[ovirt-devel] [VDSM] Correct implementation of virt-sysprep job

Oved Ourfali oourfali at redhat.com
Wed Dec 7 18:10:07 UTC 2016


On Dec 7, 2016 16:00, "Nir Soffer" <nsoffer at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 10:17 AM, Oved Ourfali <oourfali at redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:12 PM, Adam Litke <alitke at redhat.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 06/12/16 22:06 +0200, Arik Hadas wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Adam,
> >>
> >>
> >> :)  You seem upset.  Sorry if I touched on a nerve...
> >>
> >>> Just out of curiosity: when you write "v2v has promised" - what
exactly
> >>> do you
> >>> mean? the tool? Richard Jones (the maintainer of virt-v2v)? Shahar
and I
> >>> that
> >>> implemented the integration with virt-v2v? I'm not aware of such a
> >>> promise by
> >>> any of these options :)
> >>
> >>
> >> Some history...
> >>
> >> Earlier this year Nir, Francesco (added), Shahar, and I began
> >> discussing the similarities between what storage needed to do with
> >> external commands and what was designed specifically for v2v.  I am
> >> not sure if you were involved in the project at that time.  The plan
> >> was to create common infrastructure that could be extended to fit the
> >> unique needs of the verticals.  The v2v code was going to be moved
> >> over to the new infrastructure (see [1]) and the only thing that
> >> stopped the initial patch was lack of a VMWare testing environment for
> >> verification.
> >>
> >> At that time storage refocused on developing verbs that used the new
> >> infrastructure and have been maintaining its suitability for general
> >> use.  Conversion of v2v -> Host Jobs is obviously a lower priority
> >> item and much more difficult now due to the early missed opportunity.
> >>
> >>> Anyway, let's say that you were given such a promise by someone and
thus
> >>> consider that mechanism to be deprecated - it doesn't really matter.
> >>
> >>
> >> I may be biased but I think my opinion does matter.
> >>
> >>> The current implementation doesn't well fit to this flow (it requires
> >>> per-volume job, it creates leases that are not needed for template's
> >>> disks,
> >>> ...) and with the "next-gen API" with proper support for virt flows
not
> >>> even
> >>> being discussed with us (and iiuc also not with the infra team) yet, I
> >>> don't
> >>> understand what do you suggest except for some strong, though
irrelevant,
> >>> statements.
> >>
> >>
> >> If you are willing to engage in a good-faith technical discussion I am
> >> sure I can help you to understand.  These operations to storage demand
> >> some form of locking protection.  If volume leases aren't appropriate
then
> >> perhaps we should use the VM Leases / xleases that Nir is finishing
> >> off for 4.1 now.
> >>
> >>> I suggest loud and clear to reuse (not to add dependencies, not to
> >>> enhance, ..)
> >>> an existing mechanism for a very similar flow of virt-v2v that works
well
> >>> and
> >>> simple.
> >>
> >>
> >> I clearly remember discussions involving infra (hello Oved), virt
> >> (hola Michal), and storage where we decided that new APIs performing
> >> async operations involving external commands should use the HostJobs
> >> infrastructure instead of adding more information to Host Stats.
> >> These were the "famous" entity polling meetings.
>
> We discussed these issues behind close doors, not in the public mailing
list,
> so it is not surprising that people do not know about the agreements we
had.
>

The core team was there. So it is surprising.

> >>
> >> Of course plans can change but I have never been looped into any such
> >> discussions.
> >>
> >
> > Well, I think that when someone builds a good infrastructure he first
needs
> > to talk to all consumers and make sure it fits.
> > In this case it seems like most work was done to fit the storage
use-case,
> > and now you check whether it can fit others as well....
>
> The jobs framework is generic and can be used for any subsystem,
> there is nothing related to storage about it. But modifying disks *is*
> a storage operation, even if someone from the virt team worked on it.
>
> V2v is also storage operation - if we compare it with copying disks:
>
> - we create a new volume that nobody is using yet
> - if the operation fails, the disk must be in illegal state
> - if the operation fails we delete the disks
> - if the operation succeeds the volume must be legal
> - we need to limit the number of operations on a host
> - we need to detect the job state if the host becomes non-responsive
> - we may want to fence the job if the host becomes non-responsive
>   in volume jobs, we can increment the volume generation and run
>   the same job on another host.
> - we want to take a lease on storage to ensure that other hosts cannot
>   access the same entity, or that the job will fail if someone else is
using
>   this entity
> - we want to take a lease on storage, ensuring that a job cannot get
>   stuck for long time - sanlock kill the owner of a lease when storage
>   becomes inaccessible.
> - we want to report progress
>
> sysprep is less risky because the operation is faster, but on storage even
> fast operation can get stuck for minutes.
>
> We need to agree on a standard way to do such operations that is safe
enough
> and can be managed on the engine side.
>
> > IMO it makes much more sense to use events where possible (and you've
> > promised to use those as well, but I don't see you doing that...). v2v
> > should use events for sure, and they have promised to do that in the
past,
> > instead of using the v2v jobs. The reason events weren't used originally
> > with the v2v feature, was that it was too risky and the events
> > infrastructure was added too late in the game.
>
> Events are not replacing the need for managing jobs in the vdsm side.
> Engine must have a way to query the current jobs before subscribing
> to events from these jobs, otherwise you will loose events and engine
> will never notice a completed job after network errors.
>
> The jobs framework supports events, see
> https://gerrit.ovirt.org/67118
>
> We are waiting for review from the infra team, maybe you can
> get someone to review this?

