New driver interface for RAID configuration¶

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic/+bug/1526400

The proposal presents the work required to create a new driver interface for RAID configuration. It also proposes a method to make RAID configuration available as part of zapping or cleaning.

Note

Even though RAID configuration fits into zapping, it can be used as part of cleaning as well. Zapping and cleaning follow a similar mechanism (zap step is a clean step with priority of 0). It makes sense to do RAID configuration as part of cleaning for software RAID (where secure disk erase will also erase the software RAID configuration on the disk). It’s operators choice to decide whether RAID configuration should be part of zapping or cleaning and it will be configurable in the drivers implementing it.

Problem description¶

There is no support in Ironic currently to do RAID configuration.
A specific set of tasks for this requires a separate interface on the drivers. The new RAID interface will allow operators to specify RAID configuration for a node. Different drivers may provide the same interface to the operator for RAID configuration.

Proposed change¶

After a node is enrolled and the basic hardware information is available, the operator can define a RAID configuration. This configuration will be applied during zapping or cleaning.
The operator can convey the RAID configuration information to the Ironic driver through REST APIs or CLI as JSON data. The RAID configuration information will contain the properties for each logical disk and optionally hints to Ironic to find the desired backing physical disks for them.

The properties can be split into 4 different types:
1. Mandatory properties - These properties must be specified for each logical disk and have no default values.
  - size_gb - Size (Integer) of the logical disk to be created in GiB. MAX may be specified if the logical disk should use all of the space available on the backing physical disks. This can be used only when backing physical disks are specified (see below).
  - raid_level - RAID level for the logical disk. Ironic will define the supported RAID levels as 0, 1, 2, 5, 6, 1+0, 5+0, 6+0. Drivers may override the values in the get_logical_disk_properties method in RAIDInterface.
2. Optional properties - These properties have default values and they may be overridden in the specification of any logical disk.
  - volume_name - Name of the volume. Should be unique within the Node. If not specified, volume name will be auto-generated.
  - is_root_volume - Set to true if this is the root volume. Can be used for only one of logical disk. The root device hint will be saved, if the driver is capable of retrieving it. This is false by default.
3. Backing physical disk hints - These hints are specified for each logical disk to let Ironic find the desired disks for RAID configuration. This is machine-independent information. This serves the use-case where the operator doesn’t want to provide individual details for each bare metal node.
  - share_physical_disks - Set to true if this logical disk can share physical disks with other logical disks. If this is not provided, drivers will assume it as false.
  - disk_type - hdd or ssd. If this is not specified, disk type will not be considered as a criteria to find backing physical disks.
  - interface_type - sata or scsi or sas. If this is not specified, interface type will not be considered as a criteria to find backing physical disks.
  - number_of_physical_disks - Integer, number of disks to use for the logical disk. Defaulted to minimum number of disks required for the particular RAID level.
  The above mentioned backing physical disk hints are defined by Ironic and every driver has to implement them. The supported values and the default values for the above hints may be overridden by the driver using the RAIDInterface.get_logical_disk_properties() method.
  
  In addition to the above hints, drivers may define their own hints in the get_logical_disk_properties method. For more details, refer to the Driver API impact section. The possible use-cases for them might be:
  - Filter disks by particular vendors
  - Filter disks by models
  - Filter disks by firmware versions.
4. Backing physical disks - These are the actual machine-dependent information. This is suitable for environments where the operator wants to automate the selection of physical disks with a 3rd-party tool based on a wider range of attributes (eg. S.M.A.R.T. status, physical location).
  - controller - The name of the controller as read by the driver.
  - physical_disks - A list of physical disks to use as read by the driver.
  Note
  
