dual-stack-openfabric-mesh.md

Enable Dual Stack (IPv4 and IPv6) OpenFabric Routing

this gist is part of this series

This assumes you are running Proxmox 8.2 and that the line source /etc/network/interfaces.d/* is at the end of the interfaces file (this is automatically added to both new and upgraded installations of Proxmox 8.2).

This changes the previous file design thanks to @NRGNet for the suggestions to move thunderbolt settings to a file in /etc/network/interfaces.d it makes the system much more reliable in general, more maintainable esp for folks using IPv4 on the private cluster network (i still recommend the use of the IPv6 FC00 network you will see in these docs)

This will result in an IPv4 and IPv6 routable mesh network that can survive any one node failure or any one cable failure. Alls the steps in this section must be performed on each node

NOTES on Dual Stack

I have included this for completeness, i only run the FC00:: IPv6 network as ceph does not support dual stack, i strongly recommend you consider only using IPv6. For example for ceph do not dual stack - either use IPv4 or IPv6 addressees for all the monitors, MDS and daemons - despite the docs implying it is ok my findings on quincy are is it is funky....

Defining thunderbolt network

Create a new file using nano /etc/network/interfaces.d/thunderbolt and populate with the following Remember X should match you node number, so for example 1,2 or 3.

auto lo:0
iface lo:0 inet static
        address 10.0.0.8X/32
        
auto lo:6
iface lo:6 inet static
        address fc00::8X/128
        
allow-hotplug en05
iface en05 inet manual
        mtu 65520

allow-hotplug en06
iface en06 inet manual
        mtu 65520

Save file, repeat on each node.

Enable IPv4 and IPv6 forwarding

1. use nano /etc/sysctl.conf to open the file
2. uncomment #net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1 (remove the # symbol)
3. uncomment #net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 (remove the # symbol)
4. save the file
5. issue reboot now for a complete reboot

FRR Setup

Install FRR

Install Free Range Routing (FRR) apt install frr

Enable the fabricd daemon

1. edit the frr daemons file (nano /etc/frr/daemons) to change fabricd=no to fabricd=yes
2. save the file
3. restart the service with systemctl restart frr

Mitigate FRR Timing Issues at Boot

Add post-up command to /etc/network/interfaces

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Add post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.serviceas the last line in the file (this should go after the line that starts source)

NOTE for Minisforum MS-01 users

make the post-up line above read sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service instead this has been verified to be required due to timing issues see on those units, exact cause unknown, may be needed on other hardware too.

Configure OpenFabric (perforn on all nodes)

1. enter the FRR shell with vtysh
2. optionally show the current config with show running-config
3. enter the configure mode with configure
4. Apply the bellow configuration (it is possible to cut and paste this into the shell instead of typing it manually, you may need to press return to set the last !. Also check there were no errors in repsonse to the paste text.).

Note: the X should be the number of the node you are working on, as an example - 0.0.0.1, 0.0.0.2 or 0.0.0.3.

ip forwarding
ipv6 forwarding
!
interface en05
ip router openfabric 1
ipv6 router openfabric 1
exit
!
interface en06
ip router openfabric 1
ipv6 router openfabric 1
exit
!
interface lo
ip router openfabric 1
ipv6 router openfabric 1
openfabric passive
exit
!
router openfabric 1
net 49.0000.0000.000X.00
exit
!

5. you may need to pres return after the last ! to get to a new line - if so do this

6. exit the configure mode with the command end

7. save the configu with write memory

8. show the configure applied correctly with show running-config - note the order of the items will be different to how you entered them and thats ok. (If you made a mistake i found the easiest way was to edt /etc/frr/frr.conf - but be careful if you do that.)

