[openstack-dev] [ironic] ironic and traits

Eric Fried openstack at fried.cc
Mon Oct 23 14:09:22 UTC 2017


We discussed this a little bit further in IRC [1].  We're all in
agreement, but it's worth being precise on a couple of points:

* We're distinguishing between a "feature" and the "trait" that
represents it in placement.  For the sake of this discussion, a
"feature" can (maybe) be switched on or off, but a "trait" can either be
present or absent on a RP.
* It matters *who* can turn a feature on/off.
  * If it can be done by virt at spawn time, then it makes sense to have
the trait on the RP, and you can switch the feature on/off via a
separate extra_spec.
  * But if it's e.g. an admin action, and spawn has no control, then the
trait needs to be *added* whenever the feature is *on*, and *removed*
whenever the feature is *off*.

[1]
http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-nova/%23openstack-nova.2017-10-23.log.html#t2017-10-23T13:12:13

On 10/23/2017 08:15 AM, Sylvain Bauza wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 2:54 PM, Eric Fried <openstack at fried.cc
> <mailto:openstack at fried.cc>> wrote:
> 
>     I agree with Sean.  In general terms:
> 
>     * A resource provider should be marked with a trait if that feature
>       * Can be turned on or off (whether it's currently on or not); or
>       * Is always on and can't ever be turned off.
> 
> 
> No, traits are not boolean. If a resource provider stops providing a
> capability, then the existing related trait should just be removed,
> that's it.
> If you see a trait, that's just means that the related capability for
> the Resource Provider is supported, that's it too.
> 
> MHO.
> 
> -Sylvain
> 
>  
> 
>     * A consumer wanting that feature present (doesn't matter whether it's
>     on or off) should specify it as a required *trait*.
>     * A consumer wanting that feature present and turned on should
>       * Specify it as a required trait; AND
>       * Indicate that it be turned on via some other mechanism (e.g. a
>     separate extra_spec).
> 
>     I believe this satisfies Dmitry's (Ironic's) needs, but also Jay's drive
>     for placement purity.
> 
>     Please invite me to the hangout or whatever.
> 
>     Thanks,
>     Eric
> 
>     On 10/23/2017 07:22 AM, Mooney, Sean K wrote:
>     >  
>     >
>     >  
>     >
>     > *From:*Jay Pipes [mailto:jaypipes at gmail.com
>     <mailto:jaypipes at gmail.com>]
>     > *Sent:* Monday, October 23, 2017 12:20 PM
>     > *To:* OpenStack Development Mailing List
>     <openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org
>     <mailto:openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org>>
>     > *Subject:* Re: [openstack-dev] [ironic] ironic and traits
>     >
>     >  
>     >
>     > Writing from my phone... May I ask that before you proceed with any plan
>     > that uses traits for state information that we have a hangout or
>     > videoconference to discuss this? Unfortunately today and tomorrow I'm
>     > not able to do a hangout but I can do one on Wednesday any time of the day.
>     >
>     >  
>     >
>     > */[Mooney, Sean K] on the uefi boot topic I did bring up at the
>     ptg that
>     > we wanted to standardizes tratis for “verified boot” /*
>     >
>     > */that included a trait for uefi secure boot enabled and to
>     indicated a
>     > hardware root of trust, e.g. intel boot guard or similar/*
>     >
>     > */we distinctly wanted to be able to tag nova compute hosts with those
>     > new traits so we could require that vms that request/*
>     >
>     > */a host with uefi secure boot enabled and a hardware root of
>     trust are
>     > scheduled only to those nodes. /*
>     >
>     > */ /*
>     >
>     > */There are many other examples that effect both vms and bare
>     metal such
>     > as, ecc/interleaved memory, cluster on die, /*
>     >
>     > */l3 cache code and data prioritization, vt-d/vt-c, HPET, Hyper
>     > threading, power states … all of these feature may be present on the
>     > platform/*
>     >
>     > */but I also need to know if they are turned on. Ruling out state in
>     > traits means all of this logic will eventually get pushed to scheduler
>     > filters/*
>     >
>     > */which will be suboptimal long term as more state is tracked.
>     Software
>     > defined infrastructure may be the future but hardware defined
>     software/*
>     >
>     > */is sadly the present…/*
>     >
>     > */ /*
>     >
>     > */I do however think there should be a sperateion between asking for a
>     > host that provides x with a trait and  asking for x to be
>     configure via/*
>     >
>     > */A trait. The trait secure_boot_enabled should never result in the
>     > feature being enabled It should just find a host with it on. If
>     you want/*
>     >
>     > */To request it to be turned on you would request a host with
>     > secure_boot_capable as a trait and have a flavor extra spec or image
>     > property to request/*
>     >
>     > */Ironic to enabled it.  these are two very different request and
>     should
>     > not be treated the same. /*
>     >
>     >  
>     >
>     >  
>     >
>     > Lemme know!
>     >
>     > -jay
>     >
