A host group is a collection of virtual machines or physical servers that are used to deploy application services across various environments, such as development, testing, pre-release, and production environments. In Alibaba Cloud DevOps Flow, these environments are referred to as host groups. This topic describes how to create and use host groups.
Create a host group
Go to the Flow page. In the Global Settings panel, click Host Group Management from the left-side navigation pane. On the page that appears, click Create a host Group. In the New Host Group dialog box, specify the Host Group name, Host GroupID, Host Group tags, Host group environment, and Owner parameters, and click OK to create a host group.
Connect a new host
Go to the Flow page. In the Global Settings panel, click Host Group Management from the left-side navigation pane. On the page that appears, click the name of the desired host group. Then, click Add a new host.
Prerequisites
Before you connect a host, make sure that the following prerequisites are met:
The host can access Alibaba Cloud DevOps to perform operations, such as runner installation and callback, pipeline deployment, and job distribution.
Alibaba Cloud DevOps host groups can connect to hosts on which the following operating systems run:
Linux/amd64 and Linux/arm64
Supported Linux distributions include CentOS 6 and later, Ubuntu 16.04 and later, and Alibaba Cloud Linux 2/3.
Recommended configuration: 4 CPU cores and 8 GB of memory and higher specifications.
Connection procedure
For instructions on how to connect a new host, see Connect a new host.
Host group management
Go to the Flow page. In the Global Settings panel, click Host Group Management from the left-side navigation pane. On the page that appears, click the name of the desired host group.
View the hosts of the group. The displayed information includes the following parameters:
Instance ID: the unique host ID that is automatically generated during the connection process.
IP: the host IP address that is automatically read.
Region: the region where the host is deployed. The information is automatically read.
Operating System/Architecture: the operating system and architecture of the host. The information is automatically read.
Occupancy: indicates whether the host belongs to other host groups in addition to the current host group.
Runner Status: the connection status of the runner on the host.
Installation progress: the installation progress of the runner.
Reinstall a runner: If the status of a runner is abnormal, you can copy the runner installation command to reinstall it.
Remove a node: If you remove a node, it is unbound from the current host group. The real machine is not deleted actually, and the runner is not uninstalled. To uninstall a runner, you can manually uninstall it based on routine instructions.
Configure a host group: Modify the information about the host group, such as the name and tag.
Delete a host group: If you delete a host group, nodes are automatically unbound from the current host group and metadata of the host group is deleted. The real machine is not deleted actually, and the runner is not uninstalled. To uninstall a runner, you can manually uninstall it based on routine instructions.
Use a host group
On the pipeline editing page, click Host Deployment in the pipeline. In the right-side panel that appears, select the created host group from the Machine Group drop-down list. When the pipeline is running, the host deployment task is delivered to each machine for execution.
