What are the prerequisites for using Terraform with OpenNebula?

You need Terraform installed on your host machine and access to an OpenNebula instance endpoint (default port 2633). The provider configuration requires the endpoint URL, username, and password to authenticate with your OpenNebula instance through the XMLRPC API.

How does Proton's automated VM deployment workflow function?

A developer creates a merge request in GitLab with Terragrunt configuration. After approval, GitLab fires a webhook to Atlantis, which runs a Terraform plan, checks NetBox for available resources, and applies the configuration via XMLRPC to OpenNebula. The entire process from merge to deployed VM takes under 30 seconds.

Automating VM Deployments with Terraform & OpenNebula

Name: Automating VM Deployments with Terraform & OpenNebula
Uploaded: 2026-03-20T19:28:58-04:00
Duration: 24 min 30 s
Description: TL;DR OpenNebula's Terraform provider enables Infrastructure as Code for managing virtualized environments through the XMLRPC API, supporting comprehensive resource types including hosts, VMs, networks, and storage Proton chose OpenNebula for efficien...

Open Nebula

03/20/2026

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TL;DR

OpenNebula's Terraform provider enables Infrastructure as Code for managing virtualized environments through the XMLRPC API, supporting comprehensive resource types including hosts, VMs, networks, and storage
Proton chose OpenNebula for efficient local storage management, automated deployments via Terraform, and cost-effective Apache 2.0 licensing, replacing their previous NAS-based infrastructure
Proton's automation stack combines Terraform, Terragrunt, Atlantis, GitLab, and NetBox to enable self-service VM provisioning that completes in under 30 seconds
The implementation allows developers to independently deploy VMs through GitLab merge requests with automated approval workflows and infrastructure-as-code validation

Infrastructure as Code with OpenNebula

This session explores how OpenNebula integrates with Terraform to enable Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices for managing virtualized environments. Victor Palma from OpenNebula introduces the OpenNebula Terraform provider, which uses the Go OpenNebula Cloud API library to communicate with OpenNebula's core through the XMLRPC API. The provider supports a comprehensive range of resources including hosts, datastores, VMs, templates, users, groups, marketplaces, networks, virtual routers, and cluster provisioning. Key use cases include environment parity across development, testing, and production stages, on-demand resource allocation for handling variable loads, automated testing with CI/CD integration, and rapid sandbox environment creation for experimentation. The session demonstrates practical configuration examples, including provider setup with endpoint credentials and resource definitions for KVM hosts and virtual machines with specific CPU, memory, and tagging configurations.

Proton's Production Implementation

Dan Cazacu, Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Proton, presents a real-world case study of automating VM deployments at scale. Proton selected OpenNebula for three primary reasons: efficient storage allocation using customizable storage drivers that enabled migration from NAS to local storage, automatic VM deployment capabilities through the Terraform provider, and cost-effective Apache 2.0 licensing. Their automation stack combines Terraform with Terragrunt for code reusability and concurrent deployments, Atlantis for automated pull request processing, GitLab for access control and self-service capabilities, and NetBox as a centralized source of truth for network infrastructure. The architecture enables developers to independently provision VMs through merge requests that trigger automated workflows, with the entire deployment process completing in under 30 seconds. Proton's implementation uses over 50 configurable variables in their in-house Terragrunt modules, allowing precise control over cluster selection, CPU models, datastores, image names, and host configurations while maintaining infrastructure as code principles across their multi-site deployment.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction
0:38 - What is Infrastructure as Code?
1:56 - IaC & DevOps Use Cases
3:54 - OpenNebula Terraform Provider Overview
4:56 - Setting up Terraform
6:04 - Deploying VMs with Terraform
7:07 - Supported Resources
8:40 - Proton Case Study Introduction
9:27 - Why Proton Chose OpenNebula
12:06 - Automation Tools Overview
16:13 - Architecture Overview
18:46 - VM Deployment Example
21:13 - CI/CD Workflow

Key Quotes

9:34 "We chose Open Nebula for a couple of reasons. One of it was being efficient storage allocation."
10:00 "We tried to lower costs by removing NAS storage and trying to use local storage for our deployment, and Open Nebula helped us a lot with that because it has a lot of drivers that allows you to customize your storage needs."
14:45 "It allowed developers to use a self-service platform. Basically, every developer can come in and do a merge request, get approval, and raise a VM by themselves in a couple of minutes."
18:32 "This entire operation takes, I think, less than 30 seconds. It takes more to actually run the code, to write the code, than actually to run it."
20:44 "The number of optional variables that we actually have in our infrastructure are over 50 variables."

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