Koji/ServerHowToProposed

Setting Up a Koji Build System

The Koji components may live on separate resources as long as all resources are able to communicate. This document will cover how to setup each service individually, however, all services may live on the same resource.

PreReqs of Naming
What you should decide When setting up a build environment there are multiple users and hostnames that will be used, that may vary depending on your environment. These are the bits you should have prepared.


 * Admin User: By default this will be referred to as admin-user-name.
 * Builders: By default these will be referred to as kojibuilderX, but can also be the hostname(s) of the boxes that will be setup as builders. TODO: can also or should ?

PreReqs of Knowledge

 * Basic understanding of SSL and authentication via certificates and/or Kerberos credentials
 * Basic knowledge about creating a database in PostgreSQL and importing a schema
 * Working with psql
 * Basic knowledge about Apache configuration
 * Basic knowledge about yum/createrepo/mock - else you'll not be able to debug problems!
 * Basic knowledge about using command line
 * Basic knowledge about RPM building

PreReqs of Packages
On the server (koji-hub/koji-web)
 * httpd
 * koji (required for schema file)
 * mod_ssl
 * postgresql-server

On the builder (koji-builder)
 * mock
 * setarch (for some archs you'll require a patched version)
 * rpm-build
 * createrepo

A note on filesystem space
Koji will consume copious amounts of disk space under the primary KojiDir directory (as set in the kojihub.conf file). However, as koji makes use of mock on the backend to actually create build roots and perform the builds in those build roots, it might come to a surprise to users that a running koji server will consume large amounts of disk space under /var/lib/mock as well. Users should either plan the disk and filesystem allocations for this, or plan to modify the default mock build directory in the kojid.conf file.

Koji Authentication Selection
Koji primarily supports Kerberos and SSL Certificate authentication. For basic koji command line access, plain user/pass combinations are possible. However, kojiweb does not support plain user/pass authentication. Furthermore, once either Kerberos or SSL Certificate authentication is enabled so that kojiweb will work, the plain user/pass method will stop working entirely. As such plain user/pass authentication is a stop gap measure at best unless you intend to never setup a fully functional kojiweb instance. We encourage skipping the plain user/pass method altogether and properly configuring either Kerberos or SSL Certification authentication from the start. Deciding on how to authenticate users colors all the other actions you take in setting up koji so it's a decision best made up front.

For Kerberos authentication, a working Kerberos environment (the user is assumed to either already have this or know how to set it up themselves, instructions for it are not included here) and the Kerberos credentials of the initial admin user will be necessary to bootstrap the user database.

For SSL authentication, SSL certificates for the xmlrpc server, for the various koji components, and one for the admin user will need to be setup (the user need not know how to create certificate chains already, we include the instructions for this below).

PostgreSQL Server
The PostgreSQL server must be installed and the database primed.

Configuration Files:


 * /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf
 * /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf

Install PostgreSQL: root@dbserver# yum install postgresql-server koji root@dbserver# service postgresql initdb root@dbserver# service postgresql start

Setup User Accounts: root@dbserver# useradd koji root@dbserver# passwd -d koji

Setup PostgreSQL and populate schema:

root@dbserver# su - postgres postgres@dbserver$ createuser koji Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) n Shall the new role be allowed to create databases? (y/n) n Shall the new role be allowed to create more new roles? (y/n) n postgres@dbserver$ createdb -O koji koji # that is a capital 'o' postgres@dbserver$ exit root@dbserver# su - koji koji@dbserver$ psql koji koji < /usr/share/doc/koji*/docs/schema.sql koji@dbserver$ exit

Authorize Koji-web and Koji-hub resources: In this example, Koji-web and Koji-hub are running on localhost.

/var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf: These settings need to be valid and inline with other services configurations. Please note, the first matching auth line is used so this line must be above any other potential matches. Add: host   koji        koji        127.0.0.1/32          trust
 * 1) Authorization for local koji user to koji database

Make auth changes live: root@dbserver# su - postgres postgres@dbserver$ pg_ctl reload postgres@dbserver$ exit

Bootstrapping the initial koji admin user into the PostgreSQL database: The initial admin user must be manually added to the user database using sql commands. Once they are added and given admin privilege, they may add additional users and change privileges of those users via the koji command line tool's administrative commands. However, if you choose to use the simple user/pass method of authentication, then any password setting/changing must be done manually via sql commands as there is no password manipulation support exposed through the koji tools.

