wiki:decommission_kvm

This page documents the steps to take in decommissioning a kvm guest.

Make sure any needed data is backed up.

The steps below assume that nothing needs to be preserved from the server. If something does need to be preserved, copy the data to another location before following these steps.

Revoke all Known Published Host keys

Key re-vocation should be two steps:

monkeysphere-host revoke-key

That revokes the server's ssh monkeysphere key.

  • E.g
    0 attucks:~# monkeysphere-host revoke-key
    This will generate a revocation certificate for key A0E7C6828C00CDDFEE82652EBF235CB9287D59CF
    and dump the certificate to standard output.
    
    It can also directly publish the new revocation certificate
    to the public keyservers via keys.mayfirst.org if you want it to.
    
    Publishing this certificate will IMMEDIATELY and PERMANENTLY revoke
    your host key!
    
    Publish the certificate after generation? (y/n/Q) y
    
    sec  2048R/287D59CF 2011-12-08 ssh://attucks.mayfirst.org
    
    Create a revocation certificate for this key? (y/N) y
    Please select the reason for the revocation:
      0 = No reason specified
      1 = Key has been compromised
      2 = Key is superseded
      3 = Key is no longer used
      Q = Cancel
    (Probably you want to select 1 here)
    Your decision? 3
    Enter an optional description; end it with an empty line:
    > attucks.mayfirst.org decomissioned
    > 
    Reason for revocation: Key is no longer used
    attucks.mayfirst.org decomissioned
    Is this okay? (y/N) y
    NOTE: This key is not protected!
    Revocation certificate created.
    
    Please move it to a medium which you can hide away; if Mallory gets
    access to this certificate he can use it to make your key unusable.
    It is smart to print this certificate and store it away, just in case
    your media become unreadable.  But have some caution:  The print system of
    your machine might store the data and make it available to others!
    -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
    Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
    Comment: A revocation certificate should follow
    
    iQFBBCABAgArBQJRjR3YJB0DYXR0dWNrcy5tYXlmaXJzdC5vcmcgZGVjb21pc3Np
    b25lZAAKCRC/I1y5KH1Zz01jCACK8d9actSgsdQ8R4iOcPFvyRS397WrzA2NxWvd
    +y9SJCFves68yMh+HmH3Xr2+IWm9wgwDPWVTWTbDiQYLKpb0Jx+wXwzeayZYHU/X
    rg3THvyRhHMM2ccBV2h1eKa+e+hyd8sA2r3SLow37dgjKbb1ELfFgwtz6maGxJrE
    okwl680iCvONxg6GnMy2PVVqgASFbeCABFTGd8MKnjWuVSkMV9O3nScjkokJJeQ5
    r0ESu8reYJyQfGc/5xz8fpAK16TjIX8ZLhyb6rsB16xniN3lg/XJbQvrSY9utLMq
    viFBnbImJK/X9jXHKm59mCam1SjbCzOMni7nAHWo/hZO9tFv
    =87HD
    -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
    
    Really publish this cert to keys.mayfirst.org ? (Y/n) 
    gpg: sending key 287D59CF to hkp server keys.mayfirst.org
    0 attucks:~# 
    

Revoke the root@server.mayfirst.org's key:

  • Get the secret key id for the root user.
    gpg --list-secret-key to get the secret key id for the root user.
    
  • Edit the key
    gpg --edit-key <gpgid>
    
  • Apply the revocation and save

You will be asked for a passphrase in this process, which can be found in our puppet repository puppet/manifests/globals.pp defined by the variable $mfpl_gpg_passphrase.

gpg> revkey
gpg> save
  • Send the revoked key to the key server
    gpg --send-key <gpgid>
    

Shutting down the guest

We need the machine to be out of service so that we can wipe any sensitive data from the disks. In order to shutdown a guest so that it will not reboot, you'll need to be root@HOSTNAME.mayfirst.org. From the host, issue the command:

# update-service --remove /etc/sv/kvm/GUESTNAME

This command will shutdown the virtual machine. We need the machine to be out of service so that we can wipe any sensitive data from the disks.

Ensure all sensitive data is overwritten

For this step, login as GUESTNAME@HOSTNAME.mayfirst.org to ensure that you do not overwrite data for other guests. We want to zero out all bytes on the logic volume to avoid this. However, be careful: doing this at full-speed can cause guests on the hosts to stop responding. Use the pv command to limit the IO rate. You may need to use apt-get to install pv on the host. The command is:

$ pv --rate-limit=1m < /dev/zero > /dev/mapper/VOLUMEGROUPNAME-LOGICALVOLUMENAME

A real world completed example would be:

0 maria@malaka:~$ pv --rate-limit=1m < /dev/zero > /dev/mapper/vg_malaka0-maria
pv: write failed: No space left on device                                                                                  <=>       ]
1 maria@malaka:~$ 

Once this command finishes running, you can return the logical volume to the volume group.

Remove all aspects of the guest

kvm-creator destroy GUESTNAME

That command should remove all traces of the guest in /etc/sv/kvm/GUEST, remove the user and delete the logical volume.

Check to make sure /home/GUEST is also removed and remove by hand if necessary.

Clean up on helper servers

On jojobe.mayfirst.org (nagios server), check for and delete:

/etc/nagios3/conf.d/nodes/GUESTNAME.cfg
  • restart nagios as root@jojobe.mayfirst.org
    service nagios3 restart
    

On the designated backup servers (should be designated in puppet file if it exists):

deluser --remove-home GUESTNAME-sync

On your own workstation in the MFPL puppet git repo:

  • Edit the host manifest and remove the guest server stanza.
git rm manifests/nodes/production/GUESTNAME.pp
git commit -m "decomissioning GUESTNAME"

Other system cleanup

On the host, you might also want to:

  • remove the associated /etc/udev/rules.d/92-kvm_creator-GUEST.rules

You've now decommissioned a server!

Last modified 8 years ago Last modified on Jun 3, 2016, 10:52:11 AM