHCP lease. If the MAAS host’s IP changes for any reason, you will need to re-initialise MAAS to pick up the new IP address.
How to check the status of MAAS services
You can check the status of running services with:
sudo maas status
Typically, the output looks something like this:
bind9 RUNNING pid 7999, uptime 0:09:17
dhcpd STOPPED Not started
dhcpd6 STOPPED Not started
ntp RUNNING pid 8598, uptime 0:05:42
postgresql RUNNING pid 8001, uptime 0:09:17
proxy STOPPED Not started
rackd RUNNING pid 8000, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-0 RUNNING pid 8003, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-1 RUNNING pid 8008, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-2 RUNNING pid 8005, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-3 RUNNING pid 8015, uptime 0:09:17
tgt RUNNING pid 8040, uptime 0:09:15
It is also possible to re-initialise MAAS to switch modes. For example, to switch from rack to region:
sudo maas init region
How to list additional MAAS initialisation options
The init command can takes optional arguments. To list them, as well as read a brief description of each, you can enter:
sudo maas init --help
Once you’ve successfully installed MAAS (regardless of method), you can now login here:
http://${API_HOST}:5240/MAAS
where $API_HOST is the hostname or IP address of the region API server, which was set during installation. You will see a screen like this:
Log in at the prompts, with the login information you created when initialising MAAS.
After a fresh MAAS installation, the web UI presents a couple of welcome screens. From these screens, you can set many system-wide options, including connectivity, image downloads, and authentication keys.
Your main concerns for this experiment are the DNS forwarder, the Ubuntu image import section, and the SSH public key, though you might want to set the region name to something memorable, since this text will appear at the bottom of every MAAS screen in this install domain. Set the DNS forwarder to something obvious, e.g., 8.8.8.8, Google’s DNS server. Set this to your own internal DNS server if you know the IP address.
Select an Ubuntu image to import, noting that you may be required to select at least one LTS version, depending upon the version of MAAS that snap installed. In this example, we’ve already chosen an image, and downloading is partially complete.
When you click on “Continue,” the screen will shift to a screen labelled, “SSH keys for admin:”
In the source drop-down, select “Launchpad,” “Github,” or “Upload.” If you choose one of the first two, you will need to enter your username for that service. For example, if you want to upload your SSH public key from Launchpad, you would enter:
lp:<username>
Likewise, if you want to upload your github public SSH key, you would enter:
gh:<username>
If you want to use your existing public key from your home directory, you can select “Upload”and then copy your entire public key from .ssh/id_rsa.pub (or wherever you may have stored the key):
and paste it into the block labelled “Public key.” Finally, press the “Import” button to import this key:
With this complete, you’ll see that MAAS has been successfully set up. Click ‘Go to the Dashboard’ to proceed.
NOTE: Note that you may have to wait a few moments for your selected images to sync locally.
Before moving forward with MAAS, you’ll want to enable DHCP. You can do this very easily from the web UI by selecting “Subnets” from the top menu, choosing the VLAN on which you want to enable DHCP, and select the button marked, “Enable DHCP.”
The Dashboard landing page lists non-registered devices that MAAS detected automatically on the network. This network discovery process allows you to easily add or map devices already connected to your network – devices that you may not necessarily want to manage with MAAS.