Networking with neutron

While nova uses the OpenStack Networking service (neutron) to provide network connectivity for instances, nova itself provides some additional features not possible with neutron alone. These are described below.

SR-IOV

Changed in version 2014.2: The feature described below was first introduced in the Juno release.

The SR-IOV specification defines a standardized mechanism to virtualize PCIe devices. This mechanism can virtualize a single PCIe Ethernet controller to appear as multiple PCIe devices. Each device can be directly assigned to an instance, bypassing the hypervisor and virtual switch layer. As a result, users are able to achieve low latency and near-line wire speed.

A full guide on configuring and using SR-IOV is provided in the OpenStack Networking service documentation

Note

Nova only supports PCI addresses where the fields are restricted to the following maximum value:

  • domain - 0xFFFF

  • bus - 0xFF

  • slot - 0x1F

  • function - 0x7

Nova will ignore PCI devices reported by the hypervisor if the address is outside of these ranges.

NUMA Affinity

New in version 18.0.0: The feature described below was first introduced in the Rocky release.

Important

The functionality described below is currently only supported by the libvirt/KVM driver.

As described in CPU topologies, NUMA is a computer architecture where memory accesses to certain regions of system memory can have higher latencies than other regions, depending on the CPU(s) your process is running on. This effect extends to devices connected to the PCIe bus, a concept known as NUMA I/O. Many Network Interface Cards (NICs) connect using the PCIe interface, meaning they are susceptible to the ill-effects of poor NUMA affinitization. As a result, NUMA locality must be considered when creating an instance where high dataplane performance is a requirement.

Fortunately, nova provides functionality to ensure NUMA affinitization is provided for instances using neutron. How this works depends on the type of port you are trying to use.

For SR-IOV ports, virtual functions, which are PCI devices, are attached to the instance. This means the instance can benefit from the NUMA affinity guarantees provided for PCI devices. This happens automatically and is described in detail in PCI-NUMA affinity policies.

For all other types of ports, some manual configuration is required.

  1. Identify the type of network(s) you wish to provide NUMA affinity for.

    • If a network is an L2-type network (provider:network_type of flat or vlan), affinity of the network to given NUMA node(s) can vary depending on value of the provider:physical_network attribute of the network, commonly referred to as the physnet of the network. This is because most neutron drivers map each physnet to a different bridge, to which multiple NICs are attached, or to a different (logical) NIC.

    • If a network is an L3-type networks (provider:network_type of vxlan, gre or geneve), all traffic will use the device to which the endpoint IP is assigned. This means all L3 networks on a given host will have affinity to the same NUMA node(s). Refer to the neutron documentation for more information.

  2. Determine the NUMA affinity of the NICs attached to the given network(s).

    How this should be achieved varies depending on the switching solution used and whether the network is a L2-type network or an L3-type networks.

    Consider an L2-type network using the Linux Bridge mechanism driver. As noted in the neutron documentation, physnets are mapped to interfaces using the [linux_bridge] physical_interface_mappings configuration option. For example:

    [linux_bridge]
physical_interface_mappings = provider:PROVIDER_INTERFACE

    Once you have the device name, you can query sysfs to retrieve the NUMA affinity for this device. For example:

    $ cat /sys/class/net/PROVIDER_INTERFACE/device/numa_node

    For an L3-type network using the Linux Bridge mechanism driver, the device used will be configured using protocol-specific endpoint IP configuration option. For VXLAN, this is the [vxlan] local_ip option. For example:

    [vxlan]
local_ip = OVERLAY_INTERFACE_IP_ADDRESS

    Once you have the IP address in question, you can use ip to identify the device that has been assigned this IP address and from there can query the NUMA affinity using sysfs as above.

    Note

    The example provided above is merely that: an example. How one should identify this information can vary massively depending on the driver used, whether bonding is used, the type of network used, etc.

  3. Configure NUMA affinity in nova.conf.

    Once you have identified the NUMA affinity of the devices used for your networks, you need to configure this in nova.conf. As before, how this should be achieved varies depending on the type of network.

    For L2-type networks, NUMA affinity is defined based on the provider:physical_network attribute of the network. There are two configuration options that must be set:

    [neutron] physnets

    This should be set to the list of physnets for which you wish to provide NUMA affinity. Refer to the documentation for more information.

    [neutron_physnet_{physnet}] numa_nodes

    This should be set to the list of NUMA node(s) that networks with the given {physnet} should be affinitized to.

    For L3-type networks, NUMA affinity is defined globally for all tunneled networks on a given host. There is only one configuration option that must be set:

    [neutron_tunnel] numa_nodes

    This should be set to a list of one or NUMA nodes to which instances using tunneled networks will be affinitized.

  4. Configure a NUMA topology for instance flavor(s)

    For network NUMA affinity to have any effect, the instance must have a NUMA topology itself. This can be configured explicitly, using the hw:numa_nodes extra spec, or implicitly through the use of CPU pinning (hw:cpu_policy=dedicated) or PCI devices. For more information, refer to CPU topologies.

Examples

Take an example for deployment using L2-type networks first.

[neutron]
physnets = foo,bar

[neutron_physnet_foo]
numa_nodes = 0

[neutron_physnet_bar]
numa_nodes = 2, 3

This configuration will ensure instances using one or more L2-type networks with provider:physical_network=foo must be scheduled on host cores from NUMA nodes 0, while instances using one or more networks with provider:physical_network=bar must be scheduled on host cores from both NUMA nodes 2 and 3. For the latter case, it will be necessary to split the guest across two or more host NUMA nodes using the hw:numa_nodes extra spec, as discussed here.

Now, take an example for a deployment using L3 networks.

[neutron_tunnel]
numa_nodes = 0

This is much simpler as all tunneled traffic uses the same logical interface. As with the L2-type networks, this configuration will ensure instances using one or more L3-type networks must be scheduled on host cores from NUMA node 0. It is also possible to define more than one NUMA node, in which case the instance must be split across these nodes.