NVIDIA Network Operator

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NVIDIA Network Operator

NVIDIA Network Operator leverages Kubernetes CRDs and Operator SDK to manage Networking related Components in order to enable Fast networking, RDMA and GPUDirect for workloads in a Kubernetes cluster.

The Goal of Network Operator is to manage all networking related components to enable execution of RDMA and GPUDirect RDMA workloads in a kubernetes cluster including:

Mellanox Networking drivers to enable advanced features
Kubernetes device plugins to provide hardware resources for fast network
Kubernetes secondary network for Network intensive workloads

Documentation

For more information please visit the official documentation.

Prerequisites

Kubernetes Node Feature Discovery (NFD)

NVIDIA Network operator relies on Node labeling to get the cluster to the desired state. Node Feature Discovery v0.13.2 or newer is deployed by default via HELM chart installation. NFD is used to label nodes with the following labels:

PCI vendor and device information
RDMA capability
GPU features*

NOTE: We use nodeFeatureRules to label PCI vendor and device.This is enabled via nfd.deployNodeFeatureRules chart parameter.

Example NFD worker configurations:

    config:
      sources:
        pci:
          deviceClassWhitelist:
          - "0300"
          - "0302"
          deviceLabelFields:
          - vendor

* Required for GPUDirect driver container deployment

NOTE: If NFD is already deployed in the cluster, make sure to pass --set nfd.enabled=false to the helm install command to avoid conflicts, and if NFD is deployed from this repo the enableNodeFeatureApi flag is enabled by default to have the ability to create NodeFeatureRules.

Resource Definitions

The Operator Acts on the following CRDs:

NICClusterPolicy CRD

CRD that defines a Cluster state for Mellanox Network devices.

NOTE: The operator will act on a NicClusterPolicy instance with a predefined name "nic-cluster-policy", instances with different names will be ignored.

NICClusterPolicy spec:

NICClusterPolicy CRD Spec includes the following sub-states:

ofedDriver: OFED driver container to be deployed on Mellanox supporting nodes.
rdmaSharedDevicePlugin: RDMA shared device plugin and related configurations.
sriovDevicePlugin: SR-IOV Network Device Plugin and related configurations.
ibKubernetes: InfiniBand Kubernetes and related configurations.
secondaryNetwork: Specifies components to deploy in order to facilitate a secondary network in Kubernetes. It consists of the following optionally deployed components:
- Multus-CNI: Delegate CNI plugin to support secondary networks in Kubernetes
- CNI plugins: Currently only containernetworking-plugins is supported
- IP Over Infiniband (IPoIB) CNI Plugin: Allow users to create an IPoIB child link and move it to the pod.
- IPAM CNI: Whereabouts IPAM CNI and related configurations
nvIpam: NVIDIA Kubernetes IPAM and related configurations.

NOTE: Any sub-state may be omitted if it is not required for the cluster.

NOTE: NVIDIA IPAM and Whereabouts IPAM plugin can be deployed simultaneously in the same cluster

Example for NICClusterPolicy resource:

In the example below we request OFED driver to be deployed together with RDMA shared device plugin.

apiVersion: mellanox.com/v1alpha1
kind: NicClusterPolicy
metadata:
  name: nic-cluster-policy
spec:
  ofedDriver:
    image: mofed
    repository: nvcr.io/nvidia/mellanox
    version: 23.04-0.5.3.3.1
    startupProbe:
      initialDelaySeconds: 10
      periodSeconds: 10
    livenessProbe:
      initialDelaySeconds: 30
      periodSeconds: 30
    readinessProbe:
      initialDelaySeconds: 10
      periodSeconds: 30
  rdmaSharedDevicePlugin:
    image: k8s-rdma-shared-dev-plugin
    repository: ghcr.io/mellanox
    version: sha-fe7f371c7e1b8315bf900f71cd25cfc1251dc775
    # The config below directly propagates to k8s-rdma-shared-device-plugin configuration.
    # Replace 'devices' with your (RDMA capable) netdevice name.
    config: |
      {
        "configList": [
          {
            "resourceName": "rdma_shared_device_a",
            "rdmaHcaMax": 63,
            "selectors": {
              "vendors": ["15b3"],
              "deviceIDs": ["1017"],
              "ifNames": ["ens2f0"]
            }
          }
        ]
      }
  secondaryNetwork:
    cniPlugins:
      image: plugins
      repository: ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg
      version: v1.2.0-amd64
    multus:
      image: multus-cni
      repository: ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg
      version: v3.9.3
      # if config is missing or empty then multus config will be automatically generated from the CNI configuration file of the master plugin (the first file in lexicographical order in cni-conf-dir)
      config: ''
    ipamPlugin:
      image: whereabouts
      repository: ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg
      version: v0.6.1-amd64

