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Chapter 11. Tuning a Red Hat OpenStack Platform environment

11.1. Pinning emulator threads
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Emulator threads handle interrupt requests and non-blocking processes for virtual machine hardware emulation. These threads float across the CPUs that the guest uses for processing. If threads used for the poll mode driver (PMD) or real-time processing run on these guest CPUs, you can experience packet loss or missed deadlines.

You can separate emulator threads from VM processing tasks by pinning the threads to their own guest CPUs, increasing performance as a result.

To improve performance, reserve a subset of host CPUs for hosting emulator threads.

Procedure

  1. Deploy an overcloud with NovaComputeCpuSharedSet defined for a given role. The value of NovaComputeCpuSharedSet applies to the cpu_shared_set parameter in the nova.conf file for hosts within that role. 

    parameter_defaults:
    ComputeOvsDpdkParameters:
        NovaComputeCpuSharedSet: "0-1,16-17"
        NovaComputeCpuDedicatedSet: "2-15,18-31"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Create a flavor to build instances with emulator threads separated into a shared pool. 

    openstack flavor create --ram <size_mb> --disk <size_gb> --vcpus <vcpus> <flavor>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Add the hw:emulator_threads_policy extra specification, and set the value to share. Instances created with this flavor will use the instance CPUs defined in the cpu_share_set parameter in the nova.conf file. 

    openstack flavor set <flavor> --property hw:emulator_threads_policy=share
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

You must set the cpu_share_set parameter in the nova.conf file to enable the share policy for this extra specification. You should use heat for this preferably, as editing nova.conf manually might not persist across redeployments.

Verification

  1. Identify the host and name for a given instance. 

    openstack server show <instance_id>
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  2. Use SSH to log on to the identified host as tripleo-admin. 

    ssh tripleo-admin@compute-1
[compute-1]$ sudo virsh dumpxml instance-00001 | grep `'emulatorpin cpuset'`
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

You can configure trust between physical functions (PFs) and virtual functions (VFs), so that VFs can perform privileged actions, such as enabling promiscuous mode, or modifying a hardware address.

Prerequisites

  • An operational installation of Red Hat OpenStack Platform including director

Procedure

Complete the following steps to configure and deploy the overcloud with trust between physical and virtual functions:

  1. Add the NeutronPhysicalDevMappings parameter in the parameter_defaults section to link between the logical network name and the physical interface. 

    parameter_defaults:
  NeutronPhysicalDevMappings:
    - sriov2:p5p2
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Add the new property, trusted, to the SR-IOV parameters. 

    parameter_defaults:
  NeutronPhysicalDevMappings:
    - sriov2:p5p2
  NovaPCIPassthrough:
    - vendor_id: "8086"
      product_id: "1572"
      physical_network: "sriov2"
      trusted: "true"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    Note

    You must include double quotation marks around the value "true".

11.3. Utilizing trusted VF networks
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  1. Create a network of type vlan. 

    openstack network create trusted_vf_network  --provider-network-type vlan \
 --provider-segment 111 --provider-physical-network sriov2 \
 --external --disable-port-security
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  2. Create a subnet. 

    openstack subnet create --network trusted_vf_network \
  --ip-version 4 --subnet-range 192.168.111.0/24 --no-dhcp \
 subnet-trusted_vf_network
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Create a port. Set the vnic-type option to direct, and the binding-profile option to true. 

    openstack port create --network sriov111 \
--vnic-type direct --binding-profile trusted=true \
sriov111_port_trusted
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  4. Create an instance, and bind it to the previously-created trusted port. 

    openstack server create --image rhel --flavor dpdk  --network internal --port trusted_vf_network_port_trusted --config-drive True --wait rhel-dpdk-sriov_trusted
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Verification

Confirm the trusted VF configuration on the hypervisor:

  1. On the compute node that you created the instance, enter the following command: 

    # ip link
7: p5p2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 9000 qdisc mq state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether b4:96:91:1c:40:fa brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    vf 6 MAC fa:16:3e:b8:91:c2, vlan 111, spoof checking off, link-state auto, trust on, query_rss off
    vf 7 MAC fa:16:3e:84:cf:c8, vlan 111, spoof checking off, link-state auto, trust off, query_rss off
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  2. Verify that the trust status of the VF is trust on. The example output contains details of an environment that contains two ports. Note that vf 6 contains the text trust on.
  3. You can disable spoof checking if you set port_security_enabled: false in the Networking service (neutron) network, or if you include the argument --disable-port-security when you run the openstack port create command.