Add needed information to the koji database (user/pass authentication):

koji@dbserver$ psql koji=> insert into users (name, password, status, usertype) values ('admin-user-name', 'admin-password-in-plain-text', 0, 0); koji=> insert into user_perms (user_id, perm_id) values (, 1);

Note: you can get the ID of the new user by running the query: koji=> select * from users;

The process is very similar for Kerberos authentication except you would replace the first insert above with this:

koji=> insert into users (name, krb_principal, status, usertype) values ('admin-user-name', 'admin@EXAMPLE.COM', 0, 0);

For SSL Certificate authentication, there is no need for either a password or a Kerberos principal, so this will suffice:

koji=> insert into users (name, status, usertype) values ('admin-user-name', 0, 0);

You can't actually log in and perform any actions until kojihub is up and running in your web server. In order to get to that point you still need to complete the authentication setup and the kojihub configuration. If you wish to access koji via a web browser, you will also need to get kojiweb up and running.

Setting up SSL Certificates for authentication
Certificate generation


 * Copy-and-paste the ssl.cnf listed here, save it in /etc/pki/koji/ssl.cnf, and then *edit* it! (0.organizationName_default should be modified at a minimum)

ssl.cnf HOME                   =. RANDFILE               = .rand

[ca] default_ca             = ca_default

[ca_default] dir                    =. certs                  = $dir/certs crl_dir                = $dir/crl database               = $dir/index.txt new_certs_dir          = $dir/newcerts certificate            = $dir/%s_ca_cert.pem private_key            = $dir/private/%s_ca_key.pem serial                 = $dir/serial crl                    = $dir/crl.pem x509_extensions        = usr_cert name_opt               = ca_default cert_opt               = ca_default default_days           = 3650 default_crl_days       = 30 default_md             = md5 preserve               = no policy                  = policy_match

[policy_match] countryName            = match stateOrProvinceName    = match organizationName       = match organizationalUnitName = optional commonName             = supplied emailAddress           = optional

[req] default_bits           = 1024 default_keyfile        = privkey.pem distinguished_name     = req_distinguished_name attributes             = req_attributes x509_extensions        = v3_ca # The extentions to add to the self signed cert string_mask            = MASK:0x2002

[req_distinguished_name] countryName                    = Country Name (2 letter code) countryName_default            = AT countryName_min                 = 2 countryName_max                = 2 stateOrProvinceName            = State or Province Name (full name) stateOrProvinceName_default    = Vienna localityName                   = Locality Name (eg, city) localityName_default           = Vienna 0.organizationName             = Organization Name (eg, company) 0.organizationName_default     = My company organizationalUnitName         = Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) commonName                     = Common Name (eg, your name or your server\'s hostname) commonName_max                 = 64 emailAddress                   = Email Address emailAddress_max               = 64

[req_attributes] challengePassword              = A challenge password challengePassword_min          = 4 challengePassword_max          = 20 unstructuredName               = An optional company name

[usr_cert] basicConstraints               = CA:FALSE nsComment                      = "OpenSSL Generated Certificate" subjectKeyIdentifier           = hash authorityKeyIdentifier         = keyid,issuer:always

[v3_ca] subjectKeyIdentifier           = hash authorityKeyIdentifier         = keyid:always,issuer:always basicConstraints               = CA:true

Generate CA The CA is the Certificate Authority. It's the key/cert pair used to sign all the other certificate requests. When configuring the various koji components, both the client CA and the server CA will be the CA generated here.

cd /etc/pki/koji/ mkdir {certs,private} touch index.txt echo 01 > serial caname=koji openssl genrsa -out private/${caname}_ca_cert.key 2048 openssl req -config ssl.cnf -new -x509 -days 3650 -key private/${caname}_ca_cert.key \ -out ${caname}_ca_cert.crt -extensions v3_ca

The last command above will ask you to confirm a number of items about the certificate you are generating. Presumably you already edited sane defaults for the country, state/province, locale, and organization into the ssl.cnf file and you only needed to hit enter. It's the organizational unit and the common name that we will be changing in the various certs we create. For the CA itself, these fields don't have a hard requirement.

