Common Operations › Provisioning an Application › Parameters

Parameters

The following parameters apply to application provisioning commands:

• Template--Any application on the grid can be used as a template (as long as the application is stopped and has the template attribute set). You can see the list of applications and application templates using the app list command. The template applications are shown first in the list.

  Note: The provision command copies the template in its entirety. Therefore we recommend that you not specify any application as a template that has user data on it as that data will be copied over to the newly provisioned application.

• Instance name--The desired name for the application instance (also known as application name) is a word consisting of letters and digits, starting with a letter. Don't use special characters, except underscore. Following are the examples of valid names:
  • app23
  • cPanel37Beta
  • big_server.

  Following are the examples of invalid names:

  • 3joe (starts with a digit)
  • my app (has a space)
  • bighoster.com (has a dot)
  • cPanel/Joe (has a special char)

  We recommend encoding the template name and the customer name, for example: cPanel_customer8. Applications are always displayed sorted, so applications starting with the same name will be grouped together in the list.

• Properties--Properties are application-specific settings that specialize the application instance for its role. While the template provides most of the system and application configuration necessary for the application to run, there are some settings that differ from instance to instance. Those typically include IP addresses, passwords and tuning parameters.

  Some properties are mandatory and must be specified with the app provision command. Other properties are optional and need to be specified only when you want to change the default values.

  You can see the set of properties, their allowed values and meaning in the application template's data sheet. The application templates currently shipped with CA 3Tera AppLogic are documented in the Application Catalog Reference Guide. If the application is provided separately and the data sheet is missing, ask Technical Support for its data sheet.

  Be aware of the following:

  • You can quickly inspect the properties available on the template application using the following command: app config mytemplate --boundary. For more information, read the data sheet.
  • You can pre-configure any property on the template, so that you don't have to provide them every time when provisioning an instance. For example, to configure the default netmask, gateway and DNS servers in the template itself, use:

    app config mytemplate netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=209.100.100.1 dns1=209.101.1.2 dns2=209.102.1.2
    

• Resources--There are 3 types of resources that can be configured on an application during its provisioning:
  • Amount of CPU to be provisioned to the application
  • Amount of memory to be provisioned to the application
  • Size of its disk volumes

  Although CA 3Tera AppLogic documentation refers to the bandwidth resource too, don't use this parameter (it specifies internal bandwidth, not Internet bandwidth); leave the bw values to their defaults.

  Be aware of the following:

  • All of these resource parameters have reasonable defaults. If you don't want to change them, leave the defaults. You can always change them later if needed.
  • You can see the allowed resource ranges for your application in its template's data sheet (see the Application Catalog Reference Guide). You can also find them quickly by running app config mytemplate --boundary and look at the resources section (for memory and CPU only).
  • The CPU is defined in fractions of a CPU (for single appliance applications) or as a fixed-decimal (for multi-appliance applications). For example, cpu.dflt=0.10 is 10% of the CPU, cpu.dflt=1.00 is a full CPU, and cpu.dflt=0.25 is 25% CPU.

    The memory is defined in megabytes. For example, mem.dflt=128M defines 128 MB, and mem.dflt=1024M defines 1 GB (don't forget the M suffix).

  • The cpu.dflt and mem.dflt parameters define the actual amount of resources the application will get. The memory will be enforced exactly (minus a few megabytes for system records). The CPU is the minimum amount the application will get if it needs it, regardless of any other applications running on the same grid and the same physical server. The application may get more CPU, up to the full CPU of the server, whenever no other applications need CPU on that server.
  • The size of disk volumes for the application can be left to what the template defines, or changed to any size within the range defined by the application template. The list of disk volumes and their size ranges are defined in the application's data sheet (see the Sample Applications GuideApplication Catalog Reference Guide).
  • You can see the list of volumes of a template, and their current sizes, by running the vol list mytemplate --all command.

  To change the disk size of an application volume during provisioning, specify the volume name and its desired size (the syntax is volume.size=size). For example: For grid server, to define the size of the server disk to 10 GB, use the following:

  VPS_CENTOS50.boot.size=10G 
  

• Billing information and comment--There are three available fields:
  • .user1: We recommend using this setting for your customer's name (for whom the application is provisioned) or their account number
  • .user2: We recommend using this setting for your billing code (for example, rate plan)
  • .description: we recommend using this setting for a human-readable description of the purpose of the application instance

  Be aware of the following:

  • Billing information and comment settings are optional. You can configure them with any text/values that will be useful for your operations.
  • The description is displayed in the application list (app list --verbose) and in the browser.
  • The .user1 and .user2 fields are displayed by the app info myapp and app config myapp commands. These two fields, together with the application instance name, are also included in the metering information records that CA may provide you for all applications that run on the grid.