VMware Windows Process Kill

VMware Windows Process Kill simulates a process kill scenario on Windows OS based VMware VM.

• It checks the performance of the application running on the VMware Windows VMs under process kill conditions.

Use cases

• VMware Windows Process Kill determines the resilience of an application when a process kill scenario is simulated on a VMware Windows virtual machine.
• VMware Windows Process Kill simulates the situation of process kill for processes running on the application, which degrades their performance.
• It also helps verify the application's ability to handle process failures and its failover mechanisms.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes > 1.16 is required to execute this fault.

• Execution plane should be connected to vCenter and host vCenter on port 443.

• VMware tool should be installed on the target VM with remote execution enabled.

• Adequate vCenter permissions should be provided to access the hosts and the VMs.

• The VM should be in a healthy state before and after injecting chaos.

• Kubernetes secret has to be created that has the Vcenter credentials in the CHAOS_NAMESPACE.

• Run the fault with a user possessing admin rights, preferably the built-in Administrator, to guarantee permissions for memory stress testing. See how to enable the built-in Administrator in Windows.

• VM credentials can be passed as secrets or as a chaos enginer environment variable.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: vcenter-secret
  namespace: litmus
type: Opaque
stringData:
    VCENTERSERVER: XXXXXXXXXXX
    VCENTERUSER: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
    VCENTERPASS: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mandatory tunables

Tunable	Description	Notes
VM_NAME	Name of the target VM.	For example, win-vm-1
VM_USER_NAME	Username of the target VM.	For example, vm-user.
VM_PASSWORD	User password for the target VM.	For example, 1234. Note: You can take the password from secret as well.

Optional tunables

Tunable	Description	Notes
PROCESS_IDS	Comma-separated list of process IDs to kill.	For example, 1234,5678. For more information, go to process IDs.
FORCE	If set to "enable", the process will be forcefully killed.	Default: disable. For more information, go to force.
PROCESS_NAMES	Comma separated list of process names to kill.	For example, chrome,firefox. For more information, go to process names.
TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION	Duration that you specify, through which chaos is injected into the target resource (in seconds).	Default: 60 s. For more information, go to duration of the chaos.
RAMP_TIME	Period to wait before and after injecting chaos (in seconds).	Default: 0 s. For more information, go to ramp time.
SEQUENCE	Sequence of chaos execution for multiple instances.	Default: parallel. Supports serial and parallel sequence. For more information, go to sequence of chaos execution.
DEFAULT_HEALTH_CHECK	Determines if you wish to run the default health check which is present inside the fault.	Default: 'true'. For more information, go to default health check.

Process IDs

The PROCESS_IDS environment variable specifies the process IDs to kill on the target Windows VM.

Use the following example to specify process IDs:

apiVersion: litmuschaos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ChaosEngine
metadata:
  name: engine-nginx
spec:
  engineState: "active"
  chaosServiceAccount: litmus-admin
  experiments:
  - name: vmware-windows-process-kill
    spec:
      components:
        env:
        # Name of the VM
        - name: VM_NAME
          value: 'test-vm-01'
       # Process IDs to kill
        - name: PROCESS_IDS 
          value: '1234,5678'

Force

The FORCE environment variable specifies whether the process should be forcefully killed.

Use the following example to enable forceful killing:

apiVersion: litmuschaos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ChaosEngine
metadata:
  name: engine-nginx
spec:
  engineState: "active"
  chaosServiceAccount: litmus-admin
  experiments:
  - name: vmware-windows-process-kill
    spec:
      components:
        env:
        # Name of the VM
        - name: VM_NAME
          value: 'test-vm-01'
       # Enable forceful killing
        - name: FORCE 
          value: 'enable'

Process names

The PROCESS_NAMES environment variable specifies the process names to kill on the target Windows VM.

Use the following example to specify process names:

apiVersion: litmuschaos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ChaosEngine
metadata:
  name: engine-nginx
spec:
  engineState: "active"
  chaosServiceAccount: litmus-admin
  experiments:
  - name: vmware-windows-process-kill
    spec:
      components:
        env:
        # Name of the VM
        - name: VM_NAME
          value: 'test-vm-01'
       # Process names to kill
        - name: PROCESS_NAMES 
          value: 'chrome,firefox'