OVB deployment

Deploy TripleO OpenStack on virtual nodes provisioned from an OpenStack cloud

In a TripleO OpenStack deployment, the undercloud need to control the overcloud power management, as well as serve its nodes with an operating system. Trying to do that inside an OpenStack cloud requires some modification from the client side as well as from the OpenStack cloud

The OVB (openstack virtual baremetal) project solves this problem and we strongly recommended to read its documentation prior to moving next in this document.

OVB architecture overview

An OVB setup requires additional node to be present: Baremetal Controller (BMC). This nodes captures all the IPMI requests dedicated to the OVB nodes and handles the machine power on/off operations, boot device change and other operations performed during the introspection phase.

Network architecture overview:

     +--------------+   Data   +--------+
     |              |  network |        |
     |  Undercloud  +----+---->+  OVB1  |
     |              |    |     |        |
     +-------+------+    |     +--------+
             |           |
Management   |           |     +--------+
   network   |           |     |        |
     +-------+------+    +---->|  OVB2  |
     |              |    |     |        |
     |      BMC     |    |     +--------+
     |              |    |
     +--------------+    |     +--------+
                         |     |        |
                         +---->+  OVB3  |
                               |        |
                               +--------+

The BMC node should be connected to the management network. infrared brings up an IP address on own management interface for every Overcloud node. This allows infrared to handle IPMI commands coming from the undercloud. Those IPs are later used in the generated instackenv.json file.

For example, during the introspection phase, when the BMC sees the power off request for the OVB1 node, it performs a shutdown for the instance which corresponds to the OVB1 on the host cloud.

Provision ovb nodes

In order to provision ovb nodes, the openstack provisioner can be used:

ir openstack -vvvv -o provision.yml \
    --cloud=qeos7 \
    --prefix=example-ovb- \
    --topology-nodes=ovb_undercloud:1,bmc:1,ovb_controller:1,ovb_compute:1 \
    --topology-network=3_nets_ovb  \
    --key-file ~/.ssh/example-key.pem \
    --key-name=example-jenkins \
    --image=rhel-guest-image-7.4-191

The --topology-nodes options should include the bmc instance. Also instead of standard compute and controller nodes the appropriate nodes with the ovb prefix should be used. Such ovb node settings file holds several additional properties:

  • instance image details. Currently the ipxe-boot image should be used for all the ovb nodes. Only that image allows to boot from the network after restart.
  • ovb group in the groups section
  • network topology (NICs’ order)

For example, the ovb_compute settings can hold the following properties:

node_dict:
    name: compute
    image:
        name: "ipxe-boot"
        ssh_user: "root"
    interfaces:
        nic1:
            network: "data"
        nic2:
            network: "management"
        nic3:
            network: "external"
    external_network: external

    groups:
        - compute
        - openstack_nodes
        - overcloud_nodes
        - ovb

The --topology-network should specify the topology with at 3 networks: data, management and external:

  • data network is used by the TripleO to provision the overcloud nodes
  • management is used by the BMC to control IPMI operations
  • external holds floating ip’s and used by infrared to access the nodes

DHCP should be enabled only for the external network.

infrared provides the default 3_nets_ovb network topology that allows to deploy the OVB setup.

The --image option should point to existing in OpenStack Glance image This value affects nodes, except configured to boot an ipxe-boot image

Install OpenStack with TripleO

To install OpenStack on ovb nodes the process is almost standard with small deviation.

The undercloud can be installed by running:

infrared tripleo-undercloud -v \
    --version 10 \
    --images-task rpm

The overcloud installation can be run with:

infrared tripleo-overcloud -v \
    --version 10 \
    --deployment-files ovb \
    --public-network=yes \
    --public-subnet=ovb_subnet \
    --network-protocol ipv4 \
    --post=yes \
    --introspect=yes \
    --tagging=yes

Here some ovb specific option should be considered:

  • if host cloud is not patched and not configured for the OVB deployments the --deployment-files should point to the ovb templates to skip unsupported features. See the OVB limitations for details
  • the --public_subnet should point to the subnet settings to match with the OVB network topology and allocation addresses

Fully functional overcloud will be deployed into the OVB nodes.

OVB limitations

The OVB approach requires a host cloud to be patched and configured. Otherwise the following features will NOT be available:

  • Network isolation
  • HA (high availability). Setup with more that 1 controller, etc is not allowed.
  • Boot from network. This can be workaround by using the ipxe_boot image for the OVB nodes.