openstack server create fails with: Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes
When I try to create a VM with: openstack server create and the flavor has a property set with "pci_passthrough:alias"="NVIDIA-H200-35C:1" The error message is: novaclient.exceptions.BadRequest: Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes: line 1 column 29 (char 28) (HTTP 400) (Request-ID: req-66fb38d8-8f49-4073-99a2-fa4677d9b48e) Anyone have any idea what is causing this? A similar command worked fine just last week. Attached is the debug output from the create command BR Sigurd
G'day Sigurd, Based on the logs, it looks like the flavor didn't exist, and it's been created - but it's creation was not included in your logs, so I was not able to determine whether your flavor was created properly, with correctly formatted extra_specs. Possibly because you have more than one log location, and the activity was logged on a different controller, or possibly because you truncated these logs for brevity, but it does not let us paint a complete picture. We can see in the logs, that first, when trying to invoke your flavor, it does not exist: RESP BODY: {"itemNotFound": {"code": 404, "message": "Flavor gigantic-h200-35c could not be found."}} Later, a query against the flavor's ID shows that it does exist; but we aren't supplied with the information about the properties/specs of the flavor. It's possible that the flavor has no extra_specs at this point. ... REQ: curl -g -i -X GET http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/flavors/55 -H "Accept: application/json" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "X-Auth-Token: {SHA256}xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -H "X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version: 2.1" http://kaun.uia.no:8774 "GET /v2.1/flavors/55 HTTP/1.1" 200 374 RESP: [200] content-length: 374 content-type: application/json date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:20:21 GMT openstack-api-version: compute 2.1 vary: OpenStack-API-Version,X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version x-compute-request-id: req-b514dbce-a7b8-4050-a382-0d71c890754c x-openstack-nova-api-version: 2.1 x-openstack-request-id: req-b514dbce-a7b8-4050-a382-0d71c890754c RESP BODY: {"flavor": {"id": "55", "name": "gigantic-h200-35c", "ram": 65525, "disk": 512, "swap": "", "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 0, "OS-FLV-DISABLED:disabled": false, "vcpus": 32, "os-flavor-access:is_public": true, "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "links": [{"rel": "self", "href": "http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/flavors/55"}, {"rel": "bookmark", "href": "http://kaun.uia.no:8774/flavors/55"}]}} GET call to compute for http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/flavors/55 used request id req-b514dbce-a7b8-4050-a382-0d71c890754c Finally, we see the error: ... boot_args: ['sigh20035c', None, <Flavor: gigantic-h200-35c>] boot_kwargs: {'meta': None, 'files': {}, 'reservation_id': None, 'min_count': 1, 'max_count': 1, 'security_groups': [], 'userdata': None, 'key_name': 'sigurdkb', 'availability_zone': None, 'admin_pass': None, 'block_device_mapping_v2': [{'uuid': 'b154c30b-b766-445b-a310-2a511c9bc114', 'boot_index': 0, 'source_type': 'image', 'destination_type': 'volume', 'volume_size': 1024}], 'nics': [{'net-id': '0cfa71fd-d199-4a77-b6d2-a58ab80e7248', 'port-id': '', 'v4-fixed-ip': '', 'v6-fixed-ip': ''}], 'scheduler_hints': {}, 'config_drive': None} REQ: curl -g -i -X POST http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/servers -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "X-Auth-Token: {SHA256}xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -H "X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version: 2.1" -d '{"server": {"name": "sigh20035c", "imageRef": "", "flavorRef": "55", "key_name": "sigurdkb", "min_count": 1, "max_count": 1, "block_device_mapping_v2": [{"uuid": "b154c30b-b766-445b-a310-2a511c9bc114", "boot_index": 0, "source_type": "image", "destination_type": "volume", "volume_size": 1024}], "networks": [{"uuid": "0cfa71fd-d199-4a77-b6d2-a58ab80e7248"}]}}' http://kaun.uia.no:8774 "POST /v2.1/servers HTTP/1.1" 400 151 RESP: [400] content-length: 151 content-type: application/json; charset=UTF-8 date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:20:22 GMT openstack-api-version: compute 2.1 vary: OpenStack-API-Version,X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version x-compute-request-id: req-66fb38d8-8f49-4073-99a2-fa4677d9b48e x-openstack-nova-api-version: 2.1 x-openstack-request-id: req-66fb38d8-8f49-4073-99a2-fa4677d9b48e RESP BODY: {"badRequest": {"code": 400, "message": "Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes: line 1 column 29 (char 28)"}} So I would take this error at face value: the flavor probably has the extra_specs misconfigured. I would stary by reviewing https://docs.openstack.org/nova/latest/admin/pci-passthrough.html and double checking your entries (nova.conf, and the flavor's settings/specification) for a misplaced double-quote or single-quote, or a misplace colon (:), or missing configutation. Running the