Chapter 2. Using the Node Tuning Operator

The Node Tuning Operator helps you manage node-level tuning by orchestrating the tuned daemon. The majority of high-performance applications require some level of kernel tuning. The Node Tuning Operator provides a unified management interface to users of node-level sysctls and more flexibility to add custom tuning, which is currently a Technology Preview feature, specified by user needs. The Operator manages the containerized tuned daemon for OpenShift Container Platform as a Kubernetes DaemonSet. It ensures the custom tuning specification is passed to all containerized tuned daemons running in the cluster in the format that the daemons understand. The daemons run on all nodes in the cluster, one per node.

The Node Tuning Operator is part of a standard OpenShift Container Platform installation in version 4.1 and later.

Use this process to access an example Node Tuning Operator specification.

The following are the default profiles set on a cluster.

apiVersion: tuned.openshift.io/v1alpha1
kind: Tuned
metadata:
  name: default
  namespace: openshift-cluster-node-tuning-operator
spec:
  profile:
  - name: "openshift"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running OpenShift (parent profile)
      include=${f:virt_check:virtual-guest:throughput-performance}
      [selinux]
      avc_cache_threshold=8192
      [net]
      nf_conntrack_hashsize=131072
      [sysctl]
      net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
      kernel.pid_max=>131072
      net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max=1048576
      net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh1=8192
      net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh2=32768
      net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh3=65536
      net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh1=8192
      net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh2=32768
      net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh3=65536
      [sysfs]
      /sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/io_timeout=4294967295
      /sys/module/nvme_core/parameters/max_retries=10
  - name: "openshift-control-plane"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running OpenShift control plane
      include=openshift
      [sysctl]
      # ktune sysctl settings, maximizing i/o throughput
      #
      # Minimal preemption granularity for CPU-bound tasks:
      # (default: 1 msec#  (1 + ilog(ncpus)), units: nanoseconds)
      kernel.sched_min_granularity_ns=10000000
      # The total time the scheduler will consider a migrated process
      # "cache hot" and thus less likely to be re-migrated
      # (system default is 500000, i.e. 0.5 ms)
      kernel.sched_migration_cost_ns=5000000
      # SCHED_OTHER wake-up granularity.
      #
      # Preemption granularity when tasks wake up.  Lower the value to
      # improve wake-up latency and throughput for latency critical tasks.
      kernel.sched_wakeup_granularity_ns=4000000
  - name: "openshift-node"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running OpenShift nodes
      include=openshift
      [sysctl]
      net.ipv4.tcp_fastopen=3
      fs.inotify.max_user_watches=65536
  - name: "openshift-control-plane-es"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running ES on OpenShift control-plane
      include=openshift-control-plane
      [sysctl]
      vm.max_map_count=262144
  - name: "openshift-node-es"
    data: |
      [main]
      summary=Optimize systems running ES on OpenShift nodes
      include=openshift-node
      [sysctl]
      vm.max_map_count=262144
  recommend:
  - profile: "openshift-control-plane-es"
    priority: 10
    match:
    - label: "tuned.openshift.io/elasticsearch"
      type: "pod"
      match:
      - label: "node-role.kubernetes.io/master"
      - label: "node-role.kubernetes.io/infra"

  - profile: "openshift-node-es"
    priority: 20
    match:
    - label: "tuned.openshift.io/elasticsearch"
      type: "pod"

  - profile: "openshift-control-plane"
    priority: 30
    match:
    - label: "node-role.kubernetes.io/master"
    - label: "node-role.kubernetes.io/infra"

  - profile: "openshift-node"
priority: 40

The custom resource (CR) for the operator has two major sections. The first section, profile:, is a list of tuned profiles and their names. The second, recommend:, defines the profile selection logic.

Multiple custom tuning specifications can co-exist as multiple CRs in the operator’s namespace. The existence of new CRs or the deletion of old CRs is detected by the Operator. All existing custom tuning specifications are merged and appropriate objects for the containerized tuned daemons are updated.

Profile data

The profile: section lists tuned profiles and their names.

profile:
- name: tuned_profile_1
  data: |
    # Tuned profile specification
    [main]
    summary=Description of tuned_profile_1 profile

    [sysctl]
    net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
    # ... other sysctl's or other tuned daemon plugins supported by the containerized tuned

# ...

- name: tuned_profile_n
  data: |
    # Tuned profile specification
    [main]
    summary=Description of tuned_profile_n profile

    # tuned_profile_n profile settings

Recommended profiles

The profile: selection logic is defined by the recommend: section of the CR:

recommend:
- match:                              # optional; if omitted, profile match is assumed unless a profile with a higher matches first
  <match>                             # an optional array
  priority: <priority>                # profile ordering priority, lower numbers mean higher priority (0 is the highest priority)
  profile: <tuned_profile_name>       # e.g. tuned_profile_1

# ...

- match:
  <match>
  priority: <priority>
  profile: <tuned_profile_name>       # e.g. tuned_profile_n

If <match> is omitted, a profile match (for example, true) is assumed.

<match> is an optional array recursively defined as follows:

- label: <label_name>     # node or pod label name
  value: <label_value>    # optional node or pod label value; if omitted, the presence of <label_name> is enough to match
  type: <label_type>      # optional node or pod type ("node" or "pod"); if omitted, "node" is assumed
  <match>                 # an optional <match> array

If <match> is not omitted, all nested <match> sections must also evaluate to true. Otherwise, false is assumed and the profile with the respective <match> section will not be applied or recommended. Therefore, the nesting (child <match> sections) works as logical AND operator. Conversely, if any item of the <match> array matches, the entire <match> array evaluates to true. Therefore, the array acts as logical OR operator.

- match:
  - label: tuned.openshift.io/elasticsearch
    match:
    - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/master
    - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
    type: pod
  priority: 10
  profile: openshift-control-plane-es
- match:
  - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/master
  - label: node-role.kubernetes.io/infra
  priority: 20
  profile: openshift-control-plane
- priority: 30
  profile: openshift-node

The CR above is translated for the containerized tuned daemon into its recommend.conf file based on the profile priorities. The profile with the highest priority (10) is openshift-control-plane-es and, therefore, it is considered first. The containerized tuned daemon running on a given node looks to see if there is a pod running on the same node with the tuned.openshift.io/elasticsearch label set. If not, the entire <match> section evaluates as false. If there is such a pod with the label, in order for the <match> section to evaluate to true, the node label also needs to be node-role.kubernetes.io/master or node-role.kubernetes.io/infra.

If the labels for the profile with priority 10 matched, openshift-control-plane-es profile is applied and no other profile is considered. If the node/pod label combination did not match, the second highest priority profile (openshift-control-plane) is considered. This profile is applied if the containerized tuned pod runs on a node with labels node-role.kubernetes.io/master or node-role.kubernetes.io/infra.

Finally, the profile openshift-node has the lowest priority of 30. It lacks the <match> section and, therefore, will always match. It acts as a profile catch-all to set openshift-node profile, if no other profile with higher priority matches on a given node.

Excluding the [main] section, the following Tuned plug-ins are supported when using custom profiles defined in the profile: section of the Tuned CR:

There is some dynamic tuning functionality provided by some of these plug-ins that is not supported. The following Tuned plug-ins are currently not supported:

See Available Tuned Plug-ins and Getting Started with Tuned for more information.