Generate the koji component certificates and the admin certificate

Each koji component needs its own certificate to identify it. Two of the certificates (kojihub and kojiweb) are used as server side certificates that authenticate the server to the client. For this reason, you want the common name on both of those certs to be the fully qualified domain name of the web server they are running on so that clients don't complain about the common name and the server not being the same. For the other certificates (kojira, kojid, the initial admin account, and all user certificates), the cert is used to authenticate the client to the server and the common name in the cert is the login name. Therefore the common name must be same as the user name in the koji database. Note: when using koji add-host to add a build machine into the koji database, it creates a user account for that host even though the user account doesn't appear in the user list. The user account created during an add-host operation must match the common name of the certificate used by the kojid program on that host. Note2: when creating the kojiweb certificate, you'll want to remember exactly what values you enter for each field as you'll have to regurgitate those into the /etc/httpd/conf.d/kojihub.conf file as the ProxyDNs entry.

for user in kojira kojiweb.example.com kojihub.example.com kojibuilder{1..5}.example.com admin-user-name; do openssl genrsa -out certs/${user}.key 2048 openssl req -config ssl.cnf -new -nodes -out certs/${user}.csr -key certs/${user}.key openssl ca -config ssl.cnf -keyfile private/${caname}_ca_cert.key -cert ${caname}_ca_cert.crt \ -out certs/${user}.crt -outdir certs -infiles certs/${user}.csr cat certs/${user}.crt certs/${user}.key > ${user}.pem done

 Generate a PKCS12 user certificate (for web browser) This is only required for user certificates. openssl pkcs12 -export -inkey certs/${user}.key -in certs/${user}.crt -CAfile ${caname}_ca_cert.crt \ -out certs/${user}_browser_cert.p12

When generating certs for a user, the user will need the ${user}.pem, the ${caname}_ca_cert.crt, and the ${user}_browser_cert.p12 files. The ${user}.pem file would normally be installed as ~/.fedora.cert, the ${caname}_ca_cert.crt file would be installed as both ~/.fedora-upload-ca.cert and ~/.fedora-server-ca.cert, and the user would import the ${user}_brower_cert.p12 into their web browser as a personal certificate.

Copy certificates into ~/.koji for kojiadmin

You're going to want to be able to send admin commands to the kojihub. In order to do so, you'll need to use the newly created certificates to authenticate with the hub. Copy the certificates for the koji CA and admin-user-name to ~admin-user-name/.koji: admin-user-name@kojihub$ mkdir ~/.koji admin-user-name@kojihub$ cp /etc/pki/koji/admin-user-name.pem ~/.koji/client.crt admin-user-name@kojihub$ cp /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt ~/.koji/clientca.crt admin-user-name@kojihub$ cp /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt ~/.koji/serverca.crt

Note: See /etc/koji.conf for the current system wide koji client configuration. Copy /etc/koji.conf to ~/.koji/config if you wish to change the config on a per user basis.

Setting up Kerberos for authentication
Oops, nothing here yet.

Koji Hub
Koji-hub is the center of all Koji operations. It is an XML-RPC server running under mod_python in Apache. koji-hub is passive in that it only receives XML-RPC calls and relies upon the build daemons and other components to initiate communication. Koji-hub is the only component that has direct access to the database and is one of the two components that have write access to the file system.

Configuration Files:


 * /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
 * /etc/httpd/conf.d/kojihub.conf
 * /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf (when using ssl auth)

Install koji-hub: root@kojihub# yum install koji-hub httpd mod_ssl mod_python

Required Configuration
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf: The apache web server has two places that it sets maximum requests a server will handle before the server restarts. The xmlrpc interface in kojihub is a python application, and mod_python can sometimes grow outrageously large when it doesn't reap memory often enough. As a result, if you let apache handle infinite requests without respawning a new server, you can take a box down under heavy load. It's therefore strongly suggested that you set both instances of MaxRequestsPerChild in httpd.conf to something reasonable (at 100 the httpd processes will grow to about 75MB resident set size before respawning).

 ... MaxRequestsPerChild 100   ... MaxRequestsPerChild 100 

/etc/httpd/conf.d/kojihub.conf: These settings need to be valid and inline with other services configurations. PythonOption DBName koji PythonOption DBUser koji PythonOption DBHost dbserver.example.com PythonOption KojiDir /mnt/koji PythonOption LoginCreatesUser On PythonOption KojiWebURL http://kojiweb.example.com/koji

Optional Configuration
/etc/httpd/conf.d/kojihub.conf: If using Kerberos, these settings need to be valid and inline with other services configurations. PythonOption AuthPrincipal kojihub@EXAMPLE.COM PythonOption AuthKeytab /etc/koji.keytab PythonOption ProxyPrincipals kojihub@EXAMPLE.COM PythonOption HostPrincipalFormat compile/%s@EXAMPLE.COM

