Configuring the inventory¶

In this chapter, you can find the information on how to configure the openstack-ansible dynamic inventory to your needs.

Introduction¶

Common OpenStack services and their configuration are defined by OpenStack-Ansible in the /etc/openstack_deploy/openstack_user_config.yml settings file.

Additional services should be defined with a YAML file in /etc/openstack_deploy/conf.d, in order to manage file size.

The /etc/openstack_deploy/env.d directory sources all YAML files into the deployed environment, allowing a deployer to define additional group mappings. This directory is used to extend the environment skeleton, or modify the defaults defined in the inventory/env.d directory.

To understand how the dynamic inventory works, see Understanding the inventory.

Warning

Never edit or delete the file /etc/openstack_deploy/openstack_inventory.json. This can lead to problems with the inventory: existng hosts and containers will be unmanaged and new ones will be generated instead, breaking your existing deployment.

Configuration constraints¶

Group memberships¶

When adding groups, keep the following in mind:

A group can contain hosts
A group can contain child groups

However, groups cannot contain child groups and hosts.

The lxc_hosts Group¶

When the dynamic inventory script creates a container name, the host on which the container resides is added to the lxc_hosts inventory group.

Using this name for a group in the configuration will result in a runtime error.

Deploying directly on hosts¶

To deploy a component directly on the host instead of within a container, set the is_metal property to true for the container group in the container_skel section in the appropriate file.

The use of container_vars and mapping from container groups to host groups is the same for a service deployed directly onto the host.

You can also use the no_containers option to specify a host that will have all services deployed on metal inside of it.

Note

The cinder-volume component is deployed directly on the host by default. See the env.d/cinder.yml file for this example.

Example: Running all controllers on metal¶

For example, if you’d like to run all your controllers on metal, you would have the following inside your openstack_user_config.yml.

infra_hosts:
  infra1:
    ip: 172.39.123.11
    no_containers: true
  infra2:
    ip: 172.39.123.12
    no_containers: true
  infra3:
    ip: 172.39.123.13
    no_containers: true

Example: Running galera on dedicated hosts¶

For example, to run Galera directly on dedicated hosts, you would perform the following steps:

Modify the container_skel section of the env.d/galera.yml file. For example:

container_skel:
  galera_container:
    belongs_to:
      - db_containers
    contains:
      - galera
    properties:
      is_metal: true

Note

To deploy within containers on these dedicated hosts, omit the is_metal: true property.

Assign the db_containers container group (from the preceding step) to a host group by providing a physical_skel section for the host group in a new or existing file, such as env.d/galera.yml. For example:
```
physical_skel:
  db_containers:
    belongs_to:
      - all_containers
  db_hosts:
    belongs_to:
      - hosts
```
Define the host group (db_hosts) in a conf.d/ file (such as galera.yml). For example:
```
db_hosts:
  db-host1:
    ip: 172.39.123.11
  db-host2:
    ip: 172.39.123.12
  db-host3:
    ip: 172.39.123.13
```
Note

Each of the custom group names in this example (db_containers and db_hosts) are arbitrary. Choose your own group names, but ensure the references are consistent among all relevant files.

Adding virtual nest groups¶

If you want to create a custom group for arbitrary grouping of hosts and containers within these hosts but skip the generation of any new containers, you should use is_nest property under container_skel and skip defining belongs_to structure. is_nest property will add host-containers as children to such a group.

Example: Defining Availability Zones¶

A good example of how is_nest property can be used is describing Availability Zones. As when operating multiple AZs it’s handy to define AZ-specific variables, like AZ name, for all hosts in this AZ. And leveraging group_vars is best way of ensuring that all hosts that belong to same AZ have same configuration applied.