You can experience packet loss at high packet rates above 3.5 million packets per second (mpps) for many reasons, such as:

  • a network interrupt
  • a SMI
  • packet processing latency in the Virtual Network Function

To prevent packet loss, increase the queue size from the default of 512 to a maximum of 1024.

Prerequisites

  • Access to the undercloud host and credentials for the stack user.

Procedure

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

  2. Source the stackrc undercloud credentials file: 

    $ source ~/stackrc
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  3. Create a custom environment YAML file and under parameter_defaults add the following definitions to increase the RX and TX queue size: 

    parameter_defaults:
  NovaLibvirtRxQueueSize: 1024
  NovaLibvirtTxQueueSize: 1024
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  4. Run the deployment command and include the core heat templates, other environment files, the environment file that contains your RX and TX queue size changes:

    Example 

    $ openstack overcloud deploy --templates \
-e <other_environment_files> \
-e /home/stack/my_tx-rx_queue_sizes.yaml
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Verification

  1. Observe the values for RX queue size and TX queue size in the nova.conf file. 

    $ egrep "^[rt]x_queue_size" /var/lib/config-data/puppet-generated/\
nova_libvirt/etc/nova/nova.conf
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    You should see the following: 

    rx_queue_size=1024
tx_queue_size=1024
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  2. Check the values for RX queue size and TX queue size in the VM instance XML file generated by libvirt on the Compute host:

    1. Create a new instance.

    2. Obtain the Compute host and and instance name: 

      $ openstack server show testvm-queue-sizes -c OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:\
hypervisor_hostname -c OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

      Sample output

      You should see output similar to the following: 

      +-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+
| Field                               | Value                              |
+-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+
| OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname | overcloud-novacompute-1.sales      |
| OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name       | instance-00000059                  |
+-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    3. Log into the Compute host and dump the instance definition.

      Example 

      $ podman exec nova_libvirt virsh dumpxml instance-00000059
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

      Sample output

      You should see output similar to the following: 

      ...
   <interface type='vhostuser'>
     <mac address='56:48:4f:4d:5e:6f'/>
     <source type='unix' path='/tmp/vhost-user1' mode='server'/>
     <model type='virtio'/>
     <driver name='vhost' rx_queue_size='1024'   tx_queue_size='1024' />
     <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x10' function='0x0'/>
   </interface>
...
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

11.5. Configuring a NUMA-aware vSwitch
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Important

This feature 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.

Before you implement a NUMA-aware vSwitch, examine the following components of your hardware configuration:

  • The number of physical networks.
  • The placement of PCI cards.
  • The physical architecture of the servers.

Memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) devices, such as PCIe NICs, are associated with specific NUMA nodes. When a VM and the NIC are on different NUMA nodes, there is a significant decrease in performance. To increase performance, align PCIe NIC placement and instance processing on the same NUMA node.

Use this feature to ensure that instances that share a physical network are located on the same NUMA node. To optimize utilization of datacenter hardware, you must use multiple physnets.

Warning

To configure NUMA-aware networks for optimal server utilization, you must understand the mapping of the PCIe slot and the NUMA node. For detailed information on your specific hardware, refer to your vendor’s documentation. If you fail to plan or implement your NUMA-aware vSwitch correctly, you can cause the servers to use only a single NUMA node.

To prevent a cross-NUMA configuration, place the VM on the correct NUMA node, by providing the location of the NIC to Nova.

Prerequisites

  • You have enabled the filter NUMATopologyFilter.

Procedure

  1. Set a new NeutronPhysnetNUMANodesMapping parameter to map the physical network to the NUMA node that you associate with the physical network.

  2. If you use tunnels, such as VxLAN or GRE, you must also set the NeutronTunnelNUMANodes parameter. 

    parameter_defaults:
  NeutronPhysnetNUMANodesMapping: {<physnet_name>: [<NUMA_NODE>]}
  NeutronTunnelNUMANodes: <NUMA_NODE>,<NUMA_NODE>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example

    Here is an example with two physical networks tunneled to NUMA node 0:

    • one project network associated with NUMA node 0

    • one management network without any affinity 

      parameter_defaults:
  NeutronBridgeMappings:
    - tenant:br-link0
  NeutronPhysnetNUMANodesMapping: {tenant: [1], mgmt: [0,1]}
  NeutronTunnelNUMANodes: 0
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    • In this example, assign the physnet of the device named eno2 to NUMA number 0. 

