Cluster Bring-Up Web Installation Steps

This section describes how to deploy Cluster Bring-Up Web on a Linux machine.

Prerequisites

Python 3.6 or greater is required on the host where the framework is to be deployed.

System Requirements

The system that runs the cluster bring-up framework must satisfy the following requirements:

• At least 4GB of memory

• At least 2 CPU cores

• At least 30GB of space

• Running Kubernetes

Supported Operating Systems

• CentOS 8 or later 64-bit (x86)

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 or later 64-bit (x86)

• Ubuntu 20.04 or later 64-bit (x86)

Supported Deployment Platforms

NVIDIA currently supports running cluster bring-up framework as a containerized application using Docker images deployed to a Kubernetes cluster.

In the following sections, you'll find deployment details and instructions for a Kubernetes platform.

This section describes how to deploy Cluster Bring-Up WEB in Kubernetes cluster.

Installation

The installation is performed by using a virtual machine (VM) image which includes COT with all its dependencies.

Installation with Image

This section shows how to install the and deploy the cluster-bring up in offline mode which requires the user to download and restore a machine image with most of the dependencies already located on the machine.

Prerequisites

The following is a list of requirements that must be met:

• Clonezilla version 3.0.1.8

Installation Steps

For offline installation, perform the following steps:

1. Download the tar image file located here.

2. Move the download file to the data center and untar the file.

3. Restore the image on your machine via Clonezilla. See section Restore Image for procedure.

4. Log into the installation machine as the root user with the password "password".

5. Make sure Kubernetes is running in Ready status:

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   $ kubectl get nodes
   NAME                 STATUS   ROLES                  AGE   VERSION
   ib-node-01-cot       Ready    control-plane,master   39m   v1.24.2+k3s1
           

6. Change directory to the location of the installation script located under /cot:

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   $ pwd
   /cot
   $ ls -la
   total 24
   drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Jul 21 14:36 .
   drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 Jul 21 15:03 ..
   drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Jul 21 14:35 ansible
   drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 4096 Jul 21 14:36 installer
   -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  583 Jul 21 14:36 install.sh
   -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  393 Jul 21 14:36 uninstall.sh
           

7. Run the installation script with the --offline-mode flag:

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   $ ./install.sh --offline-mode
   Installing cluster-bringup-service
   Installing awx-operator
   Installing awx-cluster-bringup
   AWX is currently upgrading
   Importing AWX resources
   Installation finished successfully
   AWX interface URL: http://10.43.144.44:80
   AWX username: admin
   AWX password: SxFLNsjpjAuoUICJDl0XUvdjDDmQmBWf
   AWX OAuth token: jacb63Ac3bzyXXTTzsYbzAdA1mymaP
   API URL: http://cluster-bringup:5000/api
   PyPI URL: http://cluster-bringup:5000/pypi/simple/
   Downloads URL: http://cluster-bringup:5000/downloads/
   Files folder: /opt/nvidia/cot/files
           

Restore Image

As part of the installation process, an image with Kubernetes and AWX-Operator already present must be restored on a machine. To restore, the Clonezilla software must be utilized.

Restore VM Using Hypervisor

The Clonezeilla restoration procedure can also be used for virtualization.

The following subsections provide the list of virtualization solutions that are supported.

KVM

Kernel-based Virtual Machine, or KVM, is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions. Using KVM, users can run multiple VMs running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each VM has private virtualized hardware: A network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.

Dependencies

The following is a list of required dependencies:

• virt-manager application

Restoration Steps

Follow these steps to restore the image on a VM. Each step has a name prepended to the step which indicated from which machine to perform the action:

1. On the machine running a hypervisor, check if there is enough space in the root and /images directories.

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   $ df -h
   Filesystem        Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
   devtmpfs           91G     0   91G   0% /dev
   tmpfs              91G     0   91G   0% /dev/shm
   tmpfs              91G   35M   91G   1% /run
   tmpfs              91G     0   91G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
   /dev/sda2          44G  8.1G   33G  20% /
   /dev/sda1         2.0G  226M  1.6G  13% /boot
   /dev/sda5         392G   99G  274G  27% /images
   tmpfs              19G  4.0K   19G   1% /run/user/0
   l1:/vol/s1        2.9T  2.0T  931G  69% /auto/s1
           