9. use the command exit to leave setup

10. repeat steps 1 to 9 on the other 3 nodes

11. once you have configured all 3 nodes issue the command vtysh -c "show openfabric topology" if you did everything right you will see:

Area 1:
IS-IS paths to level-2 routers that speak IP
Vertex               Type         Metric Next-Hop             Interface Parent
pve1                                                                  
10.0.0.81/32         IP internal  0                                     pve1(4)
pve2                 TE-IS        10     pve2                 en06      pve1(4)
pve3                 TE-IS        10     pve3                 en05      pve1(4)
10.0.0.82/32         IP TE        20     pve2                 en06      pve2(4)
10.0.0.83/32         IP TE        20     pve3                 en05      pve3(4)

IS-IS paths to level-2 routers that speak IPv6
Vertex               Type         Metric Next-Hop             Interface Parent
pve1                                                                  
fc00::81/128         IP6 internal 0                                     pve1(4)
pve2                 TE-IS        10     pve2                 en06      pve1(4)
pve3                 TE-IS        10     pve3                 en05      pve1(4)
fc00::82/128         IP6 internal 20     pve2                 en06      pve2(4)
fc00::83/128         IP6 internal 20     pve3                 en05      pve3(4)

IS-IS paths to level-2 routers with hop-by-hop metric
Vertex               Type         Metric Next-Hop             Interface Parent

Now you should be in a place to ping each node from evey node across the thunderbolt mesh using IPv4 or IPv6 as you see fit.

@e1ysion One more note, I could only do testing w/ 3 nodes since that is all I have so I have no clue about how them falling out of sync when certain noeds are rebooted, but I would think mainly the same principal applies to boot all nodes at same time, and only restart 1 at a time. I think the only way you will know if try try pinging each device and see what you can't ping, see what interface that is and try to adjust settings for that one. remember if its down on 1 node it prob is down on the other node as well so it might not be that specific nodes issue but the other one. Going from 3 to 5 really complicates things and why a 25g NIC and 25G switch would be better, although I know you cant just add them to mini pc's :D so good luck.

If you are still running into big issues you might wannt to drop to 3 nodes, get them running perfectly and add a node 1 at a time, that is how I would prob go about troubleshooting it.

THanks man :) one more question, do you know what the reason for the unrecognized TB ports could be? After a reboot sometimes a Plug/Unplug is not properly recognized and I have to replug until it eventually gets registered under devadm monitor.

@e1ysion If there is no erorrs w/ the renaming/link files or w/ the pve-en05.sh and pve-en06.sh (doubble check they are exacutable also try no sleep in them or maybe longer/shorter sleeps) it could be the cables maybe they do tend to be a but finicky? Try moving it around to a different node or flip-floping it see if it follows the cable. Most of us I think are using the OWC cables that are quite short as we have had most sucsuess with them.

Only other thing I can think of would be maybe hardware/bios issue?

@scyto It think it needs to be post-up sleep 5 && /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service the way you have it in the guide won't work as "post-up" is the command that triggers it. I also I think it needs to be /etc/network/interfaces not in the thunderbolt file as I don't think it is loading...

I just confirmed it.

@scyto Currently your gist is non-working because of this

@Allistah I can confirm that I do require to pin thunderbolt to Pcores to get full bandwidth and no to low retries. I tried to putting the script in /etc/init.d/thunderbolt-affinity and confirm it is not loading on boot. From what I have read really quickly is that it needs be a certain framework. https://manpages.debian.org/testing/sysvinit-utils/init-d-script.5.en.html.

I tried /etc/network/if-up.d/thunderbolt-affinity and can confrim it is working, however I don't think this is the proper way to do it as I don't think it needs to be ran every ifup. I don't think it would hurt anything...but I think that I am going to do a different way by adding it to /etc/rc.local so it runs 1 time on boot (init.d might be the proper way but I don't currently have the time to make that script).

A question I have is what code to use. I saw both in the proxmox fourm I was using the 1st one but required manually changing "0-7" for your Pcore's. Is the 2nd one reading what the Pcores are as they will be different for other cpus. I don't know what it is printing as I am not great with code haha.

#!/bin/bash

grep thunderbolt /proc/interrupts | cut -d ":" -f1 | xargs -I {} sh -c 'echo 0-7 | tee "/proc/irq/{}/smp_affinity_list"'

or

#!/bin/bash
for id in $(grep 'thunderbolt' /proc/interrupts | awk '{print $1}' | cut -d ':' -f1); do
    echo 0f > /proc/irq/$id/smp_affinity
done

Thanks a LOT!

Went from 400-600 retries in 1s to 0-20 retries and speed went from 16gbit to 26gbit.

I had some frr boot timing issues with my Minisforum MS-01 as described in the gist. However adding the following line to the /etc/network/interfaces was not working reliably for me.
sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service
Sometimes according to dmesg it took quite some time until the interfaces en05 and en06 where correctly set up. This for some reason lead to only ipv6 routing being initialized but not ipv4 (not sure why here).

