[ovirt-users] Self Hosted Engine installation - does the OVEHOSTED_NETWORK/gateway parameter have an "overloaded" meaning?

[Giuseppe Ragusa]

Hi all,

I have a question about the best interpretation/choice for the installation parameter OVEHOSTED_NETWORK/gateway

It is my understanding that the IP specified as OVEHOSTED_NETWORK/gateway will be used (by means of ping) to verify the ongoing network-wise status of oVirt cluster nodes, with any problems leading to classifications/actions which could even bring to fencing of the "faulty" node.

If this is the case, I find it debatable that such a role should be referred to as "gateway", since (particularly in small setups) it should be delegated to an always reachable IP, not connected to mundane tasks such as routers/gateways: Internet (or wider network) reachability (think of an old, cheap router whose power supply starts to misbehave/fail...) should not determine the status of the local oVirt cluster, whose nodes tipically could be directly connected (especially wrt the management ovirtmgmt network) on the same network segment without any need for routing.
I suggest that in such a small setup, the console IP of something like the central (managed and stackable) switch could be used: if the central switch (ie all the stacked parts of it) goes down, then really there will be no communication betweeen nodes anyway.

It is also my understanding that the above mentioned OVEHOSTED_NETWORK/gateway parameter is automatically passed to cloud-init to configure the actual default gateway of the Self Hosted Engine appliance, without any means to override this choice with an ad-hoc specialized parameter.

If this is the case, I think that, in light of the above mentioned scenario, a specific override could be provided, without requirying the admin to reconfigure the appliance after it is deployed (by the way: the appliance, at least in version 4.1.9, does not contain the NetworkManager-glib package, so Ansible playbooks trying to configure the default gateway by means of the nmcli module always fail, and without working default gateway it is not so easy to add packages... think chicken and egg... :-) ).

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Many thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Giuseppe