Chapter 5. Configuring Basic Overcloud Requirements with the CLI Tools

The director requires a node definition template, which you create manually. This file (instackenv.json) uses the JSON format file, and contains the hardware and power management details for your nodes. For example, a template for registering two nodes might look like this:

{
    "nodes":[
        {
            "mac":[
                "bb:bb:bb:bb:bb:bb"
            ],
            "name":"node01",
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"pxe_ipmitool",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.205"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "cc:cc:cc:cc:cc:cc"
            ],
            "name":"node02",
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"pxe_ipmitool",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.206"
        }
    ]
}

This template uses the following attributes:

After creating the template, run the following command to verify the formatting and syntax:

$ openstack baremetal instackenv validate --file instackenv.json

Save the file to the stack user’s home directory (/home/stack/instackenv.json), then run the following command to import the template to the director:

$ openstack overcloud node import ~/instackenv.json

This imports the template and registers each node from the template into the director.

After the node registration and configuration completes, wiew a list of these nodes in the CLI:

$ openstack baremetal node list

The director can run an introspection process on each node. This process causes each node to boot an introspection agent over PXE. This agent collects hardware data from the node and sends it back to the director. The director then stores this introspection data in the OpenStack Object Storage (swift) service running on the director. The director uses hardware information for various purposes such as profile tagging, benchmarking, and manual root disk assignment.

Set all nodes to a managed state:

$ for node in $(openstack baremetal node list -c UUID -f value) ; do openstack baremetal node manage $node ; done

Run the following command to inspect the hardware attributes of each node:

$ openstack overcloud node introspect --all-manageable --provide

Monitor the progress of the introspection using the following command in a separate terminal window:

$ sudo journalctl -l -u openstack-ironic-inspector -u openstack-ironic-inspector-dnsmasq -u openstack-ironic-conductor -f

Alternatively, perform a single introspection on each node individually. Set the node to management mode, perform the introspection, then move the node out of management mode:

$ openstack baremetal node manage [NODE UUID]
$ openstack overcloud node introspect [NODE UUID] --provide

After registering and inspecting the hardware of each node, you will tag them into specific profiles. These profile tags match your nodes to flavors, and in turn the flavors are assigned to a deployment role. The following example shows the relationship across roles, flavors, profiles, and nodes for Controller nodes:

Default profile flavors compute, control, swift-storage, ceph-storage, and block-storage are created during undercloud installation and are usable without modification in most environments.

To tag a node into a specific profile, add a profile option to the properties/capabilities parameter for each node. For example, to tag your nodes to use Controller and Compute profiles respectively, use the following commands:

$ openstack baremetal node set --property capabilities='profile:compute,boot_option:local' 58c3d07e-24f2-48a7-bbb6-6843f0e8ee13
$ openstack baremetal node set --property capabilities='profile:control,boot_option:local' 1a4e30da-b6dc-499d-ba87-0bd8a3819bc0

The addition of the profile:compute and profile:control options tag the two nodes into each respective profiles.

These commands also set the boot_option:local parameter, which defines how each node boots. Depending on your hardware, you might also need to add the boot_mode parameter to uefi so that nodes boot using UEFI instead of the default BIOS mode. For more information, see Section D.2, “UEFI Boot Mode”.

After completing node tagging, check the assigned profiles or possible profiles:

$ openstack overcloud profiles list

$ openstack flavor create --id auto --ram 4096 --disk 40 --vcpus 1 networker
$ openstack flavor set --property "cpu_arch"="x86_64" --property "capabilities:boot_option"="local" --property "capabilities:profile"="networker" networker

Assign nodes with this new profile:

$ openstack baremetal node set --property capabilities='profile:networker,boot_option:local' dad05b82-0c74-40bf-9d12-193184bfc72d

Some nodes might use multiple disks. This means the director needs to identify the disk to use for the root disk during provisioning. There are several properties you can use to help the director identify the root disk:

This example shows how to use a disk’s serial number to specify the root disk to deploy the overcloud image.

Check the disk information from each node’s hardware introspection. The following command displays the disk information from a node:

$ openstack baremetal introspection data save 1a4e30da-b6dc-499d-ba87-0bd8a3819bc0 | jq ".inventory.disks"

For example, the data for one node might show three disks:

[
  {
    "size": 299439751168,
    "rotational": true,
    "vendor": "DELL",
    "name": "/dev/sda",
    "wwn_vendor_extension": "0x1ea4dcc412a9632b",
    "wwn_with_extension": "0x61866da04f3807001ea4dcc412a9632b",
    "model": "PERC H330 Mini",
    "wwn": "0x61866da04f380700",
    "serial": "61866da04f3807001ea4dcc412a9632b"
  }
  {
    "size": 299439751168,
    "rotational": true,
    "vendor": "DELL",
    "name": "/dev/sdb",
    "wwn_vendor_extension": "0x1ea4e13c12e36ad6",
    "wwn_with_extension": "0x61866da04f380d001ea4e13c12e36ad6",
    "model": "PERC H330 Mini",
    "wwn": "0x61866da04f380d00",
    "serial": "61866da04f380d001ea4e13c12e36ad6"
  }
  {
    "size": 299439751168,
    "rotational": true,
    "vendor": "DELL",
    "name": "/dev/sdc",
    "wwn_vendor_extension": "0x1ea4e31e121cfb45",
    "wwn_with_extension": "0x61866da04f37fc001ea4e31e121cfb45",
    "model": "PERC H330 Mini",
    "wwn": "0x61866da04f37fc00",
    "serial": "61866da04f37fc001ea4e31e121cfb45"
  }
]

For this example, set the root device to disk 2, which has 61866da04f380d001ea4e13c12e36ad6 as the serial number. This requires a change to the root_device parameter for the node definition:

$ openstack baremetal node set --property root_device='{"serial": "61866da04f380d001ea4e13c12e36ad6"}' 1a4e30da-b6dc-499d-ba87-0bd8a3819bc0

This helps the director identify the specific disk to use as the root disk. When we initiate our overcloud creation, the director provisions this node and writes the overcloud image to this disk.