      # ethtool -i eno2
bus-info: 0000:18:00.1

# cat /sys/devices/pci0000:16/0000:16:02.0/0000:18:00.1/numa_node
0
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

      Observe the physnet settings in the example heat template: 

      NeutronBridgeMappings: 'physnet1:br-physnet1'
NeutronPhysnetNUMANodesMapping: {physnet1: [0] }

- type: ovs_user_bridge
                name: br-physnet1
                mtu: 9000
                members:
                  - type: ovs_dpdk_port
                    name: dpdk2
                    members:
                      - type: interface
                        name: eno2
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Verification

Follow these steps to test your NUMA-aware vSwitch:

  1. Observe the configuration in the file /var/lib/config-data/puppet-generated/nova_libvirt/etc/nova/nova.conf: 

    [neutron_physnet_tenant]
numa_nodes=1
[neutron_tunnel]
numa_nodes=1
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Confirm the new configuration with the lscpu command: 

    $ lscpu
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  3. Launch a VM with the NIC attached to the appropriate network.

11.6. Known limitations for NUMA-aware vSwitches
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Important

This feature 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.

This section lists the constraints for implementing a NUMA-aware vSwitch in a Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVi).

  • You cannot start a VM that has two NICs connected to physnets on different NUMA nodes, if you did not specify a two-node guest NUMA topology.
  • You cannot start a VM that has one NIC connected to a physnet and another NIC connected to a tunneled network on different NUMA nodes, if you did not specify a two-node guest NUMA topology.
  • You cannot start a VM that has one vhost port and one VF on different NUMA nodes, if you did not specify a two-node guest NUMA topology.
  • NUMA-aware vSwitch parameters are specific to overcloud roles. For example, Compute node 1 and Compute node 2 can have different NUMA topologies.
  • If the interfaces of a VM have NUMA affinity, ensure that the affinity is for a single NUMA node only. You can locate any interface without NUMA affinity on any NUMA node.
  • Configure NUMA affinity for data plane networks, not management networks.
  • NUMA affinity for tunneled networks is a global setting that applies to all VMs.

You can offer varying service levels for VM instances by using quality of service (QoS) policies to apply rate limits to egress and ingress traffic on Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) networks in a network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVi).

In NFVi environments, QoS support is limited to the following rule types:

  • minimum bandwidth on SR-IOV, if supported by vendor.
  • bandwidth limit on SR-IOV and OVS-DPDK egress interfaces.

11.8. Creating an HCI overcloud that uses DPDK
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You can deploy your NFV infrastructure with hyperconverged nodes, by co-locating and configuring Compute and Ceph Storage services for optimized resource usage.

For more information about hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), see Deploying a hyperconverged infrastructure.

The sections that follow provide examples of various configurations.

11.8.1. Example NUMA node configuration
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For increased performance, place the tenant network and Ceph object service daemon (OSD)s in one NUMA node, such as NUMA-0, and the VNF and any non-NFV VMs in another NUMA node, such as NUMA-1.

CPU allocation:
Expand
NUMA-0NUMA-1

Number of Ceph OSDs * 4 HT

Guest vCPU for the VNF and non-NFV VMs

DPDK lcore - 2 HT

DPDK lcore - 2 HT

DPDK PMD - 2 HT

DPDK PMD - 2 HT

Example of CPU allocation:
Expand
 NUMA-0NUMA-1

Ceph OSD

32,34,36,38,40,42,76,78,80,82,84,86

 

DPDK-lcore

0,44

1,45

DPDK-pmd

2,46

3,47

nova

 

5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79,81,83,85,87

11.8.2. Example Ceph configuration file
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This section describes a sample Red Hat Ceph Storage configuration file. You can model your configuration file on this one, by substituting values that are appropriate for your Red Hat OpenStack Platform environment. 

[osd]
osd_numa_node = 0                              #
1 

osd_memory_target_autotune = true              #
2 


[mgr]
mgr/cephadm/autotune_memory_target_ratio = 0.2 #
3
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Assign CPU resources for Ceph Object Storage Daemons (OSDs) processes with the following parameters. The values shown here are examples. Adjust the values as appropriate based on your workload and hardware.

1
osd_numa_node: sets the affinity of Ceph processes to a NUMA node, for example, 0 for NUMA-0, 1 for NUMA-1, and so on. -1 sets the affinity to no NUMA node.