>     >  
>     >
>     > On Oct 23, 2017 5:01 AM, "Dmitry Tantsur" <dtantsur at redhat.com <mailto:dtantsur at redhat.com>
>     > <mailto:dtantsur at redhat.com <mailto:dtantsur at redhat.com>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >     Hi Jay!
>     >
>     >     I appreciate your comments, but I think you're approaching the
>     >     problem from purely VM point of view. Things simply don't work the
>     >     same way in bare metal, at least not if we want to provide the same
>     >     user experience.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >     On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 2:25 PM, Jay Pipes <jaypipes at gmail.com <mailto:jaypipes at gmail.com>
>     >     <mailto:jaypipes at gmail.com <mailto:jaypipes at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >         Sorry for delay, took a week off before starting a new job.
>     >         Comments inline.
>     >
>     >         On 10/16/2017 12:24 PM, Dmitry Tantsur wrote:
>     >
>     >             Hi all,
>     >
>     >             I promised John to dump my thoughts on traits to the
>     ML, so
>     >             here we go :)
>     >
>     >             I see two roles of traits (or kinds of traits) for
>     bare metal:
>     >             1. traits that say what the node can do already (e.g. "the
>     >             node is
>     >             doing UEFI boot")
>     >             2. traits that say what the node can be *configured* to do
>     >             (e.g. "the node can
>     >             boot in UEFI mode")
>     >
>     >
>     >         There's only one role for traits. #2 above. #1 is state
>     >         information. Traits are not for state information. Traits are
>     >         only for communicating capabilities of a resource provider
>     >         (baremetal node).
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >     These are not different, that's what I'm talking about here. No
>     >     users care about the difference between "this node was put in UEFI
>     >     mode by an operator in advance", "this node was put in UEFI
>     mode by
>     >     an ironic driver on demand" and "this node is always in UEFI mode,
>     >     because it's AARCH64 and it does not have BIOS". These situation
>     >     produce the same result (the node is booted in UEFI mode), and
>     thus
>     >     it's up to ironic to hide this difference.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >     My suggestion with traits is one way to do it, I'm not sure
>     what you
>     >     suggest though.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >
>     >         For example, let's say we add the following to the os-traits
>     >         library [1]
>     >
>     >         * STORAGE_RAID_0
>     >         * STORAGE_RAID_1
>     >         * STORAGE_RAID_5
>     >         * STORAGE_RAID_6
>     >         * STORAGE_RAID_10
>     >
>     >         The Ironic administrator would add all RAID-related traits to
>     >         the baremetal nodes that had the *capability* of
>     supporting that
>     >         particular RAID setup [2]
>     >
>     >         When provisioned, the baremetal node would either have RAID
>     >         configured in a certain level or not configured at all.
>     >
>     >
>     >         A very important note: the Placement API and Nova
>     scheduler (or
>     >         future Ironic scheduler) doesn't care about this. At all.
>     I know
>     >         it sounds like I'm being callous, but I'm not. Placement and
>     >         scheduling doesn't care about the state of things. It only
>     cares
>     >         about the capabilities of target destinations. That's it.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >     Yes, because VMs always start with a clean state, and
>     hypervisor is
>     >     there to ensure that. We don't have this luxury in ironic :) E.g.
>     >     our SNMP driver is not even aware of boot modes (or RAID, or BIOS
>     >     configuration), which does not mean that a node using it cannot be
>     >     in UEFI mode (have a RAID or BIOS pre-configured, etc, etc).
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >          
>     >
>     >             This seems confusing, but it's actually very useful.
>     Say, I
>     >             have a flavor that
>     >             requests UEFI boot via a trait. It will match both the
>     nodes
>     >             that are already in
>     >             UEFI mode, as well as nodes that can be put in UEFI mode.
>     >
>     >
>     >         No :) It will only match nodes that have the UEFI capability.
>     >         The set of providers that have the ability to be booted
>     via UEFI
>     >         is *always* a superset of the set of providers that *have been
>     >         booted via UEFI*. Placement and scheduling decisions only care
>     >         about that superset -- the providers with a particular
>     capability.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >     Well, no, it will. Again, you're purely basing on the VM idea,
>     where
>     >     a VM is always *put* in UEFI mode, no matter how the hypervisor
>     >     looks like. It is simply not the case for us. You have to care
