Using Netronome SmartNIC vRouter with OpenSDN

date:

2021-01-19

Note

The Netronome SmartNIC vRouter technology covered in this document is available for evaluation purposes only. It is not intended for deployment in production networks.

OpenSDN supports Netronome Agilio CX SmartNICs for OpenSDN deployment with Red Hat OpenStack Platform Director (RHOSPd) 13 environment.

This feature will enable service providers to improve the forwarding performance which includes packets per second (PPS) of vRouter. This will optimize server CPU usage and you can deploy more Virtual network functions (VNFs) per server.

Benefits:

• Increased PPS capacity of OpenSDN vRouter datapath allowing applications to reach their full processing capacity.

• Reclaimed CPU cores from OpenSDN vRouter off-loading allowing more VMs and VNFs to be deployed per server.

The goal of this topic is to provide a procedure for deploying accelerated vRouter compute nodes.

Before you begin:

• Equip compute nodes with Netronome Agilio CX SmartNIC.

  For details, refer to Agilio CX SmartNICs.

• Retrieve Agilio heat-template plugin.

  Register on Netronome support site at https://help.netronome.com and provide Docker Hub credentials.

  Netronome will provide the TripleO templates for SmartNIC vRouter deployment on compute nodes. Also, Netronome will authorize Docker Hub registry access.

  For details, refer to Netronome Agilio vRouter 19``xx` deployment guide <https://github.com/netronome-support/Agilio-vRouter-19xx/wiki/Agilio-vRouter-19xx-deployment-guide-%5BRHEL-7.6%5D%5BRHOSP-13%5D>`__.

• Note the following version tags:

  AGILIO_TAG="2.38-rhel-queensFORWARDER_TAG="2.38-rhel-queens

Procedure:

Note

If you have multiple undercloud nodes deployed, you must perform the following procedure on the same node.

1. Configure Agilio plugin.

   For details, refer to Netronome agilio-ovs-openstack-plugin GitHub Repository.

   1. Extract the Agilio plugin archive and copy the agilio-plugin folder into the tripleo-heat-templates directory.

      [stack@queensa ~]$ tar -xzvf rhosp-contrail-agilio-heat-plugin-5-34.tgzagilio-plugin/agilio-plugin/agilio-vrouter.yamlagilio-plugin/agilio_upgrade.shagilio-plugin/deploy_rhosp.shagilio-plugin/nfp_udev.shagilio-plugin/agilio-env.yamlagilio-plugin/versionagilio-plugin/README.md[stack@queensa ~]$ cp -r agilio-plugin/ tripleo-heat-templates/

   2. Navigate to the agilio-plugin directory on the undercloud node.

      [tripleo-heat-templates]$ cd agilio-plugin/

   3. Modify agilio-env.yaml file as per your environment.

      Note

      Reserve at least 1375*2 MB hugepages for virtio-forwarder.

      Sample agilio-env.yaml file:

      resource_registry:
        OS::TripleO::NodeExtraConfigPost: agilio-vrouter.yaml
      
      parameter_defaults:
        # Hugepages
        ContrailVrouterHugepages2MB: "8192"
        # IOMMU
        ComputeParameters:
          KernelArgs: "intel_iommu=on iommu=pt isolcpus=1,2 "
      
        ComputeCount: 3
      
        # Aditional config
        ControlPlaneDefaultRoute: 10.0.x.1
        EC2MetadataIp: 10.0.x.1  # Generally the IP of the Undercloud
        DnsServers: ["8.8.8.8","192.168.3.3"]
        NtpServer: ntp.is.co.za
        ContrailRegistryInsecure: true
        DockerInsecureRegistryAddress: 172.x.x.150:6666,10.0.x.1:8787
        ContrailRegistry: 172.x.x.150:6666
        ContrailImageTag: <container_tag>-rhel-queens
      
      # Fix DB Diskspace too low issue
        ContrailAnalyticsDBMinDiskGB: 40
      

   4. Add Docker Hub credentials to tripleo-heat-templates/agilio-plugin/agililo_upgrade.sh file to retrieve containers from AGILIO_REPO="docker.io/netronomesystems/" repository.

      #GENERAL DOCKER CONFIGDOCKER_USR=****** #ENTER_DOCKER_USERNAME_HEREDOCKER_PASS=****** #ENTER_DOCKER_PASSWORD_HERE

      [root@overcloud-novacompute-2 heat-admin]# docker ps -a | grep virtio_for7d5af8a2591d        docker.io/netronomesystems/virtio-forwarder:2.38-rhel-queens           "./entrypoint.sh"        30 seconds ago      Up 15 seconds virtio_forwarder

      [root@overcloud-novacompute-2 heat-admin]# docker ps -a | grep agilioc7c611b5168b        docker.io/netronomesystems/agilio-vrouter:2.38-rhel-queens             "./entrypoint.sh"        46 seconds ago      Up 38 seconds agilio_vrouter

2. Prepare the OpenSDN cluster for deployment.

   Note

   Do not perform steps for Setting Up the Overcloud.

3. Deploy the cluster by one of the following ways:

   • Add agilio-env.yaml to installing overcloud step as mentioned in Setting Up the Overcloud topic.

     openstack overcloud deploy --templates ~/tripleo-heat-templates-e ~/overcloud_images.yaml-e ~/tripleo-heat-templates/environments/network-isolation.yaml-e ~/tripleo-heat-templates/environments/contrail/contrail-plugins.yaml-e ~/tripleo-heat-templates/environments/contrail/contrail-services.yaml-e ~/tripleo-heat-templates/environments/contrail/contrail-net.yaml-e ~/tripleo-heat-templates/agilio-plugin/agilio-env.yaml--roles-file ~/tripleo-heat-templates/roles_data_contrail_aio.yaml

     Or

   • Run the following command:

     deploy_rhosp.sh

     -e ~/tripleo-heat-templates/agilio-plugin/agilio-env.yaml

On completing above steps successfully, refer to Netronome agilio-ovs-openstack-plugin GitHub Repository on how to spin up the accelerated VMs.