In this example, osd_numa_node is set to NUMA-0. As shown in Section 11.8.3, “Example DPDK configuration file”, IsolCpusList contains odd numbered CPUs on NUMA-1, after elements of OvsPmdCoreList are removed. Because the latency-sensitive Compute service (nova) workload is hosted on NUMA-1, you must isolate the Ceph workload on NUMA-0. This example assumes that both the disk controllers and network interfaces for the stroage network are on NUMA-0.

2
osd_memory_target_autotune: when set to true, the OSD daemons adjust their memory consumption based on the osd_memory_target configuration option.
3
autotune_memory_target_ratio: used to allocate memory for OSDs. The default is 0.7.

70% of the total RAM in the system is the starting point, from which any memory consumed by non-autotuned Ceph daemons are subtracted. When osd_memory_target_autotune is true for all OSDs, the remaining memory is divided by the OSDs. For HCI deployments the mgr/cephadm/autotune_memory_target_ratio can be set to 0.2 so that more memory is available for the Compute service. Adjust as needed to ensure each OSD has at least 5 GB of memory.

11.8.3. Example DPDK configuration file
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parameter_defaults:
  ComputeHCIParameters:
    KernelArgs: "default_hugepagesz=1GB hugepagesz=1G hugepages=240 intel_iommu=on iommu=pt                                           #
1 

      isolcpus=2,46,3,47,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79,81,83,85,87"
    TunedProfileName: "cpu-partitioning"
    IsolCpusList:                                               #
2 

      ”2,46,3,47,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,49,51,
      53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79,81,83,85,87"
    VhostuserSocketGroup: hugetlbfs
    OvsDpdkSocketMemory: "4096,4096"                            #
3 

    OvsDpdkMemoryChannels: "4"

    OvsPmdCoreList: "2,46,3,47"                                 #
4
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1
KernelArgs: To calculate hugepages, subtract the value of the NovaReservedHostMemory parameter from total memory.
2
IsolCpusList: Assign a set of CPU cores that you want to isolate from the host processes with this parameter. Add the value of the OvsPmdCoreList parameter to the value of the NovaComputeCpuDedicatedSet parameter to calculate the value for the IsolCpusList parameter.
3
OvsDpdkSocketMemory: Specify the amount of memory in MB to pre-allocate from the hugepage pool per NUMA node with the OvsDpdkSocketMemory parameter. For more information about calculating OVS-DPDK parameters, see OVS-DPDK parameters.
4
OvsPmdCoreList: Specify the CPU cores that are used for the DPDK poll mode drivers (PMD) with this parameter. Choose CPU cores that are associated with the local NUMA nodes of the DPDK interfaces. Allocate 2 HT sibling threads for each NUMA node to calculate the value for the OvsPmdCoreList parameter.

11.8.4. Example nova configuration file
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parameter_defaults:
  ComputeHCIExtraConfig:
    nova::cpu_allocation_ratio: 16 # 2
    NovaReservedHugePages:                                         #
1 

        - node:0,size:1GB,count:4
        - node:1,size:1GB,count:4
  NovaReservedHostMemory: 123904                                   #
2 

  # All left over cpus from NUMA-1
  NovaComputeCpuDedicatedSet:                                                  #
3 

  ['5','7','9','11','13','15','17','19','21','23','25','27','29','31','33','35','37','39','41','43','49','51','|
  53','55','57','59','61','63','65','67','69','71','73','75','77','79','81','83','85','87
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1
NovaReservedHugePages: Pre-allocate memory in MB from the hugepage pool with the NovaReservedHugePages parameter. It is the same memory total as the value for the OvsDpdkSocketMemory parameter.
2
NovaReservedHostMemory: Reserve memory in MB for tasks on the host with the NovaReservedHostMemory parameter. Use the following guidelines to calculate the amount of memory that you must reserve:
  • 5 GB for each OSD.
  • 0.5 GB overhead for each VM.
  • 4GB for general host processing. Ensure that you allocate sufficient memory to prevent potential performance degradation caused by cross-NUMA OSD operation.
3
NovaComputeCpuDedicatedSet: List the CPUs not found in OvsPmdCoreList, or Ceph_osd_docker_cpuset_cpus with the NovaComputeCpuDedicatedSet parameter. The CPUs must be in the same NUMA node as the DPDK NICs.
Expand
Table 11.1. Tunable parameters for HCI deployments
Block Device TypeOSDs, Memory, vCPUs per device

NVMe

Memory : 5GB per OSD
OSDs per device: 4
vCPUs per device: 3

SSD

Memory : 5GB per OSD
OSDs per device: 1
vCPUs per device: 4

HDD

Memory : 5GB per OSD
OSDs per device: 1
vCPUs per device: 1

Use the same NUMA node for the following functions:

  • Disk controller
  • Storage networks
  • Storage CPU and memory

Allocate another NUMA node for the following functions of the DPDK provider network:

  • NIC
  • PMD CPUs
  • Socket memory

11.8.6. Deploying the HCI-DPDK overcloud
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Follow these steps to deploy a hyperconverged overcloud that uses DPDK.