>     what
>     >     state the node is, because many drivers cannot change this state.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >          
>     >
>     >             This idea goes further with deploy templates (new concept
>     >             we've been thinking
>     >             about). A flavor can request something like CUSTOM_RAID_5,
>     >             and it will match the
>     >             nodes that already have RAID 5, or, more
>     interestingly, the
>     >             nodes on which we
>     >             can build RAID 5 before deployment. The UEFI example above
>     >             can be treated in a
>     >             similar way.
>     >
>     >             This ends up with two sources of knowledge about traits in
>     >             ironic:
>     >             1. Operators setting something they know about hardware
>     >             ("this node is in UEFI
>     >             mode"),
>     >             2. Ironic drivers reporting something they
>     >                2.1. know about hardware ("this node is in UEFI mode" -
>     >             again)
>     >                2.2. can do about hardware ("I can put this node in
>     UEFI
>     >             mode")
>     >
>     >
>     >         You're correct that both pieces of information are important.
>     >         However, only the "can do about hardware" part is relevant to
>     >         Placement and Nova.
>     >
>     >             For case #1 we are planning on a new CRUD API to set/unset
>     >             traits for a node.
>     >
>     >
>     >         I would *strongly* advise against this. Traits are not for
>     state
>     >         information.
>     >
>     >         Instead, consider having a DB (or JSON) schema that lists
>     state
>     >         information in fields that are explicitly for that state
>     >         information.
>     >
>     >         For example, a schema that looks like this:
>     >
>     >         {
>     >           "boot": {
>     >             "mode": <one of 'bios' or 'uefi'>,
>     >             "params": <dict>
>     >           },
>     >           "disk": {
>     >             "raid": {
>     >               "level": <int>,
>     >               "controller": <one of 'sw' or 'hw'>,
>     >               "driver": <string>,
>     >               "params": <dict>
>     >             },  ...
>     >           },
>     >           "network": {
>     >             ...
>     >           }
>     >         }
>     >
>     >         etc, etc.
>     >
>     >         Don't use trait strings to represent state information.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >     I don't see an alternative proposal that will satisfy what we have
>     >     to solve.
>     >
>     >      
>     >
>     >
>     >         Best,
>     >         -jay
>     >
>     >             Case #2 is more interesting. We have two options, I think:
>     >
>     >             a) Operators still set traits on nodes, drivers are simply
>     >             validating them. E.g.
>     >             an operators sets CUSTOM_RAID_5, and the node's RAID
>     >             interface checks if it is
>     >             possible to do. The downside is obvious - with a lot of
>     >             deploy templates
>     >             available it can be a lot of manual work.
>     >
>     >             b) Drivers report the traits, and they get somehow
>     added to
>     >             the traits provided
>     >             by an operator. Technically, there are sub-cases again:
>     >                b.1) The new traits API returns a union of
>     >             operator-provided and
>     >             driver-provided traits
>     >                b.2) The new traits API returns only operator-provided
>     >             traits; driver-provided
>     >             traits are returned e.g. via a new field
>     >             (node.driver_traits). Then nova will
>     >             have to merge the lists itself.
>     >
>     >             My personal favorite is the last option: I'd like a clear
>     >             distinction between
>     >             different "sources" of traits, but I'd also like to reduce
>     >             manual work for
>     >             operators.
>     >
>     >             A valid counter-argument is: what if an operator wants to
>     >             override a
>     >             driver-provided trait? E.g. a node can do RAID 5, but I
>     >             don't want this
>     >             particular node to do it for any reason. I'm not sure if
>     >             it's a valid case, and
>     >             what to do about it.
>     >
>     >             Let me know what you think.
>     >
>     >             Dmitry
>     >
>     >
>     >         [1]
>     http://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/os-traits/tree/
>     <http://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/os-traits/tree/>
>     >         [2] Based on how many attached disks the node had, the
>     presence
>     >         and abilities of a hardware RAID controller, etc
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >       
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