Ceph RBD mirroring

Overview

RADOS Block Device (RBD) mirroring is a process of asynchronous replication of Ceph block device images between two or more Ceph clusters. Mirroring ensures point-in-time consistent replicas of all changes to an image, including reads and writes, block device resizing, snapshots, clones, and flattening. RBD mirroring is mainly used for disaster recovery (i.e. having a secondary site as a failover). See the Ceph documentation on RBD mirroring for complete information.

This guide will show how to deploy two Ceph clusters with RBD mirroring between them with the use of the ceph-rbd-mirror charm. See the charm’s documentation for basic information and charm limitations.

RBD mirroring is only one aspect of datacentre redundancy. Refer to Ceph RADOS Gateway multisite replication and other work to arrive at a complete solution.

Performance considerations

RBD mirroring makes use of the journaling feature of Ceph. This incurs an overhead for write activity on an RBD image that will adversely affect performance.

For more information on performance aspects see Florian Haas’ talk Geographical Redundancy with rbd-mirror (video) given at Cephalocon Barcelona 2019.

Requirements

The two Ceph clusters will correspond to sites ‘a’ and ‘b’ and each cluster will reside within a separate model (models ‘site-a’ and ‘site-b’). The deployment will require the use of Cross model relations.

Deployment characteristics:

  • each cluster will have 7 units:

    • 3 x ceph-osd

    • 3 x ceph-mon

    • 1 x ceph-rbd-mirror

  • application names will be used to distinguish between the applications in each site (e.g. site-a-ceph-mon and site-b-ceph-mon)

  • the ceph-osd units will use block device /dev/vdd for their OSD volumes

Note

The two Ceph clusters can optionally be placed within the same model, and thus obviate the need for cross model relations. This topology is not generally considered to be a real world scenario.

Deployment

For site ‘a’ the following configuration is placed into file site-a.yaml:

site-a-ceph-mon:
  monitor-count: 3
  expected-osd-count: 3
  source: distro

site-a-ceph-osd:
  osd-devices: /dev/vdd
  source: distro

site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror:
  source: distro

Create the model and deploy the software for each site:

  • Site ‘a’

    juju add-model site-a
    juju deploy -n 3 --config site-a.yaml ceph-osd site-a-ceph-osd
    juju deploy -n 3 --config site-a.yaml ceph-mon site-a-ceph-mon
    juju deploy --config site-a.yaml ceph-rbd-mirror site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror
    
  • Site ‘b’

    An analogous configuration file is used (i.e. replace ‘a’ with ‘b’):

    juju add-model site-b
    juju deploy -n 3 --config site-b.yaml ceph-osd site-b-ceph-osd
    juju deploy -n 3 --config site-b.yaml ceph-mon site-b-ceph-mon
    juju deploy --config site-b.yaml ceph-rbd-mirror site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror
    

Add two local relations for each site:

  • Site ‘a’

    juju add-relation -m site-a site-a-ceph-mon:osd site-a-ceph-osd:mon
    juju add-relation -m site-a site-a-ceph-mon:rbd-mirror site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-local
    
  • Site ‘b’

    juju add-relation -m site-b site-b-ceph-mon:osd site-b-ceph-osd:mon
    juju add-relation -m site-b site-b-ceph-mon:rbd-mirror site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-local
    

Export a ceph-rbd-mirror endpoint (by means of an “offer”) for each site. This will enable us to create the inter-site (cross model) relations:

  • Site ‘a’

    juju switch site-a
    juju offer site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-remote
    

    Output:

    Application "site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror" endpoints [ceph-remote] available at "admin/site-a.site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror"
    
  • Site ‘b’

    juju switch site-b
    juju offer site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-remote
    

    Output:

    Application "site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror" endpoints [ceph-remote] available at "admin/site-b.site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror"
    

Add the two inter-site relations by referring to the offer URLs (included in the output above) as if they were applications in the local model:

juju add-relation -m site-a site-a-ceph-mon admin/site-b.site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror
juju add-relation -m site-b site-b-ceph-mon admin/site-a.site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror

Verify the output of juju status for each model:

juju status -m site-a --relations

Output:

Model   Controller  Cloud/Region       Version  SLA          Timestamp
site-a  prod-1      openstack/default  2.8.9    unsupported  16:00:39Z

SAAS                    Status   Store        URL
site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror  waiting  serverstack  admin/site-b.site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror

App                     Version  Status   Scale  Charm            Store       Rev  OS      Notes
site-a-ceph-mon         15.2.8   active       3  ceph-mon         jujucharms   53  ubuntu
site-a-ceph-osd         15.2.8   active       3  ceph-osd         jujucharms  308  ubuntu
site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror  15.2.8   waiting      1  ceph-rbd-mirror  jujucharms   15  ubuntu

Unit                       Workload  Agent  Machine  Public address  Ports  Message
site-a-ceph-mon/0          active    idle   0        10.5.0.4               Unit is ready and clustered
site-a-ceph-mon/1          active    idle   1        10.5.0.14              Unit is ready and clustered
site-a-ceph-mon/2*         active    idle   2        10.5.0.7               Unit is ready and clustered
site-a-ceph-osd/0          active    idle   0        10.5.0.4               Unit is ready (1 OSD)
site-a-ceph-osd/1          active    idle   1        10.5.0.14              Unit is ready (1 OSD)
site-a-ceph-osd/2*         active    idle   2        10.5.0.7               Unit is ready (1 OSD)
site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/0*  waiting   idle   3        10.5.0.11              Waiting for pools to be created

Machine  State    DNS        Inst id                               Series  AZ    Message
0        started  10.5.0.4   4f3e4d94-5003-4998-ab30-11fc3c845a7a  focal   nova  ACTIVE
1        started  10.5.0.14  7682822e-4469-41e1-b938-225c067f9f82  focal   nova  ACTIVE
2        started  10.5.0.7   786e7d84-3f94-4cd6-9493-72026d629fcf  focal   nova  ACTIVE
3        started  10.5.0.11  715c8738-e41e-4be2-8638-560206b2c434  focal   nova  ACTIVE

Offer                   Application             Charm            Rev  Connected  Endpoint     Interface        Role
site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror  site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror  ceph-rbd-mirror  15   1/1        ceph-remote  ceph-rbd-mirror  requirer

Relation provider           Requirer                            Interface        Type     Message
site-a-ceph-mon:mon         site-a-ceph-mon:mon                 ceph             peer
site-a-ceph-mon:osd         site-a-ceph-osd:mon                 ceph-osd         regular
site-a-ceph-mon:rbd-mirror  site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-local   ceph-rbd-mirror  regular
site-a-ceph-mon:rbd-mirror  site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-remote  ceph-rbd-mirror  regular

Model   Controller   Cloud/Region    Version  SLA          Timestamp
site-a  maas-prod-1  acme-1/default  2.8.1    unsupported  20:00:41Z
juju status -m site-b --relations

Output:

Model   Controller  Cloud/Region       Version  SLA          Timestamp
site-b  prod-1      openstack/default  2.8.9    unsupported  16:05:39Z

SAAS                    Status   Store        URL
site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror  waiting  serverstack  admin/site-a.site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror

App                     Version  Status   Scale  Charm            Store       Rev  OS      Notes
site-b-ceph-mon         15.2.8   active       3  ceph-mon         jujucharms   53  ubuntu
site-b-ceph-osd         15.2.8   active       3  ceph-osd         jujucharms  308  ubuntu
site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror  15.2.8   waiting      1  ceph-rbd-mirror  jujucharms   15  ubuntu

Unit                       Workload  Agent  Machine  Public address  Ports  Message
site-b-ceph-mon/0          active    idle   0        10.5.0.3               Unit is ready and clustered
site-b-ceph-mon/1          active    idle   1        10.5.0.20              Unit is ready and clustered
site-b-ceph-mon/2*         active    idle   2        10.5.0.8               Unit is ready and clustered
site-b-ceph-osd/0          active    idle   0        10.5.0.3               Unit is ready (1 OSD)
site-b-ceph-osd/1          active    idle   1        10.5.0.20              Unit is ready (1 OSD)
site-b-ceph-osd/2*         active    idle   2        10.5.0.8               Unit is ready (1 OSD)
site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/0*  waiting   idle   3        10.5.0.12              Waiting for pools to be created

