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.
• Simulates the situation of process kill for processes running on the application, which degrades their performance.
• 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 engine 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'