Prerequisites

  • Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) 17.1 or later.
  • The latest version of Red Hat Ceph Storage 6.1.

Procedure

  1. Generate the roles_data.yaml file for the Controller and the ComputeHCIOvsDpdk roles. 

    $ openstack overcloud roles generate -o ~/<templates>/roles_data.yaml \
Controller ComputeHCIOvsDpdk
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Create and configure a new flavor with the openstack flavor create and openstack flavor set commands.

  3. Deploy Ceph by using RHOSP director and the Ceph configuration file.

    Example 

    $ openstack overcloud ceph deploy --config initial-ceph.conf
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. Deploy the overcloud with the custom roles_data.yaml file that you generated.

    Example 

    $ openstack overcloud deploy --templates \
  --timeout 360 \
  -r ~/<templates>/roles_data.yaml \
  -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/\
  cephadm/cephadm-rbd-only.yaml \
  -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/network-isolation.yaml \
  -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/services-docker/neutron-ovs-dpdk.yaml \
  -e ~/<templates>/<custom environment file>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    Important

    This example deploys Ceph RBD (block storage) without Ceph RGW (object storage). To include RGW in the deployment, use cephadm.yaml instead of cephadm-rbd-only.yaml.

Important

This feature 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.

Use time protocols to maintain a consistent timestamp between systems.

Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) includes support for Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and Network Time Protocol (NTP).

You can use NTP to synchronize clocks in your network in the millisecond range, and you can use PTP to synchronize clocks to a higher, sub-microsecond, accuracy. An example use case for PTP is a virtual radio access network (vRAN) that contains multiple antennas which provide higher throughput with more risk of interference.

Timemaster is a program that uses ptp4l and phc2sys in combination with chronyd or ntpd to synchronize the system clock to NTP and PTP time sources. The phc2sys and ptp4l programs use Shared Memory Driver (SHM) reference clocks to send PTP time to chronyd or ntpd, which compares the time sources to synchronize the system clock.

The implementation of the PTPv2 protocol in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) kernel is linuxptp.

The linuxptp package includes the ptp4l program for PTP boundary clock and ordinary clock synchronization, and the phc2sys program for hardware time stamping. For more information about PTP, see: Introduction to PTP in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administrator’s Guide.

Chrony is an implementation of the NTP protocol. The two main components of Chrony are chronyd, which is the Chrony daemon, and chronyc which is the Chrony command line interface.

For more information about Chrony, see Using the Chrony suite to configure NTP in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administrator’s Guide.

The following image is an overview of a packet journey in a PTP configuration.

Figure 11.1. PTP packet journey overview

PTP packet journey overview

The following image is a overview of a packet journey in the Compute node in a PTP configuration.

Figure 11.2. PTP packet journey detail

PTP packet journey detail

11.9.1. Timemaster hardware requirements
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Ensure that you have the following hardware functionality:

  • You have configured the NICs with hardware timestamping capability.
  • You have configured the switch to allow multicast packets.
  • You have configured the switch to also function as a boundary or transparent clock.

You can verify the hardware timestamping with the command ethtool -T <device>. 

$ ethtool -T p5p1
Time stamping parameters for p5p1:
Capabilities:
        hardware-transmit     (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_HARDWARE)
        software-transmit     (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE)
        hardware-receive      (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_HARDWARE)
        software-receive      (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_SOFTWARE)
        software-system-clock (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE)
        hardware-raw-clock    (SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RAW_HARDWARE)
PTP Hardware Clock: 6
Hardware Transmit Timestamp Modes:
        off                   (HWTSTAMP_TX_OFF)
        on                    (HWTSTAMP_TX_ON)
Hardware Receive Filter Modes:
        none                  (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_NONE)
        ptpv1-l4-sync         (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V1_L4_SYNC)
        ptpv1-l4-delay-req    (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V1_L4_DELAY_REQ)
        ptpv2-event           (HWTSTAMP_FILTER_PTP_V2_EVENT)
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You can use either a transparent or boundary clock switch for better accuracy and less latency. You can use an uplink switch for the boundary clock. The boundary clock switch uses an 8-bit correctionField on the PTPv2 header to correct delay variations, and ensure greater accuracy on the end clock. In a transparent clock switch, the end clock calculates the delay variation, not the correctionField.