Machine  State    DNS        Inst id                               Series  AZ    Message
0        started  10.5.0.3   2caf61f7-8675-4cd9-a3c4-cc68a0cb3f2d  focal   nova  ACTIVE
1        started  10.5.0.20  d1b3bd0b-1631-4bd3-abba-14a366b3d752  focal   nova  ACTIVE
2        started  10.5.0.8   84eb5db2-d673-4d36-82b4-902463362704  focal   nova  ACTIVE
3        started  10.5.0.12  c40e1247-7b7d-4b84-ab3a-8b72c22f096e  focal   nova  ACTIVE

Offer                   Application             Charm            Rev  Connected  Endpoint     Interface        Role
site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror  site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror  ceph-rbd-mirror  15   1/1        ceph-remote  ceph-rbd-mirror  requirer

Relation provider           Requirer                            Interface        Type     Message
site-b-ceph-mon:mon         site-b-ceph-mon:mon                 ceph             peer
site-b-ceph-mon:osd         site-b-ceph-osd:mon                 ceph-osd         regular
site-b-ceph-mon:rbd-mirror  site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-remote  ceph-rbd-mirror  regular
site-b-ceph-mon:rbd-mirror  site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror:ceph-local   ceph-rbd-mirror  regular

There are no Ceph pools created by default. The next section (‘Pool creation’) provides guidance.

Pool creation

RBD pools can be created by either a supporting charm (through the Ceph broker protocol) or manually by the operator:

  1. A charm-created pool (e.g. the glance or nova-compute charms) will automatically be detected and acted upon (i.e. a remote pool will be set up in the peer cluster).

  2. A manually-created pool, whether done via the ceph-mon application or through Ceph directly, will require an action to be run on the ceph-rbd-mirror application leader in order for the remote pool to come online.

    For example, to create a pool manually in site ‘a’ and have ceph-rbd-mirror (of site ‘a’) initialise a pool in site ‘b’:

    juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-mon/leader create-pool name=mypool app-name=rbd
    juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader refresh-pools
    

    This can be verified by listing the pools in site ‘b’:

    juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-mon/leader list-pools
    

Note

Automatic peer-pool creation (for a charm-created pool) is based on the local pool being labelled with a Ceph ‘rbd’ tag. This Ceph-internal labelling occurs when the newly-created local pool is associated with the RBD application. This last feature is supported starting with Ceph Luminous (OpenStack Queens).

Failover and fallback

To manage failover and fallback, the demote and promote actions are applied to the ceph-rbd-mirror application leader.

For instance, to fail over from site ‘a’ to site ‘b’ the former is demoted and the latter is promoted. The rest of the commands are status checks:

juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader status verbose=true
juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader status verbose=true

juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader demote

juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader status verbose=true
juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader status verbose=true

juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader promote

To fall back to site ‘a’ the actions are reversed:

juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader demote
juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader promote

Note

With Ceph Luminous (and greater), the mirror status information may not be accurate. Specifically, the entries_behind_master counter may never get to ‘0’ even though the image has been fully synchronised.

Recovering from abrupt shutdown

It is possible that an abrupt shutdown and/or an interruption to communication channels may lead to a “split-brain” condition. This may cause the mirroring daemon in each cluster to claim to be the primary. In such cases, the operator must make a call as to which daemon is correct. Generally speaking, this means deciding which cluster has the most recent data.

Elect a primary by applying the demote and promote actions to the appropriate ceph-rbd-mirror leader. After doing so, the resync-pools action must be run on the secondary cluster leader. The promote action may require a force option.

Here, we make site ‘a’ be the primary by demoting site ‘b’ and promoting site ‘a’:

juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader demote
juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader promote force=true

juju run-action --wait -m site-a site-a-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader status verbose=true
juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader status verbose=true

juju run-action --wait -m site-b site-b-ceph-rbd-mirror/leader resync-pools i-really-mean-it=true

Note

When using Ceph Luminous, the mirror state information will not be accurate after recovering from unclean shutdown. Regardless of the output of the status information, you will be able to write to images after a forced promote.