Install OpenShift Origin on Rackspace Cloud Server

You can install OpenShift Origin on Rackspace Cloud Server and become own Platform as a Service Provider. onMetal is great for the purpose. This guide is NOT for using OpenShift PaaS. We are working with the software which is used by RedHat to provide you the PaaS service. This is asked by a reader. Rackspace onMetal is Bare Metal. It is not easy to configure and run – most importantly, it is costly affair.

Install OpenShift Origin on Rackspace Cloud Server : Yes or No?

No, unless you are :

1. Just playing as an experiment and will delete the instance
2. Has larger company
3. Has some deployment plan

When RedHat OpenShift delivers the service, it is great as it is either free or cost lower. But, running for delegating domains under PaaS is so costly and demands manpower that it is better not to think about it.

DigitalOcean pays $200 for writing articles, for money, people will write things which will work by almost killing the system. DigitalOcean also advocates to use Swap / Virtual Memory. We do not use Swap on Rackspace, Amazon or SoftLayer. The reason to write this paragraph is for a reason – a reader has asked us, whether it is feasible to run OpenShift Origin to control own multiple WordPress websites with 2 GB server. Not possible in real. At minimum, you should use a onMetal device. Cost at minimum might be over $1200 per month plus cost of bandwidth. For such huge plan, SysOps or DevOps are better plans. It is honestly dangerous to work oneself. For local development, use your Mac.

If you want to resell Cloud Products (either from OpenShift or Rackspace) – officially ask them. If the devices start to crush, it will be a situation like Heroku (read Amazon).

Install OpenShift Origin on Rackspace Cloud Server : Steps

This is typical two server configuration. 128GB is the web server and 512GB is the Database Server. You probably should run RedHat Linux for the best support, but CentOS will work fine. Official guide is here for origin :

You do not need to do work yourself as there is OpenStack Heat Template for the purpose :

RedHat has good track record for Free/Open Source Software development. OpenShift is another such project which is intended for Enterprise grade usage. You can perform a search for mailing lists, there are bugs, if it was so easy to host own PaaS,