So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This ensures that frr only starts after en05 and en06 are fully initialized. This worked great for me and the post-up command is not needed anymore in the interfaces file. I thought I would share this if someone else had similar problems. I would also be happy to hear your thoughts on this solution.

@scyto It think it needs to be post-up sleep 5 && /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service the way you have it in the guide won't work as "post-up" is the command that triggers it. I also I think it needs to be /etc/network/interfaces not in the thunderbolt file as I don't think it is loading...

I just confirmed it.

@scyto Currently your gist is non-working because of this
@Allistah I can confirm that I do require to pin thunderbolt to Pcores to get full bandwidth and no to low retries. I tried to putting the script in /etc/init.d/thunderbolt-affinity and confirm it is not loading on boot. From what I have read really quickly is that it needs be a certain framework. https://manpages.debian.org/testing/sysvinit-utils/init-d-script.5.en.html.
I tried /etc/network/if-up.d/thunderbolt-affinity and can confrim it is working, however I don't think this is the proper way to do it as I don't think it needs to be ran every ifup. I don't think it would hurt anything...but I think that I am going to do a different way by adding it to /etc/rc.local so it runs 1 time on boot (init.d might be the proper way but I don't currently have the time to make that script).
A question I have is what code to use. I saw both in the proxmox fourm I was using the 1st one but required manually changing "0-7" for your Pcore's. Is the 2nd one reading what the Pcores are as they will be different for other cpus. I don't know what it

#!/bin/bash

grep thunderbolt /proc/interrupts | cut -d ":" -f1 | xargs -I {} sh -c 'echo 0-7 | tee "/proc/irq/{}/smp_affinity_list"'

or

#!/bin/bash
for id in $(grep 'thunderbolt' /proc/interrupts | awk '{print $1}' | cut -d ':' -f1); do
    echo 0f > /proc/irq/$id

Thanks a LOT!

Went from 400-600 retries in 1s to 0-20 retries and speed went from 16gbit to 26gbit.

Awesome, glad that worked for ya! It’s a must for me to have this. There are others that don’t need it but we’re not 100% certain why.

I had some frr boot timing issues with my Minisforum MS-01 as described in the gist. However adding the following line to the /etc/network/interfaces was not working reliably for me. sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service Sometimes according to dmesg it took quite some time until the interfaces en05 and en06 where correctly set up. This for some reason lead to only ipv6 routing being initialized but not ipv4 (not sure why here).

So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This ensures that frr only starts after en05 and en06 are fully initialized. This worked great for me and the post-up command is not needed anymore in the interfaces file. I thought I would share this if someone else had similar problems. I would also be happy to hear your thoughts on this solution.

Hey, it says the subfolder frr.service.d does not exist. Should I just create it and put the .conf file there, as you described?

So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This is fantastic news! I'm going to put this in my notes and give it a try. Seems like a much better method than just delays which may or may not work reliably.

@nimro27 - Do we just create the directory called frr.service.d if it doesn't exist?

I had some frr boot timing issues with my Minisforum MS-01 as described in the gist. However adding the following line to the /etc/network/interfaces was not working reliably for me. sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service Sometimes according to dmesg it took quite some time until the interfaces en05 and en06 where correctly set up. This for some reason lead to only ipv6 routing being initialized but not ipv4 (not sure why here).
So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This ensures that frr only starts after en05 and en06 are fully initialized. This worked great for me and the post-up command is not needed anymore in the interfaces file. I thought I would share this if someone else had similar problems. I would also be happy to hear your thoughts on this solution.

Hey, it says the subfolder frr.service.d does not exist. Should I just create it and put the .conf file there, as you described?

Yes just create it if it does not exist. That's what I did too.

I had some frr boot timing issues with my Minisforum MS-01 as described in the gist. However adding the following line to the /etc/network/interfaces was not working reliably for me. sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service Sometimes according to dmesg it took quite some time until the interfaces en05 and en06 where correctly set up. This for some reason lead to only ipv6 routing being initialized but not ipv4 (not sure why here).