/etc/httpd/conf.d/kojihub.conf: ''If using SSL auth, these settings need to be valid and inline with other services configurations. ProxyDNs should be set to the DN of the kojiweb certificate. If you left off something optional, leave it off here (such as emailAddress).'' PythonOption DNUsernameComponent CN PythonOption ProxyDNs "/C=US/ST=Massachusetts/O=Example Org/OU=Example User/CN=example/emailAddress=example@example.com"

 SSLOptions +StdEnvVars 

/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf: Add the needed SSL options for apache. SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/koji/certs/kojihub.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/koji/certs/kojihub.key SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt SSLCACertificateFile /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt SSLVerifyClient require SSLVerifyDepth 10

SELinux Configuration
If running in Enforcing mode, you will need to allow apache to connect to the postgreSQL server.

root@localhost# setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_db 1

Koji filesystem skeleton
Above in the kojihub.conf file we set KojiDir to /mnt/koji. For certain reasons, if you change this, you should make a symlink from /mnt/koji to the new location (note: this is a bug and should be fixed eventually). However, before other parts of koji will operate properly, we need to create a skeleton filesystem structure for koji as well as make the file area owned by apache so that the xmlrpc interface can write to it as needed. Once this directory structure is built it must be made available to all systems in the build environment. NFS is the easiest and will be used in this example.

cd /mnt mkdir koji cd koji mkdir {packages,repos,work,scratch} chown apache.apache * echo "/mnt/koji *(ro)" >> /etc/exports
 * 1) For separate koji-builders:
 * 1) This last command requires you restart nfs or run exportfs

At this point, you can now restart the web server and you should have at least minimal operation. The admin user should be able to connect via the command line client, add new users, etc. It's possible at this time to undertake initial administrative steps such as adding users and hosts to the koji database. For example, the kojira component needs repo privileges, but if you just let the account get auto created the first time you run kojira, it won't have that privilege, so you could pre-create the account and grant it the repo privilege now.

admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji add-user kojira admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji grant-permission repo kojira

For similar technical reasons, you need to add-host each build host prior to starting kojid on that host the first time and could also do that now.

admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji add-host kojibuilder1 x86_64 i386 admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji add-host kojibuilder2 ppc ppc64 admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji add-host kojibuilder3 ia64

Koji Web - Interface for the Masses
Koji-web is a set of scripts that run in mod_python and use the Cheetah templating engine to provide an web interface to Koji. koji-web exposes a lot of information and also provides a means for certain operations, such as cancelling builds.

Configuration Files:


 * /etc/httpd/conf.d/kojiweb.conf
 * /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

Install Koji-Web: root@kojiweb# yum install koji-web httpd mod_python mod_ssl

Required Configuration
/etc/httpd/conf.d/kojiweb.conf: PythonOption KojiHubURL http://kojihub.example.com/kojihub PythonOption KojiWebURL http://www.example.com/koji PythonOption KojiPackagesURL http://server.example.com/mnt/koji/packages #TODO what should this be?

PythonOption WebCert /etc/pki/koji/kojiweb.pem PythonOption ClientCA /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt PythonOption KojiHubCA /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt

PythonOption LoginTimeout 72 PythonOption Secret CHANGE_ME

Optional Configuration
/etc/httpd/conf.d/kojiweb.conf: If using Kerberos, these settings need to be valid and inline with other services configurations.  AuthType Kerberos AuthName "Koji Web UI" KrbMethodNegotiate on KrbMethodK5Passwd off KrbServiceName HTTP KrbAuthRealm EXAMPLE.COM Krb5Keytab /etc/httpd.keytab KrbSaveCredentials off Require valid-user ErrorDocument 401 /koji-static/errors/unauthorized.html 

/etc/httpd/conf.d/kojiweb.conf: If using SSL auth, these settings need to be valid and inline with other services configurations.  SSLOptions +StdEnvVars 

/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf: Add the needed SSL options for apache. SSLVerifyClient require SSLVerifyDepth 10

Web interface now operational
At this point you should be able to point your web browser at the kojiweb URL and be presented with the koji interface. Many operations should work in read only mode at this point, and any configured users should be able to log in.

Koji Daemon - Builder
Kojid is the build daemon that runs on each of the build machines. Its primary responsibility is polling for incoming build requests and handling them accordingly. Koji also has support for tasks other than building. Creating install images is one example. kojid is responsible for handling these tasks as well. kojid uses mock for building. It also creates a fresh buildroot for every build. kojid is written in Python and communicates with koji-hub via XML-RPC.