command openstack flavor show gigantic-h200-35c and checking the properties results, and if you're still not able to find the flaw, sharing with us the results. Also double check your alias configurations nova.conf on your compute nodes have correct JSON for the section, something like: [pci] Alias = { "vendor_id":"10de", "product_id":"xxxx", "device_type":"type-PF", "name":"h200", "numa_policy":"preferred" } Where you should check that the vendor_id and product_id matches output from lspci on the host, either 2342 or 2345 depending on whether your card is the 120GB or 480GB model. Then, obviously make sure that your flavor's extra spec properties match the alias you specify in your nova config, which are probably also case sensitive; the extra_spec, if not yet set, would need to be set like: openstack flavor set gigantic-h200-35c --property "pci_passthrough:alias"="h200:1" Good luck! Kind Regards, Joel McLean Cyber Security and Product Development Manager Australia's First Tier IV Data Centre https://www.micron21.com/ 1300 769 972<tel:1300%20769%20972> 03 9751 7618<tel:03%209751%207618> 0407 888 429<tel:0407%20888%20429> joel.mclean@micron21.com<mailto:joel.mclean@micron21.com> <http://www.micron21.com/> [cid:image001.png@01DC52FD.AC80D4C0] Follow us on Twitter<https://twitter.com/micron21> and https://m21status.com<https://m21status.com/> for important service and system updates. This message is intended for the addressee named above. It may contain privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you must not use, copy, distribute or disclose it to anyone other than the addressee. If you have received this message in error please return the message to the sender by replying to it and then delete the message from your computer. From: Sigurd Kristian Brinch <sigurd.k.brinch@uia.no> Sent: Saturday, 8 November 2025 2:17 AM To: openstack-discuss@lists.openstack.org Subject: openstack server create fails with: Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes When I try to create a VM with: openstack server create and the flavor has a property set with "pci_passthrough:alias"="NVIDIA-H200-35C:1" The error message is: novaclient.exceptions.BadRequest: Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes: line 1 column 29 (char 28) (HTTP 400) (Request-ID: req-66fb38d8-8f49-4073-99a2-fa4677d9b48e) Anyone have any idea what is causing this? A similar command worked fine just last week. Attached is the debug output from the create command BR Sigurd
Hi Joel, Thanks for your thorough reply and I apologize for not getting back to you earlier.. I had to put the issue away for a little while, and when I finally got back to it, I discovered that your last suggestion was correct. I had missed some double quotes in the [PCI] Alias config in nova.conf on the nova API server. Once that was corrected, everything worked fine. BR Sigurd From: Joel McLean <joel.mclean@micron21.com> Date: Tuesday, 11 November 2025 at 01:46 To: Sigurd Kristian Brinch <sigurd.k.brinch@uia.no>, openstack-discuss@lists.openstack.org <openstack-discuss@lists.openstack.org> Subject: RE: openstack server create fails with: Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes G’day Sigurd, Based on the logs, it looks like the flavor didn’t exist, and it’s been created – but it’s creation was not included in your logs, so I was not able to determine whether your flavor was created properly, with correctly formatted extra_specs. Possibly because you have more than one log location, and the activity was logged on a different controller, or possibly because you truncated these logs for brevity, but it does not let us paint a complete picture. We can see in the logs, that first, when trying to invoke your flavor, it does not exist: RESP BODY: {"itemNotFound": {"code": 404, "message": "Flavor gigantic-h200-35c could not be found."}} Later, a query against the flavor’s ID shows that it does exist; but we aren’t supplied with the information about the properties/specs of the flavor. It’s possible that the flavor has no extra_specs at this point. ... REQ: curl -g -i -X GET http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/flavors/55 -H "Accept: application/json" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "X-Auth-Token: {SHA256}xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -H "X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version: 2.1" http://kaun.uia.no:8774 "GET /v2.1/flavors/55 HTTP/1.1" 200 374 RESP: [200] content-length: 374 content-type: application/json date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:20:21 GMT openstack-api-version: compute 2.1 vary: OpenStack-API-Version,X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version x-compute-request-id: req-b514dbce-a7b8-4050-a382-0d71c890754c x-openstack-nova-api-version: 2.1 x-openstack-request-id: req-b514dbce-a7b8-4050-a382-0d71c890754c RESP BODY: {"flavor": {"id": "55", "name": "gigantic-h200-35c", "ram": 65525, "disk": 512, "swap": "", "OS-FLV-EXT-DATA:ephemeral": 0, "OS-FLV-DISABLED:disabled": false, "vcpus": 32, "os-flavor-access:is_public": true, "rxtx_factor": 