The undercloud includes a set of Heat templates that acts as a plan for your overcloud creation. You can customize advanced features for your overcloud using the Advanced Overcloud Customization guide.

Otherwise, you can continue and deploy a basic overcloud. See Section 5.6, “Creating the Overcloud with the CLI Tools” for more information.

The final stage in creating your OpenStack environment is to run the openstack overcloud deploy command to create it. Before running this command, you should familiarize yourself with key options and how to include custom environment files. The following section discusses the openstack overcloud deploy command and the options associated with it.

Some command line parameters are outdated or deprecated in favor of using Heat template parameters, which you include in the parameter_defaults section on an environment file. The following table maps deprecated parameters to their Heat Template equivalents.

These parameters are scheduled for removal in a future version of Red Hat OpenStack Platform.

$ openstack help overcloud deploy

The -e includes an environment file to customize your overcloud. You can include as many environment files as necessary. However, the order of the environment files is important as the parameters and resources defined in subsequent environment files take precedence. Use the following list as an example of the environment file order:

Any environment files added to the overcloud using the -e option become part of your overcloud’s stack definition. The following command is an example of how to start the overcloud creation with custom environment files included:

$ openstack overcloud deploy --templates \
  -e ~/templates/node-info.yaml\
  -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/network-isolation.yaml \
  -e ~/templates/network-environment.yaml \
  -e ~/templates/storage-environment.yaml \
  --ntp-server pool.ntp.org \

This command contains the following additional options:

The director requires these environment files for re-deployment and post-deployment functions in Chapter 7, Performing Tasks after Overcloud Creation. Failure to include these files can result in damage to your overcloud.

If you aim to later modify the overcloud configuration, you should:

Do not edit the overcloud configuration directly as such manual configuration gets overridden by the director’s configuration when updating the overcloud stack with the director.

$ ls -1 ~/templates
00-node-info.yaml
10-network-isolation.yaml
20-network-environment.yaml
30-storage-environment.yaml
40-rhel-registration.yaml

Run the following deployment command to include the directory:

$ openstack overcloud deploy --templates --environment-directory ~/templates

For example, an answers file might contain the following:

templates: /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/
environments:
  - ~/templates/00-node-info.yaml
  - ~/templates/10-network-isolation.yaml
  - ~/templates/20-network-environment.yaml
  - ~/templates/30-storage-environment.yaml
  - ~/templates/40-rhel-registration.yaml

Run the following deployment command to include the answers file:

$ openstack overcloud deploy --answers-file ~/answers.yaml

As an alternative to using the openstack overcloud deploy command, the director can also manage imported plans.

To create a new plan, run the following command as the stack user:

$ openstack overcloud plan create --templates /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates my-overcloud

This creates a plan from the core Heat template collection in /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates. The director names the plan based on your input. In this example, it is my-overcloud. The director uses this name as a label for the object storage container, the workflow environment, and overcloud stack names.

Add parameters from environment files using the following command:

$ openstack overcloud parameters set my-overcloud ~/templates/my-environment.yaml

Deploy your plans using the following command:

$ openstack overcloud plan deploy my-overcloud

Delete existing plans using the following command:

$ openstack overcloud plan delete my-overcloud

Before executing an overcloud creation or stack update, validate your Heat templates and environment files for any errors.

$ openstack overcloud plan create --templates /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates overcloud-validation
$ mkdir ~/overcloud-validation
$ cd ~/overcloud-validation
$ swift download overcloud-validation

Use the rendered template in ~/overcloud-validation for the validation tests that follow.

$ openstack orchestration template validate --show-nested --template ~/overcloud-validation/overcloud.yaml -e ~/overcloud-validation/overcloud-resource-registry-puppet.yaml -e [ENVIRONMENT FILE] -e [ENVIRONMENT FILE]

This command identifies any syntax errors in the template. If the template syntax validates successfully, the output shows a preview of the resulting overcloud template.

The overcloud creation process begins and the director provisions your nodes. This process takes some time to complete. To view the status of the overcloud creation, open a separate terminal as the stack user and run:

$ source ~/stackrc
$ openstack stack list --nested

The openstack stack list --nested command shows the current stage of the overcloud creation.

The director generates a script to configure and help authenticate interactions with your overcloud from the director host. The director saves this file, overcloudrc, in your stack user’s home director. Run the following command to use this file:

$ source ~/overcloudrc

This loads the necessary environment variables to interact with your overcloud from the director host’s CLI. To return to interacting with the director’s host, run the following command:

$ source ~/stackrc

Each node in the overcloud also contains a user called heat-admin. The stack user has SSH access to this user on each node. To access a node over SSH, find the IP address of the desired node:

$ nova list

Then connect to the node using the heat-admin user and the node’s IP address:

$ ssh heat-admin@192.0.2.23

This concludes the creation of the overcloud using the command line tools. For post-creation functions, see Chapter 7, Performing Tasks after Overcloud Creation.