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Chapter 2. Preparing overcloud nodes

All nodes in this scenario are bare metal systems using IPMI for power management. These nodes do not require an operating system because the director copies a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 image to each node; in addition, the Ceph Storage services on the nodes described here are containerized. The director communicates to each node through the Provisioning network during the introspection and provisioning processes. All nodes connect to this network through the native VLAN.

2.1. Cleaning Ceph Storage node disks

The Ceph Storage OSDs and journal partitions require GPT disk labels. This means the additional disks on Ceph Storage require conversion to GPT before installing the Ceph OSD services. For this to happen, all metadata must be deleted from the disks; this will allow the director to set GPT labels on them.

You can set the director to delete all disk metadata by default by adding the following setting to your /home/stack/undercloud.conf file: 

clean_nodes=true

With this option, the Bare Metal Provisioning service will run an additional step to boot the nodes and clean the disks each time the node is set to available. This adds an additional power cycle after the first introspection and before each deployment. The Bare Metal Provisioning service uses wipefs --force --all to perform the clean.

After setting this option, run the openstack undercloud install command to execute this configuration change.

Warning

The wipefs --force --all will delete all data and metadata on the disk, but does not perform a secure erase. A secure erase takes much longer.

2.2. Registering nodes

A node definition template (instackenv.json) is a JSON format file and contains the hardware and power management details for registering nodes. For example: 

{
    "nodes":[
        {
            "mac":[
                "b1:b1:b1:b1:b1:b1"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.205"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "b2:b2:b2:b2:b2:b2"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.206"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "b3:b3:b3:b3:b3:b3"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.207"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "c1:c1:c1:c1:c1:c1"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.208"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "c2:c2:c2:c2:c2:c2"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.209"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "c3:c3:c3:c3:c3:c3"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.210"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "d1:d1:d1:d1:d1:d1"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.211"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "d2:d2:d2:d2:d2:d2"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.212"
        },
        {
            "mac":[
                "d3:d3:d3:d3:d3:d3"
            ],
            "cpu":"4",
            "memory":"6144",
            "disk":"40",
            "arch":"x86_64",
            "pm_type":"ipmi",
            "pm_user":"admin",
            "pm_password":"p@55w0rd!",
            "pm_addr":"192.0.2.213"
        }
    ]
}

After creating the template, save the file to the stack user’s home directory (/home/stack/instackenv.json). Initialize the stack user, then import instackenv.json into the director: 

$ source ~/stackrc
$ openstack overcloud node import ~/instackenv.json

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

Assign the kernel and ramdisk images to each node: 

$ openstack overcloud node configure <node>

The nodes are now registered and configured in the director.

2.3. Pre-deployment validations for Ceph Storage

To help avoid overcloud deployment failures, validate that the required packages exist on your servers.

2.3.1. Verifying the ceph-ansible package version

The undercloud contains Ansible-based validations that you can run to identify potential problems before you deploy the overcloud. These validations can help you avoid overcloud deployment failures by identifying common problems before they happen.

Procedure

Verify that the correction version of the ceph-ansible package is installed: 

$ ansible-playbook -i /usr/bin/tripleo-ansible-inventory /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-validations/validations/ceph-ansible-installed.yaml

2.3.2. Verifying packages for pre-provisioned nodes

When you use pre-provisioned nodes in your overcloud deployment, you can verify that the servers have the packages required to be overcloud nodes that host Ceph services.

For more information about pre-provisioned nodes, see Configuring a Basic Overcloud using Pre-Provisioned Nodes.

Procedure

Verify that the servers contained the required packages: 

ansible-playbook -i /usr/bin/tripleo-ansible-inventory /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-validations/validations/ceph-dependencies-installed.yaml

2.4. Manually tagging the nodes

After registering each node, you will need to inspect the hardware and tag the node into a specific profile. Profile tags match your nodes to flavors, and in turn the flavors are assigned to a deployment role.

To inspect and tag new nodes, follow these steps:

  1. Trigger hardware introspection to retrieve the hardware attributes of each node: 

    $ openstack overcloud node introspect --all-manageable --provide
    • The --all-manageable option introspects only nodes in a managed state. In this example, it is all of them.

    • The --provide option resets all nodes to an active state after introspection.

      Important

      Make sure this process runs to completion. This process usually takes 15 minutes for bare metal nodes.

  2. Retrieve a list of your nodes to identify their UUIDs: 

    $ openstack baremetal node list

  3. Add a profile option to the properties/capabilities parameter for each node to manually tag a node to a specific profile.