  The values for these properties are hardware dependent.
Note

Only properties from “Backing physical disk hints” or “Backing physical disks” should be specified. If both are specified, they should be consistent with each other. If they are not consistent, then the raid configuration will fail (because the appropriate backing physical disks could not be found).
Some examples:
Example 1 (using backing physical disk hints):
{ "logical_disks": [ { "size_gb": 50, "raid_level": "1+0", "disk_type": "hdd", "interface_type": "sas", "volume_name": "root_volume", "is_root_volume": "true" }, { "size_gb": 100, "number_of_physical_disks": 3, "raid_level": "5", "disk_type": "hdd", "interface_type": "sas" "volume_name": "data_volume" } ] }
Example 2 (using backing physical disks):
{ "logical_disks": [ { "size_gb": 50, "raid_level": "1+0", "controller": "RAID.Integrated.1-1", "volume_name": "root_volume", "is_root_volume": "true" "physical_disks": [ "Disk.Bay.0:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1", "Disk.Bay.1:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1" ] }, { "size_gb": 100, "raid_level": "5", "controller": "RAID.Integrated.1-1", "volume_name": "data_volume" "physical_disks": [ "Disk.Bay.2:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1", "Disk.Bay.3:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1", "Disk.Bay.4:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1" ] } ] }
The RAID configuration information is stored as JSON in node.target_raid_config field. Operator can use the REST API (or CLI) to put a new value here at any time, which is compared to node.raid_config during zapping and cleaning, and driver may apply changes only in those stages. Refer REST API Impact section for more details.
New driver interface called RAIDInterface will be provided for RAID configuration for drivers. For more details, refer to the Driver API impact section.
New methods create_configuration and delete_configuration in RAIDInterface will be available as part of zapping. The operator can choose to call them as part of zap steps. The corresponding zap steps will be node.raid.create_configuration and node.raid.delete_configuration.
A new method update_raid_info will be available in ironic.common.raid. This method may be used by the drivers implementing RAID support to update the RAID information in the Node database. This will facilitate drivers to do the RAID configuration asynchronously. This method will do the following:
- Set node.raid_config to the value returned by the driver.
- The root device hint for the root volume will be updated in node.properties (as per root device hint) and the size of root volume will be updated in node.properties.local_gb. It’s up to the driver to choose which root device hint it wants to specify. Furthermore, it isn’t even necessary for the driver to choose any root_device_hint.
- The RAID level of the root volume will be updated as raid_level in node.properties.capabilities.
A new REST API will be created for retrieving the properties which may be specified as part of RAID configuration. For details, see the REST API Impact section below.
REST API will be created to PUT RAID config, and a new REST resource added to retrieve the requested and actual RAID config.

Alternatives¶

Operator can change the RAID configuration manually whenever required after putting the node to MANAGEABLE state. But this has to be done for each node.

Data model impact¶

The following fields in the Node object will be updated:

A new database field, node.target_raid_config, will store the pending RAID configuration to be applied during zapping or cleaning. This will be a JSON dictionary. This field will be read-only.
A new database field, node.raid_config, will store the last applied RAID configuration. This will also contain the timestamp of when this configuration was applied. This will be a JSON dictionary. This field will be read-only.
node.properties.local_gb will be updated after applying RAID configuration to the size of the root volume.
node.properties.root_device will be updated with the root device hint returned by the driver as prescribed in the root device hint spec.
A new capability raid_level will be added in node.properties.capabilities. This will contain the RAID level of the root volume.

State Machine Impact¶

None.

REST API impact¶

Two new REST API endpoints will be introduced as part of this change.

To GET the RAID properties that can be defined and their possible values:

GET /drivers/<driver>/raid/logical_disk_properties

The operation will return the properties and a textual description of the possible values for each property:

{
 'raid_level': 'RAID level for the logical disk. Supported values are
                0, 1, 2, 5, 6, 1+0, 5+0, 6+0. Required.',
 'size_gb': 'Size of the logical disk in GiB. Required.',
 'disk_type': 'Disk Type. Supported values are `hdd` or `sdd`. Optional',
 .
 .
 .
 .
}

To set the target RAID configuration, a user will:
```
PUT /v1/nodes/NNNN/states/raid
```
with a BODY containing the JSON description of the RAID config.

