Revision as of 15:41, 18 February 2013

Overview

Mellanox Quantum Plugin

Openstack Mellanox Quantum plugin supports Mellanox embedded switch functionality as part of the VPI (Ethernet/InfiniBand) HCA. Mellanox Quantum Plugin allows hardware vNICs (based on SR-IOV Virtual Functions) per each Virtual Machine vNIC to have its unique connectivity, security, and QoS attributes. Hardware vNICs can be mapped to the guest VMs through para-virtualization (using a Tap device), or directly as a Virtual PCI device to the guest, allowing higher performance and advanced features such as RDMA.

Hardware based switching, provides better performance, functionality, and security/isolation for virtual cloud environments. Future versions of the plug-in will include OpenFlow API to control and monitor the embedded switch and vNICs functionality

This plugin is implemented according to Plugin-Agent pattern.

   	         +-----------------+                       +--------------+
                 | Controller node |                       | Compute node |
       +-----------------------------------+     +-----------------------------------+
       |  +-----------+      +----------+  |     |  +----------+       +----------+  |
       |  |           |      |          |  |     |  |          |  zmq  |          |  |
       |  | Openstack | v2.0 | Mellanox |  | RPC |  | Mellanox |REQ/REP| Mellanox |  |
       |  | Quantum   +------+ Quantum  +-----------+ Quantum  +-------+ Embedded |  |
       |  |           |      | Plugin   |  |     |  | Agent    |       | Switch   |  |
       |  |           |      |          |  |     |  |          |       | (NIC)    |  |
       |  +-----------+      +----------+  |     |  +----------+       +----------+  |
       +-----------------------------------+     +-----------------------------------+

• Openstack Mellanox Quantum Plugin implements the Quantum v2.0 API.
• Mellanox Quantum Plugin processes the Quantum API calls and manages network segmentation ID allocation.
• The plugin uses Databsase to store configuration and allocation mapping.
• The plugin maintains compatibility to Linux Bridge Plugin support DHCP and L3 Agents by running L2 Linux Bridge Agent on Network Node.
• Mellanox Openstack Quantum Agent (L2 Agent) should run on each compute node.
• Agent should apply VIF connectivity based on mapping between a VIF (VM vNIC) and Embedded Switch port.

Mellanox nova VIF Driver

Mellanox Nova VIF driver should be used when running Mellanox Quantum Plugin. VIF driver supports VIF plugging by binding vNIC (Para-virtualized or SR-IOV with optional RDMA guest access) to the Embedded Switch port.

Prerequisite

The following are the Mellanox Quantum Plugin prerequisites:

1. Compute nodes should be equiped with Mellanox ConnectX®-2/ConnectX®-3 Network Adapter.
2. Mellanox OFED 2.0 installed.
3. eswitchd controller utility - An add-on user space software that manages HCA embedded switch via user space utilities should be installed.

Code Structure

Mellanox Quantum Plugin and supporting nova VIF driver are located at Mellanox openStack

1. Quantum Plugin package structure:

  quantum/etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx -plugin configuration
  mlnx_conf.ini - sample plugin configuration

  quantum/quantum/plugins/mlnx -  plugin code
  /agent - Agent code
  /common - common  code
  /db - plugin persistency model and wrapping methods
  mlnx_plugin.py - Mellanox Openstack Plugin
  rpc_callbacks.py - RPC handler for received messages
  agent_notify_api.py - Agent RPC notify methods

Mellanox Quantum Plugin should be located under /quantum/quantum/plugins/

1. Nova VIF Driver package structure is:

  nova/nova/mlnx - nova vif driver code

Mellanox nova VIF driver should be located under /nova/virt/libvirt/

1. Mellanox Quantum Plugin Installation (TBD)

Mellanox Quantum Plugin Configuration

Quantum Configuration

1. Make the Mellanox plugin the current quantum plugin by

  edit quantum.conf and change the core_plugin
  core_plugin = quantum.plugins.mlnx.mlnx_plugin.MellanoxEswitchPlugin

1. Database configuration

  MySQL should be installed on the central server. 
  A database named quantum should be created

1. Plugin configuration

  Edit the configuration file: etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx/mlnx_conf.ini
  -- On central server node
  [DATABASE]
  sql_connection - must match the mysql configuration

  [VLANS]
  tenant_network_type - must be set on of supported tenant network types
  network_vlan_ranges - must be configured to specify the names of the physical networks
                        managed by the mellanox plugin, along with the ranges of VLAN IDs
                        available on each physical network for allocation to virtual networks. 

