[vdsm] Future of Vdsm network configuration

Simon Grinberg simon at redhat.com
Sun Nov 11 19:54:29 UTC 2012



----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dan Kenigsberg" <danken at redhat.com>
> To: vdsm-devel at fedorahosted.org
> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 4:07:30 PM
> Subject: [vdsm] Future of Vdsm network configuration
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Nowadays, when vdsm receives the setupNetowrk verb, it mangles
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files and restarts the network
> service, so they are read by the responsible SysV service.
> 
> This is very much Fedora-oriented, and not up with the new themes
> in Linux network configuration. Since we want oVirt and Vdsm to be
> distribution agnostic, and support new features, we have to change.
> 
> setupNetwork is responsible for two different things:
> (1) configure the host networking interfaces, and
> (2) create virtual networks for guests and connect the to the world
> over (1).
> 
> Functionality (2) is provided by building Linux software bridges, and
> vlan devices. I'd like to explore moving it to Open vSwitch, which
> would
> enable a host of functionalities that we currently lack (e.g.
> tunneling). One thing that worries me is the need to reimplement our
> config snapshot/recovery on ovs's database.
> 
> As far as I know, ovs is unable to maintain host level parameters of
> interfaces (e.g. eth0's IPv4 address), so we need another
> tool for functionality (1): either speak to NetworkManager directly,
> or
> to use NetCF, via its libvirt virInterface* wrapper.
> 
> I have minor worries about NetCF's breadth of testing and usage; I
> know
> it is intended to be cross-platform, but unlike ovs, I am not aware
> of a
> wide Debian usage thereof. On the other hand, its API is ready for
> vdsm's
> usage for quite a while.
> 
> NetworkManager has become ubiquitous, and we'd better integrate with
> it
> better than our current setting of NM_CONTROLLED=no. But as DPB tells
> us,
> https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/vdsm-devel/2012-November/001677.html
> we'd better offload integration with NM to libvirt.

For NetworkManager bridge support is in introduction stages
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=546197 

> 
> We would like to take Network configuration in VDSM to the next level
> and make it distribution agnostic in addition for setting the
> infrastructure for more advanced features to be used going forward.
> The path we think of taking is to integrate with OVS and for feature
> completeness use NetCF, via its libvirt virInterface* wrapper. Any
> comments or feedback on this proposal is welcomed.
> 


+ from netCF site
" How can I help ?
netcf is in its very early stages, and can be improved in any number of ways. The most pressing needs right now are

implementing backends for other distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) and operating systems (Solaris)
testing and using netcf "

At a short term I think that it will only add overhead an instability if you'll depend on them. 
Long term I don't see why not.


> Thanks to the oVirt net team members who's input has helped writing
> this
> email.
> 
> Dan.
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> 


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