Can be found at: example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_nicclusterpolicy_cr.yaml

NicClusterPolicy with NVIDIA Kubernetes IPAM configuration

apiVersion: mellanox.com/v1alpha1
kind: NicClusterPolicy
metadata:
  name: nic-cluster-policy
spec:
  ofedDriver:
    image: mofed
    repository: nvcr.io/nvidia/mellanox
    version: 23.04-0.5.3.3.1
    startupProbe:
      initialDelaySeconds: 10
      periodSeconds: 10
    livenessProbe:
      initialDelaySeconds: 30
      periodSeconds: 30
    readinessProbe:
      initialDelaySeconds: 10
      periodSeconds: 30
  rdmaSharedDevicePlugin:
    image: k8s-rdma-shared-dev-plugin
    repository: ghcr.io/mellanox
    version: sha-fe7f371c7e1b8315bf900f71cd25cfc1251dc775
    # The config below directly propagates to k8s-rdma-shared-device-plugin configuration.
    # Replace 'devices' with your (RDMA capable) netdevice name.
    config: |
      {
        "configList": [
          {
            "resourceName": "rdma_shared_device_a",
            "rdmaHcaMax": 63,
            "selectors": {
              "vendors": ["15b3"],
              "deviceIDs": ["101b"]
            }
          }
        ]
      }
  secondaryNetwork:
    cniPlugins:
      image: plugins
      repository: ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg
      version: v1.2.0-amd64
    multus:
      image: multus-cni
      repository: ghcr.io/k8snetworkplumbingwg
      version: v3.9.3
      config: ''
  nvIpam:
    image: nvidia-k8s-ipam
    repository: ghcr.io/mellanox
    version: v0.1.1
    enableWebhook: false

Can be found at: example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_nicclusterpolicy_cr-nvidia-ipam.yaml

NICClusterPolicy status

NICClusterPolicy status field reflects the current state of the system. It contains a per sub-state and a global state status.

The sub-state status indicates if the cluster has transitioned to the desired state for that sub-state, e.g OFED driver container deployed and loaded on relevant nodes, RDMA device plugin deployed and running on relevant nodes.

The global state reflects the logical AND of each individual sub-state.

Example Status field of a NICClusterPolicy instance

status:
  appliedStates:
  - name: state-pod-security-policy
    state: ignore
  - name: state-multus-cni
    state: ready
  - name: state-container-networking-plugins
    state: ignore
  - name: state-ipoib-cni
    state: ignore
  - name: state-whereabouts-cni
    state: ready
  - name: state-OFED
    state: ready
  - name: state-SRIOV-device-plugin
    state: ignore
  - name: state-RDMA-device-plugin
    state: ready
  - name: state-ib-kubernetes
    state: ignore
  - name: state-nv-ipam-cni
    state: ready
  state: ready

NOTE: An ignore State indicates that the sub-state was not defined in the custom resource thus it is ignored.

MacvlanNetwork CRD

This CRD defines a MacVlan secondary network. It is translated by the Operator to a NetworkAttachmentDefinition instance as defined in k8snetworkplumbingwg/multi-net-spec.