    For example, a typical deployment will use three profiles: control, compute, and ceph-storage. The following commands tag three nodes for each profile: 

    $ ironic node-update 1a4e30da-b6dc-499d-ba87-0bd8a3819bc0 add properties/capabilities='profile:control,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update 6faba1a9-e2d8-4b7c-95a2-c7fbdc12129a add properties/capabilities='profile:control,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update 5e3b2f50-fcd9-4404-b0a2-59d79924b38e add properties/capabilities='profile:control,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update 484587b2-b3b3-40d5-925b-a26a2fa3036f add properties/capabilities='profile:compute,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update d010460b-38f2-4800-9cc4-d69f0d067efe add properties/capabilities='profile:compute,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update d930e613-3e14-44b9-8240-4f3559801ea6 add properties/capabilities='profile:compute,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update da0cc61b-4882-45e0-9f43-fab65cf4e52b add properties/capabilities='profile:ceph-storage,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update b9f70722-e124-4650-a9b1-aade8121b5ed add properties/capabilities='profile:ceph-storage,boot_option:local'
$ ironic node-update 68bf8f29-7731-4148-ba16-efb31ab8d34f add properties/capabilities='profile:ceph-storage,boot_option:local'
    Tip

    You can also configure a new custom profile to tag a node for the Ceph MON and Ceph MDS services. See Chapter 3, Deploying Other Ceph Services on dedicated nodes for details.

    The addition of the profile option tags the nodes into each respective profiles.

Note

As an alternative to manual tagging, use the Automated Health Check (AHC) Tools to automatically tag larger numbers of nodes based on benchmarking data.

2.5. Defining the root disk

Director must identify the root disk during provisioning in the case of nodes with multiple disks. For example, most Ceph Storage nodes use multiple disks. By default, the director writes the overcloud image to the root disk during the provisioning process.

There are several properties that you can define to help the director identify the root disk:

  • model (String): Device identifier.
  • vendor (String): Device vendor.
  • serial (String): Disk serial number.
  • hctl (String): Host:Channel:Target:Lun for SCSI.
  • size (Integer): Size of the device in GB.
  • wwn (String): Unique storage identifier.
  • wwn_with_extension (String): Unique storage identifier with the vendor extension appended.
  • wwn_vendor_extension (String): Unique vendor storage identifier.
  • rotational (Boolean): True for a rotational device (HDD), otherwise false (SSD).
  • name (String): The name of the device, for example: /dev/sdb1.
  • by_path (String): The unique PCI path of the device. Use this property if you do not want to use the UUID of the device.
Important

Use the name property only for devices with persistent names. Do not use name to set the root disk for any other device because this value can change when the node boots.

Complete the following steps to specify the root device using its serial number.

Procedure

  1. Check the disk information from the hardware introspection of each node. Run the following command to display the disk information of a node: 

    (undercloud) $ 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"
  }
]

  2. Change to the root_device parameter for the node definition. The following example shows how to set the root device to disk 2, which has 61866da04f380d001ea4e13c12e36ad6 as the serial number: 

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

    Ensure that you configure the BIOS of each node to include booting from the root disk that you choose. Configure the boot order to boot from the network first, then to boot from the root disk.

The director identifies the specific disk to use as the root disk. When you run the openstack overcloud deploy command, the director provisions and writes the Overcloud image to the root disk.

2.6. Using the overcloud-minimal image to avoid using a Red Hat subscription entitlement

By default, director writes the QCOW2 overcloud-full image to the root disk during the provisioning process. The overcloud-full image uses a valid Red Hat subscription. However, you can also use the overcloud-minimal image, for example, to provision a bare OS where you do not want to run any other OpenStack services and consume your subscription entitlements.

A common use case for this occurs when you want to provision nodes with only Ceph daemons. For this and similar use cases, you can use the overcloud-minimal image option to avoid reaching the limit of your paid Red Hat subscriptions. For information about how to obtain the overcloud-minimal image, see Obtaining images for overcloud nodes.

Procedure

  1. To configure director to use the overcloud-minimal image, create an environment file that contains the following image definition: 

    parameter_defaults:
  <roleName>Image: overcloud-minimal

  2. Replace <roleName> with the name of the role and append Image to the name of the role. The following example shows an overcloud-minimal image for Ceph storage nodes: 

    parameter_defaults:
  CephStorageImage: overcloud-minimal
  3. Pass the environment file to the openstack overcloud deploy command.
Note

The overcloud-minimal image supports only standard Linux bridges and not OVS because OVS is an OpenStack service that requires an OpenStack subscription entitlement.