It would have been great to review the design for this before it reaches to
gerrit.

Anyway, I get permissions error when opening. Any clue why?

>
> Nir
>
> >
> >
> >>>
> >>> Do you "promise" to implement your "next gen API" for 4.1 as an
> >>> alternative?
> >>
> >>
> >> I guess we need the design first.
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 5:04 PM, Adam Litke <alitke at redhat.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>    On 05/12/16 11:17 +0200, Arik Hadas wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 10:05 AM, Nir Soffer <nsoffer at redhat.com
>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>           On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 8:50 PM, Shmuel Melamud
> >>> <smelamud at redhat.com>
> >>>        wrote:
> >>>           >
> >>>           > Hi!
> >>>           >
> >>>           > I'm currently working on integration of virt-sysprep into
> >>> oVirt.
> >>>           >
> >>>           > Usually, if user creates a template from a regular VM, and
> >>> then
> >>>        creates
> >>>           new VMs from this template, these new VMs inherit all
> >>> configuration
> >>>        of the
> >>>           original VM, including SSH keys, UDEV rules, MAC addresses,
> >>> system
> >>>        ID,
> >>>           hostname etc. It is unfortunate, because you cannot have two
> >>> network
> >>>           devices with the same MAC address in the same network, for
> >>> example.
> >>>           >
> >>>           > To avoid this, user must clean all machine-specific
> >>> configuration
> >>>        from
> >>>           the original VM before creating a template from it. You can
do
> >>> this
> >>>           manually, but there is virt-sysprep utility that does this
> >>>        automatically.
> >>>           >
> >>>           > Ideally, virt-sysprep should be seamlessly integrated into
> >>>        template
> >>>           creation process. But the first step is to create a simple
> >>> button:
> >>>        user
> >>>           selects a VM, clicks the button and oVirt executes
virt-sysprep
> >>> on
> >>>        the VM.
> >>>           >
> >>>           > virt-sysprep works directly on VM's filesystem. It accepts
> >>> list of
> >>>        all
> >>>           disks of the VM as parameters:
> >>>           >
> >>>           > virt-sysprep -a disk1.img -a disk2.img -a disk3.img
> >>>           >
> >>>           > The architecture is as follows: command on the Engine side
> >>> runs a
> >>>        job on
> >>>           VDSM side and tracks its success/failure. The job on VDSM
side
> >>> runs
> >>>           virt-sysprep.
> >>>           >
> >>>           > The question is how to implement the job correctly?
> >>>           >
> >>>           > I thought about using storage jobs, but they are designed
to
> >>> work
> >>>        only
> >>>           with a single volume, correct?
> >>>
> >>>           New storage verbs are volume based. This make it easy to
manage
> >>>           them on the engine side, and will allow parallelizing volume
> >>>        operations
> >>>           on single or multiple hosts.
> >>>
> >>>           A storage volume job is using sanlock lease on the modified
> >>> volume
> >>>           and volume generation number. If a host running pending jobs
> >>> becomes
> >>>           non-responsive and cannot be fenced, we can detect the
state of
> >>>           the job, fence the job, and start the job on another host.
> >>>
> >>>           In the SPM task, if a host becomes non-responsive and
cannot be
> >>>           fenced, the whole setup is stuck, there is no way to perform
> >>> any
> >>>           storage operation.
> >>>             > Is is possible to use them with operation that is
performed
> >>> on
> >>>        multiple
> >>>           volumes?
> >>>           > Or, alternatively, is it possible to use some kind of 'VM
> >>> jobs' -
> >>>        that
> >>>           work on VM at whole?
> >>>
> >>>           We can do:
> >>>
> >>>           1. Add jobs with multiple volumes leases - can make error
> >>> handling
> >>>        very
> >>>               complex. How do tell a job state if you have multiple
> >>> leases?
> >>>        which
> >>>               volume generation you use?
> >>>
> >>>           2. Use volume job using one of the volumes (the boot
volume?).
> >>> This
> >>>        does
> >>>               not protect the other volumes from modification but
engine
> >>> is
> >>>           responsible
> >>>               for this.
> >>>
> >>>           3. Use new "vm jobs", using a vm lease (should be available
> >>> this
> >>>        week
> >>>           on master).
> >>>               This protects a vm during sysprep from starting the vm.
> >>>               We still need a generation to detect the job state, I
think
> >>> we
> >>>        can
> >>>           use the sanlock
> >>>               lease generation for this.
> >>>
> >>>           I like the last option since sysprep is much like running a
vm.
> >>>             > How v2v solves this problem?
> >>>
> >>>           It does not.
> >>>
> >>>           v2v predates storage volume jobs. It does not use volume
leases
> >>> and
> >>>           generation
> >>>           and does have any way to recover if a host running v2v
becomes
> >>>           non-responsive
> >>>           and cannot be fenced.
> >>>
> >>>           It also does not use the jobs framework and does not use a
> >>> thread
> >>>        pool for
> >>>           v2v jobs, so it has no limit on the number of storage
> >>> operations on
> >>>        a host.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        Right, but let's be fair and present the benefits of v2v-jobs
as
> >>> well:
> >>>        1. it is the simplest "infrastructure" in terms of LOC
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    It is also deprecated.  V2V has promised to adopt the richer Host