MacvlanNetwork spec:

MacvlanNetwork CRD Spec includes the following fields:

networkNamespace: Namespace for NetworkAttachmentDefinition related to this MacvlanNetwork CRD.
master: Name of the host interface to enslave. Defaults to default route interface.
mode: Mode of interface one of "bridge", "private", "vepa", "passthru", default "bridge".
mtu: MTU of interface to the specified value. 0 for master's MTU.
ipam: IPAM configuration to be used for this network.

Example for MacvlanNetwork resource:

In the example below we deploy MacvlanNetwork CRD instance with mode as bridge, MTU 1500, default route interface as master, with resource "rdma/rdma_shared_device_a", that will be used to deploy NetworkAttachmentDefinition for macvlan to default namespace.

With Whereabouts IPAM CNI

apiVersion: mellanox.com/v1alpha1
kind: MacvlanNetwork
metadata:
  name: example-macvlannetwork
spec:
  networkNamespace: "default"
  master: "ens2f0"
  mode: "bridge"
  mtu: 1500
  ipam: |
    {
      "type": "whereabouts",
      "datastore": "kubernetes",
      "kubernetes": {
        "kubeconfig": "/etc/cni/net.d/whereabouts.d/whereabouts.kubeconfig"
      },
      "range": "192.168.2.225/28",
      "exclude": [
       "192.168.2.229/30",
       "192.168.2.236/32"
      ],
      "log_file" : "/var/log/whereabouts.log",
      "log_level" : "info",
      "gateway": "192.168.2.1"
    }

Can be found at: example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_macvlannetwork_cr.yaml

With NVIDIA Kubernetes IPAM

apiVersion: mellanox.com/v1alpha1
kind: MacvlanNetwork
metadata:
  name: example-macvlannetwork
spec:
  networkNamespace: "default"
  master: "ens2f0"
  mode: "bridge"
  mtu: 1500
  ipam: |
    {
      "type": "nv-ipam",
      "poolName": "my-pool"
    }

Can be found at: example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_macvlannetwork_cr-nvidia-ipam.yaml

HostDeviceNetwork CRD

This CRD defines a HostDevice secondary network. It is translated by the Operator to a NetworkAttachmentDefinition instance as defined in k8snetworkplumbingwg/multi-net-spec.

HostDeviceNetwork spec:

HostDeviceNetwork CRD Spec includes the following fields:

networkNamespace: Namespace for NetworkAttachmentDefinition related to this HostDeviceNetwork CRD.
resourceName: Host device resource pool.
ipam: IPAM configuration to be used for this network.

Example for HostDeviceNetwork resource:

In the example below we deploy HostDeviceNetwork CRD instance with "hostdev" resource pool, that will be used to deploy NetworkAttachmentDefinition for HostDevice network to default namespace.

apiVersion: mellanox.com/v1alpha1
kind: HostDeviceNetwork
metadata:
  name: example-hostdevice-network
spec:
  networkNamespace: "default"
  resourceName: "hostdev"
  ipam: |
    {
      "type": "whereabouts",
      "datastore": "kubernetes",
      "kubernetes": {
        "kubeconfig": "/etc/cni/net.d/whereabouts.d/whereabouts.kubeconfig"
      },
      "range": "192.168.3.225/28",
      "exclude": [
       "192.168.3.229/30",
       "192.168.3.236/32"
      ],
      "log_file" : "/var/log/whereabouts.log",
      "log_level" : "info"
    }

Can be found at: example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_hostdevicenetwork_cr.yaml

IPoIBNetwork CRD

This CRD defines an IPoIBNetwork secondary network. It is translated by the Operator to a NetworkAttachmentDefinition instance as defined in k8snetworkplumbingwg/multi-net-spec.

IPoIBNetwork spec:

HostDeviceNetwork CRD Spec includes the following fields:

networkNamespace: Namespace for NetworkAttachmentDefinition related to this HostDeviceNetwork CRD.
master: Name of the host interface to enslave.
ipam: IPAM configuration to be used for this network.