2. On the machine running the hypervisor, download Clonezilla ISO and move it to the /tmp directory.

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   $ ll /tmp
   total 396484
   -rw-r--r--   1 qemu qemu 379584512 Jul 17 16:06 clonezilla-live-3.0.1-8-amd64.iso
           

3. On the machine running the hypervisor, create a new directory in the /images directory with the name of the newly created machine.

4. On the machine running the hypervisor, create a disk image with 65G.

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   $ qemu-img create -f raw /images/<machine_name>/<machine_name>-bk-disk.img 65G
   Formatting '/images/<machine_name>/<machine_name>-bk-disk.img', fmt=raw size=69793218560
           

5. On the machine running the hypervisor, open the Virtual Manager GUI.

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   $ virt-manager
           

6. In the Virtual Manager GUI, click the "Create a virtual machine" icon on the top left.

7. Create a new VM (5 steps):

   1. Select "Local install media".

   2. For "Choose ISO", select the Clonezilla ISO placed in /tmp, uncheck "Automatically detect from the installation media", type and select the OS of choice (must be supported).

   3. Memory: 4096; CPUs: 2

   4. For "Select or create custom storage" and browse to the image disk created earlier.

   5. Type in a unique machine name and check the "Customize configuration before install" box

   6. Click "Finish".

8. In the Virtual Manager GUI, change the boot order:

   1. Open the settings of the VM you are restoring on.

   2. Boot Options.

   3. Check the "Clonezilla CDROM" box which is linked to the Clonezilla ISO from step 2 above.

   4. Click the up arrow to move it up in the boot order.

   5. Click "Apply".

   6. Click "Begin Installation".

9. After restarting the machine, the Clonezilla software will boot. Follow these steps to successfully restore the image:

   1. Clonezilla live.

   2. English.

   3. Keep.

   4. Start.

   5. device-image.

   6. ssh_server.

   7. dhcp.

   8. Type the IP address of the machine which stores the untar file from step 2 of section "Installation Steps".

   9. Port stays at "22" (default ssh).

   10. Keep "root" as user.

   11. Type the directory path which stores the untar file from step 2 of section "Installation Steps".

   12. Type password to root user.

   13. Mode: Beginner.

   14. restoredisk.

   15. Select the name of your image.

   16. Select the name of your storage.

   17. Yes, check.

   18. Power off.

10. In the Virtual Manager GUI, select "Change Boot Order". Then move disk image created in step 4 to the top of the list ahead of Clonezilla (CDROM).

11. In the Virtual Manager GUI, select "Force off" and "Start VM".

12. After booting, log in as root user with the password "password".

13. (Restore) Change the name of the machine since it has the cloned machine name configured.

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    $ vi /etc/hostname
    $ vi /etc/hosts
            

14. (Restore) If no Internet access is available on the machine, change the network interface in use.

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    $ ifconfig -a
    $ ethtool ens3 # Link detected: no
    $ dhclient 
    $ ethtool ens3
    $ ifconfig -a
    $ vim /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml 
            

15. (Restore) Reboot machine → reboot.

Restore on Bare Metal

This section explains how to restore the image on a physical computer server.

Supported Hardware

ProLiant DL380p Gen8

Restoration Steps

1. Connect to machine's remote management, ILO for HPE.

2. Mount/add Clonezilla ISO via: Virtual Drives → Image File CDROM → Select Clonezilla ISO

3. Reset the machine: Power Switch → Reset.

4. Boot via Clonezilla ISO: Press F11 on startup → select CDROM Clonezilla ISO for boot.

5. Continue from step 9 of section Restore on VM Machine to the end.

Installation Script

The installation script, install.sh, performs the following operations:

• Creates a new virtual environment for installation

• Ensures the dependencies for the installer are installed

• Deploys cluster bring-up WEB framework on Kubernetes platform

• Deploys cluster bring-up AWX framework on Kubernetes platform

• Configures AWX resources for cluster orchestration

Usage:

            

            
./install.sh [OPTIONS]
        

The following options are available for the installation script:

For example:

            

            
$ ./install.sh --hostname ib-node-0[1-2,5] --ib-host-manager ib-node-01
 
Installing cluster-bringup-web
Installing awx-operator
Installing awx-cluster-bringup
AWX is currently upgrading
Importing AWX resources
Installation finished successfully
AWX interface URL: http://cluster-bringup:31873
AWX username: admin
AWX password: NDaXP7ULFjoHdxNwEYxLPRYx6PNWxwoX
AWX OAuth token: ihj219yX6w5cpmgqvHy923nyQTjuoB
API URL: http://cluster-bringup:5000/api
PyPI URL: http://cluster-bringup:5000/pypi/simple/
Downloads URL: http://cluster-bringup:5000/downloads/
Files folder: /opt/nvidia/cot/files
        

In this example, 3 hosts named ib-node-01, ib-node-02, and ib-node-05 are added to the inventory.

In addition, the ib-node-01 host configured to be a member of the ib_host_manager group for the In-Band operations.

Configuration File

This section provides the required information to build a YAML configuration file and applying it to COT.

The YAML configuration file consists of key-value pairs and can be applied by providing it to the installation script when installing COT, or by using the COT API on an installed COT environment.

A full configuration file with defaults and notes is provided with the COT and is located in the main COT directory.

Example for using the configuration file flag with the installation script:

            

            
$ ./install.sh --config_file /PATH/TO/YAML
        

For applying the configuration file to an existing COT environment, see section "COT API Apply".

Pass-Fail Criteria

To define specific pass/fail criteria, the pass_fail_criteria variable can be utilized. This variable must consist of a dictionary as its value which will have a mapping of a job template (playbook name) to its user-defined criteria (dictionary). The criteria dictionary should contain two special keys, max_fail_percentage and action:

• max_fail_percentage expects an integer from 0-100 as its value. The value represents the percentage of failures which are acceptable during the execution of the supported job template. Its default value is 0, which means that in the case of any failures (one host or more) the job template fails.

• action defines the operation to perform if the actual failure percentage is greater than the max_fail_percentage value

Supported job template actions (operation types):

Playbook name (key names supported for pass_fail_criteria) to job template name mapping:

Example for pass_fail_criteria variable example:

            

            
pass_fail_criteria:
  hca_fw_update:
    max_fail_percentage: 40
    action: stop
  ib_switch_fw_update:
    max_fail_percentage: 80
    action: stop
        

In this example, the user provides criteria for two job templates: HCA Firmware Update (hca_fw_update) and IB Externally Managed Switch Firmware Update (ib_switch_fw_update).

• For the hca_fw_update job template, max_fail_percentage is set to 40. If there are 3 total hosts, if only one host fails, then the job template passes (33% actual failure which is smaller than 40%). If two hosts fail, the job template fails (66% actual failure which is greater than 40%).

• For the ib_switch_fw_update job template, max_fail_percentage is set to 80. For this job template to fail, over 80% of the hosts must fail.

COT Summary Report Configuration

The COT Summary Report can be configured using the summary_report variable.

The following are the options for configuring the COT Summary Report:

Example:

            

            
summary_report:
  analysis_section:
    high_ber_table_limit: 12
        

COT Thresholds

This section describes how to configure thresholds for COT, using the thresholds variable.

By default, common thresholds are configured in the provided configuration file.

To add/modify thresholds, refer to the following table.

Each threshold described by a combination of the following keys:

The following is an example for a thresholds configuration section:

            

            
thresholds:
  7nm:
    NDR:
      STD_RS-FEC_RS_544_514:
        DACs:
          raw_ber: 1.00E-07
          effective_ber: 1.00E-13
          symbol_ber: 1.00E-13
          symbol_error: 0
        ACC:
          raw_ber: 1.00E-07
          effective_ber: 1.00E-13
          symbol_ber: 1.00E-13
          symbol_error: 0
        

Upgrading Framework Script

The upgrade.sh script upgrades the COT containers and configuration files, including the COT API itself, while preserving the existing data.