Let’s assume you have 3 controllers and each of them is placed in different Availability Zones. There is also a compute node in each Availability Zone. And we want each host or container that is placed physically in a specific AZ be part of it’s own group (ie azN_all)

In order to achieve that we need:

Define host groups in conf.d or openstack_user_config.yml to assign hosts accordingly to their Availability Zones:

az1-infra_hosts: &infra_az1
  az1-infra1:
    ip: 172.39.123.11

az2-infra_hosts: &infra_az2
  az2-infra2:
    ip: 172.39.123.12

az3-infra_hosts: &infra_az3
  az3-infra3:
    ip: 172.39.123.13

shared-infra_hosts: &controllers
  <<: *infra_az1
  <<: *infra_az2
  <<: *infra_az3

az1-compute_hosts: &computes_az1
  az1-compute01:
    ip: 172.39.123.100

az2-compute_hosts: &computes_az2
  az2-compute01:
    ip: 172.39.123.150

az3-compute_hosts: &computes_az3
  az3-compute01:
    ip: 172.39.123.200

compute_hosts:
  <<: *computes_az1
  <<: *computes_az2
  <<: *computes_az3

az1_hosts:
  <<: *computes_az1
  <<: *infra_az1

az2_hosts:
  <<: *computes_az2
  <<: *infra_az2

az3_hosts:
  <<: *computes_az3
  <<: *infra_az3

Create env.d/az.yml file that will leverage is_nest property and allow all infra containers to be part of the AZ group as well

component_skel:
  az1_containers:
    belongs_to:
      - az1_all
  az1_hosts:
    belongs_to:
      - az1_all

  az2_containers:
    belongs_to:
      - az2_all
  az2_hosts:
    belongs_to:
      - az2_all

  az3_containers:
    belongs_to:
      - az3_all
  az3_hosts:
    belongs_to:
      - az3_all

container_skel:
  az1_containers:
    properties:
      is_nest: True
  az2_containers:
    properties:
      is_nest: True
  az3_containers:
    properties:
      is_nest: True

Now you can leverage group_vars file to apply a variable to all containers and bare metal hosts in AZ. For example /etc/openstack_deploy/group_vars/az1_all.yml:
```
---
az_name: az1
cinder_storage_availability_zone: "{{ az_name }}"
```

Deploying 0 (or more than one) of component type per host¶

When OpenStack-Ansible generates its dynamic inventory, the affinity setting determines how many containers of a similar type are deployed on a single physical host.

Using shared-infra_hosts as an example, consider this openstack_user_config.yml configuration:

shared-infra_hosts:
  infra1:
    ip: 172.29.236.101
  infra2:
    ip: 172.29.236.102
  infra3:
    ip: 172.29.236.103

Three hosts are assigned to the shared-infra_hosts group, OpenStack-Ansible ensures that each host runs a single database container, a single Memcached container, and a single RabbitMQ container. Each host has an affinity of 1 by default, which means that each host runs one of each container type.

If you are deploying a stand-alone Object Storage (swift) environment, you can skip the deployment of RabbitMQ. If you use this configuration, your openstack_user_config.yml file would look as follows:

shared-infra_hosts:
  infra1:
    affinity:
      rabbit_mq_container: 0
    ip: 172.29.236.101
  infra2:
    affinity:
      rabbit_mq_container: 0
    ip: 172.29.236.102
  infra3:
    affinity:
      rabbit_mq_container: 0
    ip: 172.29.236.103

This configuration deploys a Memcached container and a database container on each host, but no RabbitMQ containers.

Omit a service or component from the deployment¶

To omit a component from a deployment, you can use one of several options:

Remove the physical_skel link between the container group and the host group by deleting the related file located in the env.d/ directory.
Do not run the playbook that installs the component. Unless you specify the component to run directly on a host by using the is_metal property, a container is created for this component.
Adjust the Adding virtual nest groups to 0 for the host group. Similar to the second option listed here, Unless you specify the component to run directly on a host by using the is_metal property, a container is created for this component.

Having SSH network different from OpenStack Management network¶

In some environments SSH network that is used to access nodes from deploy host and management network are different. In this case it’s important that services were listening on correct network while ensure that Ansible use SSH network for accessing managed hosts. In these cases you can define management_ip key while defining hosts in your openstack_user_config.yml file.

management_ip will be used as management_address for the node, while ip will be used as ansible_host for accessing node by SSH.

Example:

shared-infra_hosts:
  infra1:
    ip: 192.168.0.101
    management_ip: 172.29.236.101

Configuring the inventory