Example for IPoIBNetwork resource:

In the example below we deploy IPoIBNetwork CRD instance with "ibs3f1" host interface, that will be used to deploy NetworkAttachmentDefinition for IPoIBNetwork network to default namespace.

apiVersion: mellanox.com/v1alpha1
kind: IPoIBNetwork
metadata:
  name: example-ipoibnetwork
spec:
  networkNamespace: "default"
  master: "ibs3f1"
  ipam: |
    {
      "type": "whereabouts",
      "datastore": "kubernetes",
      "kubernetes": {
        "kubeconfig": "/etc/cni/net.d/whereabouts.d/whereabouts.kubeconfig"
      },
      "range": "192.168.5.225/28",
      "exclude": [
       "192.168.6.229/30",
       "192.168.6.236/32"
      ],
      "log_file" : "/var/log/whereabouts.log",
      "log_level" : "info",
      "gateway": "192.168.6.1"
    }

Can be found at: example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_ipoibnetwork_cr.yaml

System Requirements

RDMA capable hardware: Mellanox ConnectX-5 NIC or newer.
NVIDIA GPU and driver supporting GPUDirect e.g Quadro RTX 6000/8000 or Tesla T4 or Tesla V100 or Tesla V100. (GPU-Direct only)
Operating Systems: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

NOTE: As more driver containers are built the operator will be able to support additional platforms. NOTE: ConnectX-6 Lx is not supported.

Tested Network Adapters

The following Network Adapters have been tested with NVIDIA Network Operator:

ConnectX-5
ConnectX-6 Dx

Compatibility Notes

NVIDIA Network Operator is compatible with NVIDIA GPU Operator v1.5.2 and above
Starting from v465 NVIDIA GPU driver includes a built-in nvidia_peermem module which is a replacement for nv_peer_mem module. NVIDIA GPU operator manages nvidia_peermem module loading.

Deployment Example

Deployment of NVIDIA Network Operator consists of:

Deploying NVIDIA Network Operator CRDs found under ./config/crd/bases:
- mellanox.com_nicclusterpolicies_crd.yaml
- mellanox.com_macvlan_crds.yaml
- k8s.cni.cncf.io-networkattachmentdefinitions-crd.yaml
Deploying network operator resources by running make deploy
Defining and deploying a NICClusterPolicy custom resource. Example can be found under ./example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_nicclusterpolicy_cr.yaml
Defining and deploying a MacvlanNetwork custom resource. Example can be found under ./example/crs/mellanox.com_v1alpha1_macvlannetwork_cr.yaml

A deployment example can be found under example folder here.

Docker image

Network operator uses alpine base image by default. To build Network operator with another base image you need to pass BASE_IMAGE argument:

docker build -t network-operator \
--build-arg BASE_IMAGE=registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/ubi-minimal:latest \
.

Driver Containers

Driver containers are essentially containers that have or yield kernel modules compatible with the underlying kernel. An initialization script loads the modules when the container is run (in privileged mode) making them available to the kernel.

While this approach may seem odd. It provides a way to deliver drivers to immutable systems.

Mellanox OFED container

Mellanox OFED driver container supports customization of its behaviour via environment variables. This is regarded as advanced functionallity and generally should not be needed.

check MOFED Driver Container Environment Variables

Upgrade

Check Upgrade section in Helm Chart documentation for details.

Externally Provided Configurations For Network Operator Sub-Components

In most cases, Network Operator will be deployed together with the related configurations for the various sub-components it deploys e.g. Nvidia k8s IPAM plugin, RDMA shared device plugin or SR-IOV Network device plugin.

Specifying configuration either via Helm values when installing NVIDIA network operator, or by specifying them when directly creating NicClusterPolicy CR. These configurations eventually trigger the creation of a ConfigMap object in K8s.

Note: It is the responsibility of the user to delete any existing configurations (ConfigMaps) if they were already created by the Network Operator as well as deleting his own configuration when they are no longer required.

cyclinder/network-operator