The Gandi agent and server configuration files

The role of the Gandi agent

In expert mode, the Gandi configuration agent is tasked with receiving information about server parameters, number of cores, RAM, new disk size, disks to be attached or detached, and so on.

This agent is included in the gandi-hosting-vm2 package, which may need to be updated in order to take advantage of the latest improvements.

To do this, use the command 'aptitude install gandi-hosting-vm2'.

Gandi config files

Certain files are required by the virtual server due to the particularities of our hosting infrastructure.

Several files and directories are available to you for the purposes of adapting your expert server to your needs.

/etc/gandi

This directory contains our configuration scripts.

/etc/default/gandi

In this file you can adjust the following parameters:

choose between short hostname or FQDN
create/activate swap at boot
change the MOTD for SSH connections
change the time zone
activate/deactivate specific Gandi system options (sysctl)
add/remove Gandi SSH keys to grant or revoke our access
change SSH options (Compression, PermitRootLogin, EmptyPasswords)
update (or don't update) /etc/resolv.conf via DHCP
automatically configure the emergency console
activate/deactivate PAM changes for root access
activate/deactivate automatic hostname configuration
activate/deactivate automatic DNS server configuration
change data disk mount options and default mount locations

For RPM-based distributions, this file is located at :

/etc/sysconfig/gandi

/etc/udev/rules.d/86-gandi.rules & /etc/fstab

You have two ways of mounting disks on your virtual server:

udev (default)

By default, udev takes care of automatically mounting data disks on /srv/ with the name of the disk. For example, a data disk named d_data would be mounted at /srv/d_data/.

fstab (udev deactivated)

If you want to specify your own mount points, you must deactivate the udev rules related to the disks in the file /etc/udev/rules.d/86-gandi.rules (the VPS will need to be rebooted in order for changes to this file to take effect).

The two lines that need to be commented out to deactivate udev are :

SUBSYSTEMS=="xen", DRIVERS=="vbd", SUBSYSTEM=="block", RUN+="fake_blkid -o udev -p $tempnode", RUN+="/etc/gandi/manage_data_disk.py", OPTIONS+="last_rule"
SUBSYSTEM=="block", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk", ENV{ID_VENDOR}=="gandi.ne", RUN+="fake_blkid -o udev -p $tempnode", RUN+="/etc/gandi/manage_data_disk.py", OPTIONS+="last_rule"

/etc/init.d/gandi-mount & /etc/init.d/gandi-kernel

gandi-mount

This script allows disks attached to the server and present in /proc/partitions to be mounted on /srv/.

gandi-kernel

This script automates the installation of kernel modules.

Be sure to update your Gandi packages regularly using the mirrors of our servers to benefit from the latest improvements.

Table of Contents