# OpenStack hosted on FreeBSD



## minimike (Feb 19, 2017)

Hi there 

Someone has demonstrated for a while running OpenStack hosted on FreeBSD 11. Described right here
For me that sounds awesome. I would like to have a similar setup now with FreeBSD 11 XEN and hosting OpenStack on Dom0. The minimum goal is to run FreeBSD as an Nova Compute
Running FreeBSD as an guest inside an OpenStack-environment is well documented. Documentation about hosting OpenStack on an FreeBSD host seems to be very rare 
By planning and thinking about the reqired tasks I would be verry happy to get some hints. 
After brainstorming I think I would get in stuck by following issues

By the parts for OpenStack, it seems Cinder and Neutron are currently missing inside ports.

How I could offer block-storage inside OpenStack hosted on FreeBSD with ZFS?
And how I could manage the Network with Neutron with VLAN and OpenVswitch?
I there now an solution to manage a firewall with FreeBSD?

I would be very hapy for hints, contacts email-lists and anything else

best Darko


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## alexander.nusov (Feb 20, 2017)

Hi Darko,

Please take a look at NFV Express project, I think it's exactly what are you looking for.

> Documentation about hosting OpenStack on an FreeBSD host seems to be very rare
Not true!  
http://docs.nfvexpress.com/install-guide/

It's possible to install Keystone, Glance, Nova, Horizon and Cinder on FreeBSD.
However it does not provide Neutron and ZFS/iSCSI drivers for the Cinder (only NFS is supported) at the moment. But all those features are in the roadmap.

For networking it uses nova-network driver with FlatNetworking model. 
All instances will be bridged into a single network (either physical or tap) but also you could associate floating IP addresses from the external network.

For limiting access and tagging the network traffic I'd recommend to use a separate firewall/switch.

If you're okay with these limitations feel free to contact me for assistance via email (help@nfvexpress.com)


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## minimike (Feb 20, 2017)

Hello Alexander 

I am still thinking about it because just to have only FlatNetworking breakes a little bit my heart. Maybe I would run it inside a domU for testing and developing. You are the maintainer of all OpenStack releated ports. In short I didn't review the code, but I've seen you have made a lot of patches. Did you have success to get your patches inside Openstack-Upstream?


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## alexander.nusov (Feb 20, 2017)

it's planned to become an upstream project once we get neutron and cinder drivers.
ZFS support will come in the first place.


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## Haxo (Nov 24, 2019)

Mr. Nusov, 
It's been almost three years since I read something that I liked very much: openstack installed on a freebsd 11 machine. Your project is really promising. I wonder where I can find more updated and recent information on the progress of your project. Could you share where to find your most recent job and ports. I would greatly appreciate it. I am very interested in installing a production quality environment for cloud vps hosting based on freebsd machines. Alexander, thanks for your attention to my email. 

jehova vm


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## Purkuapas (Nov 25, 2019)

The latest update from NFV Express that I know from Alexander Nusov:



> Due to lack of interest in OpenStack on FreeBSD by community I'm shutting down the project and related activities starting 1st of March 2018



So this is another dead project.

PS: Take a look on CBSD as framework for FreeBSD based VPS hosting, still alive and supports XEN.


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## Haxo (Nov 26, 2019)

Purkuapas said:


> The latest update from NFV Express that I know from Alexander Nusov:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What a pity. The project promised a good future. I wonder how it will be possible for freebsd to dominate the server environment if usually everyone only thinks and does exclusively for their cluster and not to produce work environments for massive deployments based on freebsd like those now dominated by linux. freebsd is a masterpiece of engineering and high performance. Too bad, I'm in love with freebsd. I will try to make it possible that there are projects that run perfectly. in our operating system and that are user-friendly and operator-friendly and enterprise grade. I hope to contribute effectively.


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## ralphbsz (Nov 26, 2019)

Haxo said:


> ... for freebsd to dominate the server environment ...


Do you  want FreeBSD to "dominate the server environment"?
Do you think the people who determine the technical direction of FreeBSD want to "dominate the server environment"?
If yes, why?

Here is what I want: A well-engineered, clean and easy to use operating system for a small server. My goal is not world domination, nor saving the world.


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## Haxo (Nov 27, 2019)

In business language, dominating the market is an expression to say that you have enough coverage to be in presence as are AWS, Vultr, Rackspace, and all the names known and mentioned in this matter of the servers. The detail is that they all use Linux as their most reliable and developed OS to be chosen by most of the desition makers of those companies. It is not about competing for popularity as high-school teenagers, but about positioning FreeBSD as a friendly choice for cloud deployment, fully automated, self service by customers, and that the name of FreeBSD is on the list of supported OS, as it happens today with RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, Centos, Debian, etc. (all Linux Distros). It is not about mastering sickly (dominate), but about finding a position according to the outstanding capabilities of our OS. I hope I have explained myself more clearly and without flames.


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