  -- on compute node(s))
  [AGENT]
  polling_interval - interfval to poll for existing vNICs
  rpc  - must be set to True

  [ESWITCH]
  physical_interface_mapping -  the network_interface_mappings maps each physical network name
                                to the physical interface (on top of Mellanox Adapter) connecting 

the node to that physical network.

For Plugin consfiguration file example, please refer to Mellanox config *ini file

Nova Configuration (compute node(s))

Edit the nova.conf file

1. Configure the vif driver, and libvirt/vif type

  compute_driver=nova.virt.libvirt.driver.LibvirtDriver
  connection_type=libvirt
  libvirt_vif_driver=nova.virt.libvirt.mlnx.vif.MlxEthVIFDriver

1. Configure vnic_type ('direct' or 'hostdev')

  vnic_type= direct 

1. Define Embedded Switch managed physical network (currently single fabric on node)

  fabric=default - specifies physical network for vNICs

1. Enable DHCP server to allow VMs to acquire IPs

  quantum_use_dhcp=true

Mellanox Quantum Plugin Installation

On the Quantum Server Node

1. Copy Mellanox openstack plugin to installed quantum plugins directory

  (usually /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/quantum/plugins)
  cp -a mellanox-quantum-plugin/quantum/quantum/plugins/mlnx /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/quantum/plugins

1. Modify the /etc/quantum/quantum.conf file.

  core_plugin = quantum.plugins.mlnx.mlnx_plugin.MellanoxEswitchPlugin

1. Copy the Mellanox plugin configuration.

  mkdir -p /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx
  cp mellanox-quantum-plugin/quantum/etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx/mlnx_conf.ini /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx

1. Modify the /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx/mlnx_conf.ini file to reflect your environment.

1. Run the server

  quantum-server --config-file /etc/quantum/quantum.conf --config-file /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx/mlnx_conf.ini
  or 
  /etc/init.d/quantum-server start 

On Compute Nodes

Prerequisites

python-zmq iproute2-ss121001 ethtool 3.5

Nova-compute

1. Copy the nova Mellanox vifDriver

   cp -a mellanox-quantum-plugin/nova/nova/virt/libvirt/mlnx /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/nova/virt/libvirt

1. Modify nova.conf

   compute_driver=nova.virt.libvirt.driver.LibvirtDriver
   libvirt_vif_driver=nova.virt.libvirt.mlnx.vif.MlxEthVIFDriver
   vnic_type=direct - can be either 'direct' or 'hostdev'
   fabric=default - specifies physical network for vNICs (currently support one fabric per node)

1. Restart nova

eswitchd

1. Copy daemon files

   cp -a daemon /opt/mlnx_daemon

1. Copy the configuration file and modify it according to your environment

   mkdir  /etc/mlnx_daemon
   cp /opt/mlnx_daemon/etc/mlnx_daemon.conf /etc/mlnx_daemon

1. Run the daemon:

   /opt/mlnx_daemon/eswitch_daemon.py 

quantum Agent

1. Copy Mellanox openstack agent

   cp -a mellanox-quantum-plugin/quantum/quantum/plugins/mlnx /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/quantum/plugins

1. Copy the quantum.conf and mlnx_conf.ini file to the compute node

   mkdir -p /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx
   cp mellanox-quantum-plugin/quantum/etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx/mlnx_conf.ini /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx

1. Modify the Quantum Agent configuration at /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx/mlnx_conf.ini

1. Run the agent

   python /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/quantum/plugins/mlnx/agent/eswitch_quantum_agent.py --config-file /etc/quantum/quantum.conf  --config-file /etc/quantum/plugins/mlnx/mlnx_conf.ini

1. Additional Inforamtion

===================================================================

For more details, please refer your question to openstack@mellanox.com