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Chapter 4. Installing and configuring the Load-balancing service

When you deploy the Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) Load-balancing service (octavia) using RHOSP director, you can decide to make its VM instances (amphorae) highly available. You also use director when you want to make configuration changes to the Load-balancing service.

4.1. Deploying the Load-balancing service

You use Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) director to deploy the Load-balancing service (octavia). Director uses Orchestration service (heat) templates that are a set of plans for your environment. The undercloud imports these plans and follows their instructions to create the Load-balancing service and your RHOSP environment.

Prerequisites

  • Ensure that your environment has access to the octavia image.

Procedure

  • Run the deployment command and include the core heat templates, environment files, and the octavia.yaml heat template.

    Example

    $ openstack overcloud deploy --templates \
-e <your_environment_files> \
-e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/services/octavia.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard

    Note

    Director updates the amphorae to the latest amphora image during a stack update or upgrade.

4.2. Enabling active-standby topology for Load-balancing service instances

You can make Load-balancing service instances (amphorae) highly available when you implement an active-standby topology using Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) director. Director uses Orchestration service (heat) templates that are a set of plans for your environment. The undercloud imports these plans and follows their instructions to create the Load-balancing service and your RHOSP environment.

Prerequisites

  • Ensure that anti-affinity is enabled for the Compute service. This is the default.

  • A minimum of three Compute node hosts:

    • Two Compute node hosts to place the amphorae on different hosts (Compute anti-affinity).
    • A third host to successfully fail over an active-standby load balancer, when a problem arises.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the undercloud host as the stack user.

  2. Source the undercloud credentials file: 

    $ source ~/stackrc
    Copy to Clipboard

  3. Create a custom YAML environment file.

    Example

    $ vi /home/stack/templates/my-octavia-environment.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard

  4. In the custom environment file, add the following parameter: 

    parameter_defaults:
    OctaviaLoadBalancerTopology: "ACTIVE_STANDBY"
    Copy to Clipboard

  5. Run the deployment command and include the core heat templates, environment files, and this new custom environment file.

    Important

    The order of the environment files is important as the parameters and resources defined in subsequent environment files take precedence.

    Example

    $ openstack overcloud deploy --templates \
-e <your_environment_files> \
-e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/services/octavia.yaml \
-e /home/stack/templates/my-octavia-environment.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard

Verification

  • After the deployment is complete and you have created a load balancer, run the following commands: 

    $ source overcloudrc
$ openstack loadbalancer amphora list
    Copy to Clipboard

    If your Load-balancing service instance highly available configuration is successful, you see output for two instances (amphorae), and no occurrence of role equaling SINGLE.

4.3. Changing Load-balancing service default settings

You make configuration changes to the Load-balancing service (octavia) using Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) director. Director uses Orchestration service (heat) templates that are a set of plans for your environment. The undercloud imports these plans and follows their instructions to create the Load-balancing service and your RHOSP environment.

Prerequisites

  • Determine which RHOSP Orchestration service (heat) parameters that director already uses to deploy the Load-balancing service by consulting the following file on the undercloud: 
/usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/deployment/octavia/octavia-deployment-config.j2.yaml
Copy to Clipboard

  • Decide which parameters that you want to modify.

    Here are a few examples:

    • OctaviaControlNetwork

      The name of the neutron network used for the load-balancing management network.

    • OctaviaControlSubnetCidr

      The subnet for amphora control subnet in CIDR form.

      You can use this parameter to specify the amphora control subnet as an IPv6 CIDR. Using an IPv6 CIDR in OctaviaControlSubnetCidr requires you to also set IPv6 addresses in OctaviaControlSubnetPoolStart and OctaviaControlSubnetPoolEnd.

      Important

      This feature, using IPv6 CIDRs for the load-balancing management network, is available in this release as a Technology Preview, and therefore is not fully supported by Red Hat. It should only be used for testing, and should not be deployed in a production environment.

      For more information about Technology Preview features, see Scope of Coverage Details.

      Important

      After you have set CIDRs for the amphora control subnet, you cannot modify these values. This also means that you cannot upgrade from an IPv4 subnet to an IPv6 subnet.

    • OctaviaMgmtPortDevName

      The name of the octavia management network interface used for communication between octavia worker/health-manager with the amphora machine.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the undercloud host as the stack user.

  2. Source the undercloud credentials file: 

    $ source ~/stackrc
    Copy to Clipboard

  3. Create a custom YAML environment file.

    Example

    $ vi /home/stack/templates/my-octavia-environment.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard

  4. Your environment file must contain the keywords parameter_defaults. Put your parameter value pairs after the parameter_defaults keyword.

    Example

    parameter_defaults:
    OctaviaMgmtPortDevName: "o-hm0"
    OctaviaControlNetwork: 'lb-mgmt-net'
    OctaviaControlSubnet: 'lb-mgmt-subnet'
    OctaviaControlSecurityGroup: 'lb-mgmt-sec-group'
    OctaviaControlSubnetCidr: '172.24.0.0/16'
    OctaviaControlSubnetGateway: '172.24.0.1'
    OctaviaControlSubnetPoolStart: '172.24.0.2'
    OctaviaControlSubnetPoolEnd: '172.24.255.254'
    Copy to Clipboard

  5. Run the deployment command and include the core heat templates, environment files, and this new custom environment file.

    Important

    The order of the environment files is important as the parameters and resources defined in subsequent environment files take precedence.

    Example

    $ openstack overcloud deploy --templates \
-e <your_environment_files> \
-e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/services/octavia.yaml \
-e /home/stack/templates/my-octavia-environment.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard

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