To upgrade the COT:

1. Download tar.gz upgrade file from the COT download center.

2. Extract the upgrade file.

3. Run the upgrade.sh script located in the extracted folder.

Example:

            

            
root@cot-server:/cot/upgrade_example# ./upgrade.sh 
Upgrading COT API
Building COT snapshot
Snapshot built successfully. Path: /tmp/cot_snapshot_26-03-23_08-28.tar.gz
Removing cluster-bringup-service
Removing local registry
Removing awx-cluster-bringup
Removing awx-operator
Installing awx-operator
Installing local registry
Installing awx-cluster-bringup
AWX is currently upgrading
Installing cluster-bringup-service
Importing snapshot
Removing snapshot /tmp/cot_snapshot_26-03-23_08-28.tar.gz
Successfully upgraded using /cot/upgrade_example/upgrade_data
        

COT API

This section details the operations that could be performed once the installation process concludes.

The following code block demonstrates all the available actions:

            

            
$ cot [-h] [-v] {install,update,show,uninstall}
        

Update

The update command allows updating certain components of the Cluster Bring-up Tool.

            

            
$ cot update [-h] --cot_dir <PATH> {playbooks,awx_templates,cot_client}
        

Mandatory arguments:

Optional arguments:

Show

Usage:

            

            
$ cot show [-h] [--awx_info] [--file_server_info] [--api_url]
        

Options:

Export

The export operation allows creating a snapshot of the data within an existing COT environment. This may be used to transport the data between environments.

Usage:

            

            
cot export [-h] [--dest_path PATH] [--components {all,playbooks,file_server,database,awx} [{all,playbooks,file_server,database,awx} ...]]
        

Options:

Example:

            

            
root@cot-server:/ # cot export --dest_path /tmp/example/ --components playbooks database
        

This command builds a snapshot containing the playbooks and the database of the current COT environment. The .tar.gz snapshot file produced is saved to /tmp/example/<snapshot_name>.

Output:

            

            
Exporting playbooks
Exporting database
Wrapping
Finished Export. File located at: /tmp/example/cot_playbooks_database_22-03-23_12-22.tar.gz
        

Import

The import operation allows importing data of a given snapshot into an existing COT environment.

Usage:

            

            
cot import [-h] -s PATH [-f] [--merge_file_server_files] [--components {all,playbooks,file_server,database,awx} [{all,playbooks,file_server,database,awx} ...]]
        

Options:

Example:

            

            
root@cot-server:/# cot import -s /tmp/cot_snapshot_22-03-23_12-24.tar.gz --merge_file_server_files --components file_server database
        

This command imports the file server files and the database content from the snapshot into the COT environment. The file server files from the snapshot are added to the files that already exist in the file server.

Output:

            

            
Importing File Server
Importing database
Import finished successfully from snapshot: /tmp/cot_snapshot_22-03-23_12-24.tar.gz
        

Apply

The apply operation provides the ability to set new configuration to an existing COT environment.

Example:

            

            
root@cot-server:/# cot apply -f cot_config.yaml
        

For more details regarding the COT configuration file structure, please refer to section "Configuration File".

This section describes how to deploy the cluster bring-up framework utilizing Docker.

The installation is performed using a single Docker image including COT and all its dependencies.

Loading Docker Image

The Docker image is provided as a tar archive file. Use the docker load command to load the image into the Docker system.

Example:

            

            
root@cot-server:/# cot apply -f cot_config.yaml
        

Make sure the image is present when running docker images, under the name cot/bootstrap.

Running Docker Image

The Docker container must have access to the Docker daemon on the host. For this purpose, the Docker socket must be mounted as a volume.

Use the following command to start the container:

            

            
root@cot-server:/# docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /root/.k3d:/root/.k3d -it cot/bootstrap:3.0.2 bash run.sh <options>
        

For information regarding the available options, refer to section "Installation Script".