If accepted by the driver, this information will be stored in the node.target_raid_config field and exposed in the same manner as the power and provision states. In other words, it may be retrieved either within the detailed view of a node, or by either of the following:
```
GET /v1/nodes/NNNN
GET /v1/nodes/NNNN/states
```
Note

It might also make sense to have GET /v1/nodes/NNNN/states/raid, but for maintaining consistency with power and provision, we allow only GET /v1/nodes/NNNN and GET /v1/nodes/NNNN/states.

If the driver doesn’t support RAID configuration, then both API calls will return HTTP 400 (Bad Request). Otherwise the API will return HTTP 200 (OK).

Client (CLI) impact¶

A new option will be available in Ironic CLI for getting the properties which may be specified as part of the RAID configuration:

$ ironic node-raid-logical-disk-properties <node-uuid>

A new method will be added to set the target RAID properties

RPC API impact¶

Two new RPC APIs will be created.

get_raid_logical_disk_properties - This method will be called in GET /drivers/<driver>/raid/logical_disk_properties.
set_target_raid_config - This method will be called in PUT /v1/nodes/NNNN/states/raid.

Driver API impact¶

A new RAIDInterface will be available for the drivers to allow them to implement RAID configuration. It will have the following methods:

create_configuration() - The driver implementation of the method has to read the request RAID configuration from node.target_raid_config and create the RAID configuration on the bare metal. The driver implementations should throw error if node.target_raid_config is not set. The driver must ensure that ironic.common.raid.update_raid_info() is called at the end of the process, in order to update the node’s raid_config. The implementation detail is up to the driver depending on the synchronicity/asynchronicity of the operation.

The raid_config will include the following:

For each logical disk (in addition to the input passed):

controller - The name of the controller used for the logical disk as read by the driver.

physical_disks - A list containing the identifier for the physical disks used for the logical disk as read by the driver.

root_device_hint - A dictionary containing the root device hint to be used by Ironic to find the disk to which image is to be deployed. It’s up to the driver to determine which root device hint it wants to provide.

A list of all the physical disks on the system with the following details:

controller - RAID controller for the physical disk.

id - ID for the physical disk as read the driver

disk_type - hdd or ssd

interface_type - sas or sata or scsi

size_gb

state - State field states the current status of the physical disk. It can be one of:

active if disk is part of an array

ready if disk is ready to be part of a volume

failed if disk has encountered some error

hotspare if disk is hotspare and part of some array

offline if disk is not available for raid due to some other reason, but not failed

non_raid if disk is not part of raid and is directly visible

The above details may be used for backing physical disk hints for later raid configurations.

Note

For a newly enrolled node or a node in which raid configuration was never done, the information about physical disks and controllers can be populated by hardware introspection. This is not in the scope of this spec.

The function definition will be as follows:
def create_configuration(task, create_root_volume=False,
                  create_nonroot_volumes=False):
    """Create RAID configuration on the node.

    This method creates the RAID configuration as read from
    node.target_raid_config.  This method
    by default will create all logical disks.

    :param task: TaskManager object containing the node.
    :param create_root_volume: Setting this to False indicates
        not to create root volume that is specified in the node's
        target_raid_config. Default value is True.
    :param create_nonroot_volumes: Setting this to False indicates
        not to create non-root volumes (all except the root volume) in
        the node's target_raid_config.  Default value is True.
    :returns: states.CLEANWAIT if RAID configuration is in progress
        asynchronously or None if it is complete.
    """
delete_configuration() - To delete the RAID configuration.

The function definition will be as follows:
def delete_configuration(task):
    """Delete RAID configuration on the node.

    :param task: TaskManager object containing the node.
    :returns: states.CLEANWAIT if deletion is in progress
        asynchronously or None if it is complete.
    """
validate() - To validate a RAID configuration. This will be called while validating the driver interfaces. This will read the target RAID configuration from node.properties.target_raid_config and call validate_raid_config to validate target RAID configuration.