Jobs
> >>>    API in the future.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        2. it is the most efficient mechanism in terms of interactions
> >>> between
> >>>        the
> >>>        engine and VDSM (it doesn't require new verbs/call, the data is
> >>>        attached to
> >>>        VdsStats; probably the easiest mechanism to convert to events)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    Engine is already polling the host jobs API so I am not sure I
agree
> >>>    with you here.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        3. it is the most efficient implementation in terms of
interaction
> >>> with
> >>>        the
> >>>        database (no date is persisted into the database, no polling is
> >>> done)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    Again, we're already using the Host Jobs API.  We'll gain
efficiency
> >>>    by migrating away from the old v2v API and having a single, unified
> >>>    approach (Host Jobs).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        Currently we have 3 mechanisms to report jobs:
> >>>        1. VM jobs - that is currently used for live-merge. This
requires
> >>> the
> >>>        VM entity
> >>>        to exist in VDSM, thus not suitable for virt-sysprep.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    Correct, not appropriate for this application.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        2. storage jobs - complicated infrastructure, targeted for
> >>> recovering
> >>>        from
> >>>        failures to maintain storage consistency. Many of the things
this
> >>>        infrastructure knows to handle is irrelevant for virt-sysprep
> >>> flow, and
> >>>        the
> >>>        fact that virt-sysprep is invoked on VM rather than particular
> >>> disk
> >>>        makes it
> >>>        less suitable.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    These are more appropriately called HostJobs and the have the
> >>>    following semantics:
> >>>    - They represent an external process running on a single host
> >>>    - They are not persisted.  If the host or vdsm restarts, the job is
> >>>      aborted
> >>>    - They operate on entities.  Currently storage is the first adopter
> >>>      of the infrastructure but virt was going to adopt these for the
> >>>      next-gen API.  Entities can be volumes, storage domains, vms,
> >>>      network interfaces, etc.
> >>>    - Job status and progress is reported by the Host Jobs API.  If a
job
> >>>      is not present, then the underlying entitie(s) must be polled by
> >>>      engine to determine the actual state.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        3. V2V jobs - no mechanism is provided to resume failed jobs,
no
> >>>        leases, etc
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    This is the old infra upon which Host Jobs are built.  v2v has
> >>>    promised to move to Host Jobs in the future so we should not add
new
> >>>    dependencies to this code.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        I have some arguments for using V2V-like jobs [1]:
> >>>        1. creating template from vm is rarely done - if host goes
> >>> unresponsive
> >>>        or any
> >>>        other failure is detected we can just remove the template and
> >>> report
> >>>        the error
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    We can chose this error handling with Host Jobs as well.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        2. the phase of virt-sysprep is, unlike typical storage
operation,
> >>>        short -
> >>>        reducing the risk of failures during the process
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    Reduced risk of failures is never an excuse to have lax error
> >>>    handling.  The storage flavored host jobs provide tons of utilities
> >>>    for making error handling standardized, easy to implement, and
> >>>    correct.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        3. during the operation the VM is down - by locking the
> >>> VM/template and
> >>>        its
> >>>        disks on the engine side, we render leases-like mechanism
> >>> redundant
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    Eventually we want to protect all operations on storage with
sanlock
> >>>    leases.  This is safer and allows for a more distributed approach
to
> >>>    management.  Again, the use of leases correctly in host jobs
requires
> >>>    about 5 lines of code.  The benefits of standardization far
outweigh
> >>>    any perceived simplification resulting from omitting it.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        4. in the worst case - the disk will not be corrupted (only
some
> >>> of the
> >>>        data
> >>>        might be removed).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    Again, the way engine chooses to handle job failures is
independent of
> >>>    the mechanism.  Let's separate that from this discussion.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        So I think that the mechanism for storage jobs is an over-kill
for
> >>> this
> >>>        case.
> >>>        We can keep it simple by generalise the V2V-job for other
> >>> virt-tools
> >>>        jobs, like
> >>>        virt-sysprep.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    I think we ought to standardize on the Host Jobs framework where we
> >>>    can collaborate on unit tests, standardized locking and error
> >>>    handling, abort logic, etc.  When v2v moves to host jobs then we
will
> >>>    have a unified method of handling ephemeral jobs that are tied to
> >>>    entities.
> >>>
> >>>    --
> >>>    Adam Litke
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Adam Litke
> >
> >
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