1.0, "links": [{"rel": "self", "href": "http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/flavors/55"}, {"rel": "bookmark", "href": "http://kaun.uia.no:8774/flavors/55"}]}} GET call to compute for http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/flavors/55 used request id req-b514dbce-a7b8-4050-a382-0d71c890754c Finally, we see the error: ... boot_args: ['sigh20035c', None, <Flavor: gigantic-h200-35c>] boot_kwargs: {'meta': None, 'files': {}, 'reservation_id': None, 'min_count': 1, 'max_count': 1, 'security_groups': [], 'userdata': None, 'key_name': 'sigurdkb', 'availability_zone': None, 'admin_pass': None, 'block_device_mapping_v2': [{'uuid': 'b154c30b-b766-445b-a310-2a511c9bc114', 'boot_index': 0, 'source_type': 'image', 'destination_type': 'volume', 'volume_size': 1024}], 'nics': [{'net-id': '0cfa71fd-d199-4a77-b6d2-a58ab80e7248', 'port-id': '', 'v4-fixed-ip': '', 'v6-fixed-ip': ''}], 'scheduler_hints': {}, 'config_drive': None} REQ: curl -g -i -X POST http://kaun.uia.no:8774/v2.1/servers -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "User-Agent: python-novaclient" -H "X-Auth-Token: {SHA256}xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" -H "X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version: 2.1" -d '{"server": {"name": "sigh20035c", "imageRef": "", "flavorRef": "55", "key_name": "sigurdkb", "min_count": 1, "max_count": 1, "block_device_mapping_v2": [{"uuid": "b154c30b-b766-445b-a310-2a511c9bc114", "boot_index": 0, "source_type": "image", "destination_type": "volume", "volume_size": 1024}], "networks": [{"uuid": "0cfa71fd-d199-4a77-b6d2-a58ab80e7248"}]}}' http://kaun.uia.no:8774 "POST /v2.1/servers HTTP/1.1" 400 151 RESP: [400] content-length: 151 content-type: application/json; charset=UTF-8 date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:20:22 GMT openstack-api-version: compute 2.1 vary: OpenStack-API-Version,X-OpenStack-Nova-API-Version x-compute-request-id: req-66fb38d8-8f49-4073-99a2-fa4677d9b48e x-openstack-nova-api-version: 2.1 x-openstack-request-id: req-66fb38d8-8f49-4073-99a2-fa4677d9b48e RESP BODY: {"badRequest": {"code": 400, "message": "Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes: line 1 column 29 (char 28)"}} So I would take this error at face value: the flavor probably has the extra_specs misconfigured. I would stary by reviewing https://docs.openstack.org/nova/latest/admin/pci-passthrough.html and double checking your entries (nova.conf, and the flavor’s settings/specification) for a misplaced double-quote or single-quote, or a misplace colon (:), or missing configutation. Running the command openstack flavor show gigantic-h200-35c and checking the properties results, and if you’re still not able to find the flaw, sharing with us the results. Also double check your alias configurations nova.conf on your compute nodes have correct JSON for the section, something like: [pci] Alias = { "vendor_id":"10de", "product_id":"xxxx", "device_type":"type-PF", "name":"h200", "numa_policy":"preferred" } Where you should check that the vendor_id and product_id matches output from lspci on the host, either 2342 or 2345 depending on whether your card is the 120GB or 480GB model. Then, obviously make sure that your flavor’s extra spec properties match the alias you specify in your nova config, which are probably also case sensitive; the extra_spec, if not yet set, would need to be set like: openstack flavor set gigantic-h200-35c --property "pci_passthrough:alias"="h200:1" Good luck! Kind Regards, Joel McLean Cyber Security and Product Development Manager Australia’s First Tier IV Data Centre https://www.micron21.com/ 1300 769 972<tel:1300%20769%20972> 03 9751 7618<tel:03%209751%207618> 0407 888 429<tel:0407%20888%20429> joel.mclean@micron21.com<mailto:joel.mclean@micron21.com> <http://www.micron21.com/> [cid:image001.png@01DC52FD.AC80D4C0] Follow us on Twitter<https://twitter.com/micron21> and https://m21status.com<https://m21status.com/> for important service and system updates. This message is intended for the addressee named above. It may contain privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you must not use, copy, distribute or disclose it to anyone other than the addressee. If you have received this message in error please return the message to the sender by replying to it and then delete the message from your computer. From: Sigurd Kristian Brinch <sigurd.k.brinch@uia.no> Sent: Saturday, 8 November 2025 2:17 AM To: openstack-discuss@lists.openstack.org Subject: openstack server create fails with: Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes When I try to create a VM with: openstack server create and the flavor has a property set with "pci_passthrough:alias"="NVIDIA-H200-35C:1" The error message is: novaclient.exceptions.BadRequest: Invalid PCI alias definition: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes: line 1 column 29 (char 28) (HTTP 400) (Request-ID: req-66fb38d8-8f49-4073-99a2-fa4677d9b48e) Anyone have any idea what is causing this? A similar command worked fine just last week. Attached is the debug output from the create command BR Sigurd
participants (2)
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Joel McLean
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Sigurd Kristian Brinch