The function definition will be as follows:
def validate(task):
    """Validates the RAID interface.

    :param task: TaskManager object containing the node.
    :raises: InvalidParameterValue, if RAID configuration is invalid.
    :raises: MissingParameterValue, if RAID configuration has some
        missing parameters.
    """
validate_raid_config() - To validate target RAID configuration. This will be called during the RPC call set_target_raid_config() to validate target RAID configuration. It will also be called during validate().

The function definition will be as follows:
def validate_raid_config(task, raid_config):
    """Validates the given RAID configuration.

    :param task: TaskManager object containing the node.
    :param raid_config: The target RAID config to validate.
    :raises: InvalidParameterValue, if RAID configuration is invalid.
    """
get_logical_disk_properties() - To get the RAID properties that are defined by the driver.

The function definition will be as follows:
def get_logical_disk_properties():
    """Gets the RAID properties defined by the driver.

    :returns: A dictionary of properties and a textual description.
    """

After performing the RAID configuration (create or delete), the drivers may call ironic.common.raid.update_raid_info() with the raid_config. The details about the method has been described above. The definition of the method will look like below:

def update_raid_info(node, raid_config):
    "Updates the necessary fields of the node after RAID configuration.

    This method updates the current RAID configuration in
    node.properties.raid_config.  If root device hint was passed,
    it will update node.properties.local_gb, node.properties.root_device_hint
    and node.properties.capabilities['raid_level'].

    :param node: a node object
    :param raid_config: The current RAID configuration on the bare metal
        node.
    """

Nova driver impact¶

None.

Ramdisk impact¶

N/A

Security impact¶

None.

Other end user impact¶

Users from Nova may choose the desired RAID level for the root volume by using compute capabilities. For example:

nova flavor-key ironic-test set capabilities:raid_level="1+0"

Scalability impact¶

None.

Performance Impact¶

RAID configuration may extend the time required for zapping or cleaning on the nodes, but this is important for performance and reliability reasons.

Other deployer impact¶

Operator can make use of node.raid.create_configuration and node.raid.delete_configuration as zap or clean tasks for doing RAID management.

Developer impact¶

Developers may implement the RAIDInterface for respective drivers.

Implementation¶

Assignee(s)¶

Primary assignee:: rameshg87
Other contributors:: ifarkas

Work Items¶

Create REST API endpoints for RAID configuration.
Create RAIDInterface and create a fake implementation of RAIDInterface.
Implement update_raid_info in ironic.common.raid.
Implement Ironic CLI changes.
Write unit tests.

Dependencies¶

Root device hints - http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/ironic-specs/specs/kilo/root-device-hints.html
Zapping of nodes - https://review.opendev.org/#/c/140826/

Testing¶

Unit tests will be added for the code. A fake implementation of the RAIDInterface will be provided for testing purpose and this can be run as part of zapping.
Tempest API coverage will be added, using the fake driver above.
Each driver is responsible for providing the third party CI for testing the RAID configuration.

Upgrades and Backwards Compatibility¶

None.

Documentation Impact¶

Documentation will be provided on how to configure a node for RAID.

References¶

Other references:

New Ironic provisioning state machine: http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/ironic-specs/specs/kilo/new-ironic-state-machine.html
Support Zapping of Nodes: https://review.opendev.org/#/c/140826/

New driver interface for RAID configuration

New driver interface for RAID configuration¶

Problem description¶

Proposed change¶

Alternatives¶

Data model impact¶

State Machine Impact¶

REST API impact¶

Client (CLI) impact¶

RPC API impact¶

Driver API impact¶

Nova driver impact¶

Ramdisk impact¶

Security impact¶

Other end user impact¶

Scalability impact¶

Performance Impact¶

Other deployer impact¶

Developer impact¶

Implementation¶

Assignee(s)¶

Work Items¶

Dependencies¶

Testing¶

Upgrades and Backwards Compatibility¶

Documentation Impact¶

References¶

Ironic Specs 0.0.1.dev763

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