/kolla-ansible

name: openstack-kolla-ansible
description: "Kolla-Ansible deployment engine skill for containerized OpenStack lifecycle management. Use when bootstrapping, deploying, reconfiguring, or upgrading OpenStack environments. Covers globals.yml configuration, inventory management, container operations, rolling upgrades, password management, and troubleshooting deployment failures across all service containers. This is the meta-skill that manages the deployment lifecycle for all OpenStack services."
user-invocable: true
allowed-tools: Read Grep Glob
metadata:
  extensions:
    gsd-skill-creator:
      version: 1
      createdAt: "2026-02-23"
      triggers:
        intents:
          - "kolla-ansible"
          - "kolla"
          - "deploy openstack"
          - "bootstrap"
          - "reconfigure"
          - "upgrade openstack"
          - "globals.yml"
          - "inventory"
          - "container"
          - "docker"
        contexts:
          - "deploying openstack"
          - "upgrading openstack"
          - "reconfiguring services"
          - "managing openstack containers"
          - "bootstrap environment"

OpenStack Kolla-Ansible -- Deployment Engine

Introduction

Kolla-Ansible is the production-grade deployment engine for containerized OpenStack. It uses Ansible playbooks to deploy, configure, and manage Docker containers for each OpenStack service. Every core service -- Keystone, Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Glance, Swift, Heat, Horizon -- plus supporting infrastructure (MariaDB, RabbitMQ, Memcached, HAProxy) runs in its own Docker container, managed through a single unified tool.

The Kolla project has two components: **Kolla** builds the Docker images for each OpenStack service. **Kolla-Ansible** deploys those images to target hosts using Ansible. In practice, most operators use pre-built images from the Kolla registry and only interact with Kolla-Ansible for deployment and lifecycle management.

Kolla-Ansible supports CentOS Stream 9, Rocky Linux 9, and Ubuntu 22.04 as host operating systems. Container images are available in two variants: `source` (built from OpenStack source code) and `binary` (built from distribution packages). For production stability, `binary` images pinned to a specific OpenStack release are recommended.

The deployment lifecycle follows four primary operations: **bootstrap** (prepare the host environment), **deploy** (install and start all services), **reconfigure** (change configuration on a running deployment), and **upgrade** (move to a new OpenStack release). Each operation is idempotent -- running it again produces the same result.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap prepares the host environment for OpenStack deployment. This is a one-time operation per host.

Prerequisites

# System requirements
# - CentOS Stream 9 (recommended), Rocky Linux 9, or Ubuntu 22.04
# - Minimum 16 GB RAM, 100 GB disk, 2 network interfaces
# - Python 3.9+
# - Docker CE or Podman (Kolla-Ansible installs Docker if missing)

# Verify Python version
python3 --version

# Verify network interfaces
ip link show
# You need at least 2 interfaces: one for management (API traffic)
# and one for Neutron external (tenant/provider network traffic)

Install Kolla-Ansible

# Create a Python virtual environment (recommended)
python3 -m venv /opt/kolla-venv
source /opt/kolla-venv/bin/activate

# Install kolla-ansible (pin to a specific OpenStack release)
pip install 'kolla-ansible==17.0.*'    # For 2024.1 (Caracal)
# Or for the latest stable:
pip install kolla-ansible

# Install Ansible dependencies
kolla-ansible install-deps

Generate Configuration

# Copy default configuration files
cp -r /opt/kolla-venv/share/kolla-ansible/etc_examples/kolla/* /etc/kolla/

# This creates:
# /etc/kolla/globals.yml    - Main configuration file
# /etc/kolla/passwords.yml  - Service passwords (empty, needs generation)

# Generate random passwords for all services
kolla-genpwd

# IMPORTANT: Back up passwords.yml immediately after generation
cp /etc/kolla/passwords.yml /etc/kolla/passwords.yml.backup

Configure globals.yml

This is the central configuration file. Every deployment decision is encoded here:

# /etc/kolla/globals.yml

# Base configuration
kolla_base_distro: "centos"
kolla_install_type: "binary"
openstack_release: "2024.1"

# Networking
kolla_internal_vip_address: "10.0.0.100"    # VIP for internal API traffic
network_interface: "eth0"                     # Management network interface
neutron_external_interface: "eth1"            # Neutron external bridge interface

# Optional: External VIP for public API access
# kolla_external_vip_address: "192.168.1.100"
# kolla_enable_tls_external: "yes"

# Docker configuration
# docker_registry: "quay.io"                 # Custom registry if needed
# docker_namespace: "openstack.kolla"

# Service enablement (enable what you need)
enable_keystone: "yes"      # Identity (always required)
enable_nova: "yes"          # Compute
enable_neutron: "yes"       # Networking
enable_cinder: "yes"        # Block storage
enable_glance: "yes"        # Image service
enable_horizon: "yes"       # Web dashboard
enable_heat: "yes"          # Orchestration
enable_swift: "yes"         # Object storage

# Optional services
# enable_ceilometer: "yes"  # Telemetry
# enable_aodh: "yes"        # Alarming
# enable_magnum: "yes"      # Container orchestration

# Storage backend
# cinder_backend_lvm: "yes"                  # LVM for Cinder (default)
# cinder_volume_group: "cinder-volumes"

# Neutron networking
neutron_plugin_agent: "openvswitch"           # OVS or OVN
# neutron_plugin_agent: "ovn"                 # For OVN backend

Configure Inventory

# For single-node (all-in-one) deployment
cp /opt/kolla-venv/share/kolla-ansible/ansible/inventory/all-in-one /etc/kolla/

# For multi-node deployment
cp /opt/kolla-venv/share/kolla-ansible/ansible/inventory/multinode /etc/kolla/
# Then edit /etc/kolla/multino