Chapter 5. Installing the central location

When you deploy the central location for distributed compute node (DCN) architecture, you can deploy the cluster:

  • With or without Compute nodes
  • With or without Red Hat Ceph Storage

If you deploy Red Hat OpenStack Platform without Red Hat Ceph Storage at the central location, you cannot deploy any of your edge sites with Red Hat Ceph storage. Additionally, you do not have the option of adding Red Hat Ceph Storage to the central location later by redeploying.

5.1. Deploying the central controllers without edge storage

You can deploy a distributed compute node cluster without Block storage at edge sites if you use the Object Storage service (swift) as a back end for the Image service (glance) at the central location. A site deployed without block storage cannot be updated later to have block storage due to the differing role and networking profiles for each architecture.

Important: The following procedure uses lvm as the backend for Cinder which is not supported for production. You must deploy a certified block storage solution as a backend for Cinder.

Deploy the central controller cluster in a similar way to a typical overcloud deployment. This cluster does not require any Compute nodes, so you can set the Compute count to 0 to override the default of 1. The central controller has particular storage and Oslo configuration requirements. Use the following procedure to address these requirements.

Procedure

The following procedure outlines the steps for the initial deployment of the central location.

Note

The following steps detail the deployment commands and environment files associated with an example DCN deployment without glance multistore. These steps do not include unrelated, but necessary, aspects of configuration, such as networking.

  1. In the home directory, create directories for each stack that you plan to deploy. 

    mkdir /home/stack/central
mkdir /home/stack/dcn0
mkdir /home/stack/dcn1

  2. Create a file called central/overrides.yaml with settings similar to the following: 

    parameter_defaults:
  NtpServer:
    - 0.pool.ntp.org
    - 1.pool.ntp.org
  ControllerCount: 3
  ComputeCount: 0
  OvercloudControllerFlavor: baremetal
  OvercloudComputeFlavor: baremetal
  ControllerSchedulerHints:
    'capabilities:node': '0-controller-%index%'
  GlanceBackend: swift
    • ControllerCount: 3 specifies that three nodes will be deployed. These will use swift for glance, lvm for cinder, and host the control-plane services for edge compute nodes.
    • ComputeCount: 0 is an optional parameter to prevent Compute nodes from being deployed with the central Controller nodes.

    • GlanceBackend: swift uses Object Storage (swift) as the Image Service (glance) back end.

      The resulting configuration interacts with the distributed compute nodes (DCNs) in the following ways:

    • The Image service on the DCN creates a cached copy of the image it receives from the central Object Storage back end. The Image service uses HTTP to copy the image from Object Storage to the local disk cache.

      Note

      The central Controller node must be able to connect to the distributed compute node (DCN) site. The central Controller node can use a routed layer 3 connection.

  3. Generate roles for the central location using roles appropriate for your environment: 

    openstack overcloud roles generate Controller \
-o ~/central/control_plane_roles.yaml

  4. Generate an environment file ~/central/central-images-env.yaml: 

    sudo openstack tripleo container image prepare \
-e containers.yaml \
--output-env-file ~/central/central-images-env.yaml

  5. Configure the naming conventions for your site in the site-name.yaml environment file. The Nova availability zone, Cinder storage availability zone must match: 

    cat > /home/stack/central/site-name.yaml << EOF
parameter_defaults:
    NovaComputeAvailabilityZone: central
    ControllerExtraConfig:
        nova::availability_zone::default_schedule_zone: central
    NovaCrossAZAttach: false
    CinderStorageAvailabilityZone: central
EOF

  6. Deploy the central Controller node. For example, you can use a deploy.sh file with the following contents: 

    #!/bin/bash

source ~/stackrc
time openstack overcloud deploy \
--stack central \
--templates /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/ \
-e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/nova-az-config.yaml \
-e ~/central/containers-env-file.yaml \
-e ~/central/overrides.yaml \
-e ~/central/site-name.yaml
Note

You must include heat templates for the configuration of networking in your openstack overcloud deploy command. Designing for edge architecture requires spine and leaf networking. See Spine Leaf Networking for more details.

5.2. Deploying the central site with storage

To deploy the Image service with multiple stores and Ceph Storage as the back end, complete the following steps:

Prerequisites

  • Hardware for a Ceph cluster at the central location and in each availability zone, or in each geographic location where storage services are required.
  • Hardware for three Image Service servers at central location and in each availability zone, or in each geographic location where storage services are required.

The following is an example deployment of two or more stacks:

  • One stack at the central location called central.
  • One stack at an edge site called dcn0.
  • Additional stacks deployed similarly to dcn0, such as dcn1, dcn2, and so on.

Procedure

The following procedure outlines the steps for the initial deployment of the central location.

Note

The following steps detail the deployment commands and environment files associated with an example DCN deployment that uses the Image service with multiple stores. These steps do not include unrelated, but necessary, aspects of configuration, such as networking.