Add the host entry for the koji builder to the database
Make sure you do this before you start kojid for the first time, or you'll need to manually remove entries from the sessions and users table before it can be run successfully. admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji add-host kojibuilder1.example.com i386 x86_64

Add the host to the createrepo channel
Channels are a way to control which builders process which tasks. By default hosts are added to the default channel. At least some build hosts also needs to be added to the createrepo channel so there will be someone to process repo creation tasks initiated by kojira.

admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji add-host-to-channel kojibuilder1.example.com createrepo

A note on capacity
The default capacity of a host added to the host database is 2. This means that once the load average on that machine exceeds 2, kojid will not accept any additional tasks. This is separate from the maxjobs item in the configuration file. Before kojid will accept a job, it must pass both the test to ensure the load average is below capacity and that the current number of jobs it is already processing is less than maxjobs. However, in today's modern age of quad core and higher CPUs, a load average of 2 is generally insufficient to fully utilize hardware. As there is not an option to set the capacity of the host via the command line tools, it must be done manually in psql.

koji@dbserver$ psql koji koji=# select (id, name, capacity) from host; row

(1,kojibuilder1.example.com,2) (2,kojibuilder2.example.com,2) (2 rows)

koji=# update host set capacity = 16 where id = 1; UPDATE 1 koji=#

Builder Setup
Configuration Files:


 * /etc/kojid/kojid.conf - Koji Daemon Configuration
 * /etc/sysconfig/kojid - Koji Daemon Switches

Install kojid: root@kojibuilderX# yum install koji-builder

Required Configuration
/etc/kojid/kojid.conf: This needs to point at your koji-hub. server=http://kojihub.example.com/kojihub
 * The URL for the xmlrpc server

user = kojibuilderX.example.com This item may be changed, but may not be the same as KojiDir on the kojihub.conf file (although it can be something under KojiDir, just not the same as KojiDir) workdir=/tmp/koji
 * the username has to be the same as what you used with add-host
 * in this example follow as below
 * The directory root for temporary storage

Optional Configuration
/etc/kojid/kojid.conf: If using SSL, these settings need to be valid. cert = /etc/kojid/kojid.pem
 * client certificate
 * This should reference the builder certificate we created above, for
 * kojibuilder1.example.com

ca = /etc/kojid/koji_ca_cert.crt
 * certificate of the CA that issued the client certificate

serverca = /etc/kojid/koji_ca_cert.crt
 * certificate of the CA that issued the HTTP server certificate

Start Kojid
root@kojibuilderX# /sbin/service kojid start Check /var/log/kojid.log to verify that kojid has started successfully.

Kojira - Yum repository creation and maintenance
Configuration Files:


 * /etc/kojira/kojira.conf - Kojira Daemon Configuration
 * /etc/sysconfig/kojira - Kojira Daemon Switches

Install kojira root@localhost# yum install koji-utils #TODO does the box matter?

Required Configuration
/etc/kojira/kojira.conf: This needs to point at your koji-hub. server=http://kojihub.example.com/kojihub
 * The URL for the xmlrpc server

Optional Configuration
/etc/kojira/kojira.conf: If using SSL, these settings need to be valid. cert = /etc/pki/koji/kojira.pem
 * client certificate
 * This should reference the kojira certificate we created above

ca = /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt
 * certificate of the CA that issued the client certificate

serverca = /etc/pki/koji/koji_ca_cert.crt
 * certificate of the CA that issued the HTTP server certificate

/etc/sysconfig/kojira: ''The local user kojira runs as needs to be able to read and write to /mnt/koji/repos/. If the volume that directory resides on is root-squashed or otherwise unmodifiable by root, you can set RUNAS= to a user that has the required privileges.''

Add the user entry for the kojira user
If you did not already do so above, create the kojira user, and grant it the repo permission. admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji add-user kojira admin-user-name@kojihub$ koji grant-permission repo kojira

Start Kojira
root@localhost# /sbin/service kojira start #TODO hostname? Check /var/log/kojira/kojira.log to verify that kojira has started successfully.

Bootstrapping the Koji build environment
For instructions on importing packages and preparing Koji to run builds, see  ServerBootstrap.

Minutia and Miscellany
Please see KojiMisc for additional details and notes about operating a koji server.