11.9.2. Configuring Timemaster
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The default Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) service for time synchronization in overcloud nodes is OS::TripleO::Services::Timesync.

Known limitations

  • Enable NTP for virtualized controllers, and enable PTP for bare metal nodes.
  • Virtio interfaces are incompatible, because ptp4l requires a compatible PTP device.
  • Use a physical function (PF) for a VM with SR-IOV. A virtual function (VF) does not expose the registers necessary for PTP, and a VM uses kvm_ptp to calculate time.
  • High Availability (HA) interfaces with multiple sources and multiple network paths are incompatible.

Procedure

  1. To enable the Timemaster service on the nodes that belong to a role that you choose, replace the line that contains OS::TripleO::Services::Timesync with the line OS::TripleO::Services::TimeMaster in the roles_data.yaml file section for that role. 

    #- OS::TripleO::Services::Timesync
- OS::TripleO::Services::TimeMaster
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Configure the heat parameters for the compute role that you use. 

    #Example
ComputeSriovParameters:
  PTPInterfaces: ‘0:eno1,1:eno2’
  PTPMessageTransport: ‘UDPv4’
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Include the new environment file in the openstack overcloud deploy command with any other environment files that are relevant to your environment: 

    $ openstack overcloud deploy \
--templates \

…
-e <existing_overcloud_environment_files> \
-e <new_environment_file1> \
-e <new_environment_file2> \
…
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    • Replace <existing_overcloud_environment_files> with the list of environment files that are part of your existing deployment.
    • Replace <new_environment_file> with the new environment file or files that you want to include in the overcloud deployment process.

Verification

  • Use the command phc_ctl, installed with ptp4linux, to query the NIC hardware clock. 

    # phc_ctl <clock_name> get
# phc_ctl <clock_name> cmp
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11.9.3. Example timemaster configuration
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$ cat /etc/timemaster.conf
# Configuration file for timemaster

#[ntp_server ntp-server.local]
#minpoll 4
#maxpoll 4

[ptp_domain 0]
interfaces eno1
#ptp4l_setting network_transport l2
#delay 10e-6

[timemaster]
ntp_program chronyd

[chrony.conf]
#include /etc/chrony.conf
server clock.redhat.com iburst minpoll 6 maxpoll 10

[ntp.conf]
includefile /etc/ntp.conf

[ptp4l.conf]
#includefile /etc/ptp4l.conf
network_transport L2

[chronyd]
path /usr/sbin/chronyd

[ntpd]
path /usr/sbin/ntpd
options -u ntp:ntp -g

[phc2sys]
path /usr/sbin/phc2sys
#options -w

[ptp4l]
path /usr/sbin/ptp4l
#options -2 -i eno1
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11.9.4. Example timemaster operation
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$ systemctl status timemaster
● timemaster.service - Synchronize system clock to NTP and PTP time sources
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/timemaster.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2020-08-25 19:10:18 UTC; 2min 6s ago
 Main PID: 2573 (timemaster)
    Tasks: 6 (limit: 357097)
   Memory: 5.1M
   CGroup: /system.slice/timemaster.service
           ├─2573 /usr/sbin/timemaster -f /etc/timemaster.conf
           ├─2577 /usr/sbin/chronyd -n -f /var/run/timemaster/chrony.conf
           ├─2582 /usr/sbin/ptp4l -l 5 -f /var/run/timemaster/ptp4l.0.conf -H -i eno1
           ├─2583 /usr/sbin/phc2sys -l 5 -a -r -R 1.00 -z /var/run/timemaster/ptp4l.0.socket -t [0:eno1] -n 0 -E ntpshm -M 0
           ├─2587 /usr/sbin/ptp4l -l 5 -f /var/run/timemaster/ptp4l.1.conf -H -i eno2
           └─2588 /usr/sbin/phc2sys -l 5 -a -r -R 1.00 -z /var/run/timemaster/ptp4l.1.socket -t [0:eno2] -n 0 -E ntpshm -M 1

Aug 25 19:11:53 computesriov-0 ptp4l[2587]: [152.562] [0:eno2] selected local clock e4434b.fffe.4a0c24 as best master
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