  1. In the home directory, create directories for each stack that you plan to deploy. 

    mkdir /home/stack/central
mkdir /home/stack/dcn0
mkdir /home/stack/dcn1

  2. Set the name of the Ceph cluster, as well as configuration parameters relative to the available hardware. For more information, see Configuring Ceph with Custom Config Settings: 

    cat > /home/stack/central/ceph.yaml << EOF
parameter_defaults:
  CephClusterName: central
  CephAnsibleDisksConfig:
    osd_scenario: lvm
    osd_objectstore: bluestore
    devices:
      - /dev/sda
      - /dev/sdb
  CephPoolDefaultSize: 3
  CephPoolDefaultPgNum: 128

EOF

  3. Generate roles for the central location using roles appropriate for your environment: 

    openstack overcloud roles generate Compute Controller CephStorage \
-o ~/central/central_roles.yaml

cat > /home/stack/central/role-counts.yaml << EOF
parameter_defaults:
  ControllerCount: 3
  ComputeCount: 2
  CephStorage: 3
EOF

  4. Generate an environment file ~/central/central-images-env.yaml 

    sudo openstack tripleo container image prepare \
-e containers.yaml \
--output-env-file ~/central/central-images-env.yaml

  5. Configure the naming conventions for your site in the site-name.yaml environment file. The Nova availability zone and the Cinder storage availability zone must match: 

    cat > /home/stack/central/site-name.yaml << EOF
parameter_defaults:
    NovaComputeAvailabilityZone: central
    ControllerExtraConfig:
        nova::availability_zone::default_schedule_zone: central
    NovaCrossAZAttach: false
    CinderStorageAvailabilityZone: central
    GlanceBackendID: central
EOF

  6. Configure a glance.yaml template with contents similar to the following: 

    parameter_defaults:
    GlanceEnabledImportMethods: web-download,copy-image
    GlanceBackend: rbd
    GlanceStoreDescription: 'central rbd glance store'
    GlanceBackendID: central
    CephClusterName: central

  7. After you prepare all of the other templates, deploy the central stack: 

    openstack overcloud deploy \
       --stack central \
       --templates /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/ \
       -r ~/central/central_roles.yaml \
    ...
       -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/ceph-ansible/ceph-ansible.yaml \
       -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/nova-az-config.yaml \
       -e ~/central/central-images-env.yaml \
       -e ~/central/role-counts.yaml \
       -e ~/central/site-name.yaml \
       -e ~/central/ceph.yaml \
       -e ~/central/glance.yaml
Note

You must include heat templates for the configuration of networking in your openstack overcloud deploy command. Designing for edge architecture requires spine and leaf networking. See Spine Leaf Networking for more details.

The ceph-ansible.yaml file is configured with the following parameters:

  • NovaEnableRbdBackend: true
  • GlanceBackend: rbd

When you use these settings together, the glance.conf parameter image_import_plugins is configured by heat to have a value image_conversion, automating the conversion of QCOW2 images with commands such as glance image-create-via-import --disk-format qcow2.

This is optimal for the Ceph RBD. If you want to disable image conversion, use the GlanceImageImportPlugin parameter: 

   parameter_defaults:
     GlanceImageImportPlugin: []

5.3. Integrating external Ceph

You can deploy the central location of a distributed compute node (DCN) architecture and integrate a pre-deployed Red Hat Ceph Storage solution.

Prerequisites

  • Hardware for a Ceph cluster at the central location and in each availability zone, or in each geographic location where storage services are required.
  • Hardware for three Image Service servers at the central location and in each availability zone, or in each geographic location where storage services are required.

The following is an example deployment of two or more stacks:

  • One stack at the central location called central.
  • One stack at an edge site called dcn0.
  • Additional stacks deployed similarly to dcn0, such as dcn1, dcn2, and so on.

dcn external ceph at central

You can install the central location so that it is integrated with a pre-existing Red Hat Ceph Storage solution by following the process documented in Integrating an Overcloud with an Existing Red Hat Ceph Cluster. There are no special requirements for integrating Red Hat Ceph Storage with the central site of a DCN deployment, however you must still complete DCN specific steps before deploying the overcloud:

  1. In the home directory, create directories for each stack that you plan to deploy. Use this to separate templates designed for their respective sites. 

    mkdir /home/stack/central
mkdir /home/stack/dcn0
mkdir /home/stack/dcn1

  2. Use roles that RHOSP director manages to generate roles for the central location. When you integrate with external Ceph, do not use Ceph roles: 

    cat > /home/stack/central/role-counts.yaml << EOF
parameter_defaults:
  ControllerCount: 3
  ComputeCount: 2
EOF

  3. Generate an environment file ~/central/central-images-env.yaml: 

    sudo openstack tripleo container image prepare \
-e containers.yaml \
--output-env-file ~/central/central-images-env.yaml

  4. Configure the naming conventions for your site in the site-name.yaml environment file. The Compute (nova) availability zone and the Block Storage (cinder) availability zone must match: 

    cat > /home/stack/central/site-name.yaml << EOF
parameter_defaults:
    NovaComputeAvailabilityZone: central
    ControllerExtraConfig:
        nova::availability_zone::default_schedule_zone: central
    NovaCrossAZAttach: false
    CinderStorageAvailabilityZone: central
    GlanceBackendID: central
EOF

  5. Configure a glance.yaml template with contents similar to the following: 

    parameter_defaults:
    GlanceEnabledImportMethods: web-download,copy-image
    GlanceBackend: rbd
    GlanceStoreDescription: 'central rbd glance store'
    GlanceBackendID: central
    CephClusterName: central

  6. When Ceph is deployed without Red Hat OpenStack Platform director, do not use the ceph-ansible.yaml environment file. Use the ceph-ansible-external.yaml environment file instead. 

    openstack overcloud deploy \
       --stack central \
       --templates /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/ \
       -r ~/central/central_roles.yaml \
    ...
       -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/ceph-ansible/ceph-ansible-external.yaml \
       -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/nova-az-config.yaml \
       -e ~/central/central-images-env.yaml \
       -e ~/central/role-counts.yaml \
       -e ~/central/site-name.yaml \
       -e ~/central/ceph.yaml \
       -e ~/central/glance.yaml