So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This ensures that frr only starts after en05 and en06 are fully initialized. This worked great for me and the post-up command is not needed anymore in the interfaces file. I thought I would share this if someone else had similar problems. I would also be happy to hear your thoughts on this solution.

@nimro27 Thank you so much! This solved it for me on my 3 node MS-01 cluster!

I had some frr boot timing issues with my Minisforum MS-01 as described in the gist. However adding the following line to the /etc/network/interfaces was not working reliably for me. sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service Sometimes according to dmesg it took quite some time until the interfaces en05 and en06 where correctly set up. This for some reason lead to only ipv6 routing being initialized but not ipv4 (not sure why here).
So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This ensures that frr only starts after en05 and en06 are fully initialized. This worked great for me and the post-up command is not needed anymore in the interfaces file. I thought I would share this if someone else had similar problems. I would also be happy to hear your thoughts on this solution.

@nimro27 Thank you so much! This solved it for me on my 3 node MS-01 cluster!

When I add this file the frr.service does not even start anymore, not on boot and not manually. Any idea?

I had some frr boot timing issues with my Minisforum MS-01 as described in the gist. However adding the following line to the /etc/network/interfaces was not working reliably for me. sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service Sometimes according to dmesg it took quite some time until the interfaces en05 and en06 where correctly set up. This for some reason lead to only ipv6 routing being initialized but not ipv4 (not sure why here).
So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This ensures that frr only starts after en05 and en06 are fully initialized. This worked great for me and the post-up command is not needed anymore in the interfaces file. I thought I would share this if someone else had similar problems. I would also be happy to hear your thoughts on this solution.

@nimro27 Thank you so much! This solved it for me on my 3 node MS-01 cluster!

When I add this file the frr.service does not even start anymore, not on boot and not manually. Any idea?

@FrankSchoene @nimro27 Just a warning, when I attempted to use this approach (dependencies.conf) is caused a couple problems. It would occasionally prevent en05/06 from coming up during boot (logging dependency errors), but more importantly it would also cause the frr service on all other nodes to shutdown when the current node was rebooting. In my case, I had to remove the dependencies.conf and go back to using a post-up with sleep 10. One minor difference in my case, I used a script in /etc/network/if-up.d/ instead of explicitly adding post-up to the interfaces file. Everything seems to be working well now, and survives reboots of any node. I'm running 3 MS-01's.

I had some frr boot timing issues with my Minisforum MS-01 as described in the gist. However adding the following line to the /etc/network/interfaces was not working reliably for me. sleep 5 && post-up /usr/bin/systemctl restart frr.service Sometimes according to dmesg it took quite some time until the interfaces en05 and en06 where correctly set up. This for some reason lead to only ipv6 routing being initialized but not ipv4 (not sure why here).
So I added the following file /etc/systemd/system/frr.service.d/dependencies.conf with this content:

[Unit]
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

This ensures that frr only starts after en05 and en06 are fully initialized. This worked great for me and the post-up command is not needed anymore in the interfaces file. I thought I would share this if someone else had similar problems. I would also be happy to hear your thoughts on this solution.

@nimro27 Thank you so much! This solved it for me on my 3 node MS-01 cluster!

When I add this file the frr.service does not even start anymore, not on boot and not manually. Any idea?

@FrankSchoene @nimro27 Just a warning, when I attempted to use this approach (dependencies.conf) is caused a couple problems. It would occasionally prevent en05/06 from coming up during boot (logging dependency errors), but more importantly it would also cause the frr service on all other nodes to shutdown when the current node was rebooting. In my case, I had to remove the dependencies.conf and go back to using a post-up with sleep 10. One minor difference in my case, I used a script in /etc/network/if-up.d/ instead of explicitly adding post-up to the interfaces file. Everything seems to be working well now, and survives reboots of any node. I'm running 3 MS-01's.

Thanks for the warning, great catch! I did some more tests and changed the BindsTo to Wants in the dependencies.conf this solved the case that frr is shutdown on other nodes if one goes down.

[Unit]
Wants=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-en05.device sys-subsystem-net-devices-en06.device

However I could not replicate the case where en05/06 would not come up during boot. Could you explain the logging dependency error a bit more? Is it related to the shutdown issue with BindsTo?

My Routing look like this.

When i try to setup ceph i cannot add the monitors on ipv4 or ipv6