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Creating a performance profile

Learn about the Performance Profile Creator (PPC) and how you can use it to create a performance profile.

Currently, disabling CPU load balancing is not supported by cgroup v2. As a result, you might not get the desired behavior from performance profiles if you have cgroup v2 enabled. Enabling cgroup v2 is not recommended if you are using performance profiles.

About the Performance Profile Creator

The Performance Profile Creator (PPC) is a command-line tool, delivered with the Node Tuning Operator, used to create the performance profile. The tool consumes must-gather data from the cluster and several user-supplied profile arguments. The PPC generates a performance profile that is appropriate for your hardware and topology.

The tool is run by one of the following methods:

  • Invoking podman

  • Calling a wrapper script

Gathering data about your cluster using the must-gather command

The Performance Profile Creator (PPC) tool requires must-gather data. As a cluster administrator, run the must-gather command to capture information about your cluster.

In earlier versions of OpenShift Container Platform, the Performance Addon Operator provided automatic, low latency performance tuning for applications. In OpenShift Container Platform 4.11 and later, this functionality is part of the Node Tuning Operator. However, you must still use the performance-addon-operator-must-gather image when running the must-gather command.
Prerequisites

  • Access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

  • Access to the Performance Addon Operator must gather image.

  • The OpenShift CLI (oc) installed.

Procedure

  1. Optional: Verify that a matching machine config pool exists with a label:

    $ oc describe mcp/worker-rt
    Example output
    Name:         worker-rt
Namespace:
Labels:       machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role=worker-rt

  2. If a matching label does not exist add a label for a machine config pool (MCP) that matches with the MCP name:

    $ oc label mcp <mcp_name> machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role=<mcp_name>

  3. Navigate to the directory where you want to store the must-gather data.

  4. Run must-gather on your cluster:

    $ oc adm must-gather --image=<PAO_must_gather_image> --dest-dir=<dir>

    The must-gather command must be run with the performance-addon-operator-must-gather image. The output can optionally be compressed. Compressed output is required if you are running the Performance Profile Creator wrapper script.
    Example
    $ oc adm must-gather --image=registry.redhat.io/openshift4/performance-addon-operator-must-gather-rhel8:v4.13 --dest-dir=<path_to_must-gather>/must-gather

  5. Create a compressed file from the must-gather directory:

    $ tar cvaf must-gather.tar.gz must-gather/

Running the Performance Profile Creator using podman

As a cluster administrator, you can run podman and the Performance Profile Creator to create a performance profile.

Prerequisites

  • Access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

  • A cluster installed on bare-metal hardware.

  • A node with podman and OpenShift CLI (oc) installed.

  • Access to the Node Tuning Operator image.

Procedure

  1. Check the machine config pool:

    $ oc get mcp
    Example output
    NAME         CONFIG                                                 UPDATED   UPDATING   DEGRADED   MACHINECOUNT   READYMACHINECOUNT   UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT   DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT   AGE
master       rendered-master-acd1358917e9f98cbdb599aea622d78b       True      False      False      3              3                   3                     0                      22h
worker-cnf   rendered-worker-cnf-1d871ac76e1951d32b2fe92369879826   False     True       False      2              1                   1                     0                      22h

  2. Use Podman to authenticate to registry.redhat.io:

    $ podman login registry.redhat.io
    Username: <username>
Password: <password>

  3. Optional: Display help for the PPC tool:

    $ podman run --rm --entrypoint performance-profile-creator registry.redhat.io/openshift4/ose-cluster-node-tuning-operator:v4.13 -h
    Example output
    A tool that automates creation of Performance Profiles

Usage:
  performance-profile-creator [flags]

Flags:
      --disable-ht                        Disable Hyperthreading
  -h, --help                              help for performance-profile-creator
      --info string                       Show cluster information; requires --must-gather-dir-path, ignore the other arguments. [Valid values: log, json] (default "log")
      --mcp-name string                   MCP name corresponding to the target machines (required)
      --must-gather-dir-path string       Must gather directory path (default "must-gather")
      --offlined-cpu-count int            Number of offlined CPUs
      --per-pod-power-management          Enable Per Pod Power Management
      --power-consumption-mode string     The power consumption mode.  [Valid values: default, low-latency, ultra-low-latency] (default "default")
      --profile-name string               Name of the performance profile to be created (default "performance")
      --reserved-cpu-count int            Number of reserved CPUs (required)
      --rt-kernel                         Enable Real Time Kernel (required)
      --split-reserved-cpus-across-numa   Split the Reserved CPUs across NUMA nodes
      --topology-manager-policy string    Kubelet Topology Manager Policy of the performance profile to be created. [Valid values: single-numa-node, best-effort, restricted] (default "restricted")
      --user-level-networking             Run with User level Networking(DPDK) enabled

  4. Run the Performance Profile Creator tool in discovery mode:

    Discovery mode inspects your cluster using the output from must-gather. The output produced includes information on:

    • The NUMA cell partitioning with the allocated CPU ids

    • Whether hyperthreading is enabled

    Using this information you can set appropriate values for some of the arguments supplied to the Performance Profile Creator tool.

    		 
    $ podman run --entrypoint performance-profile-creator -v <path_to_must-gather>/must-gather:/must-gather:z registry.redhat.io/openshift4/ose-cluster-node-tuning-operator:v4.13 --info log --must-gather-dir-path /must-gather

    This command uses the performance profile creator as a new entry point to podman. It maps the must-gather data for the host into the container image and invokes the required user-supplied profile arguments to produce the my-performance-profile.yaml file.

    The -v option can be the path to either:

    • The must-gather output directory

    • An existing directory containing the must-gather decompressed tarball

    The info option requires a value which specifies the output format. Possible values are log and JSON. The JSON format is reserved for debugging.

  5. Run podman:

    $ podman run --entrypoint performance-profile-creator -v /must-gather:/must-gather:z registry.redhat.io/openshift4/ose-cluster-node-tuning-operator:v4.13 --mcp-name=worker-cnf --reserved-cpu-count=4 --rt-kernel=true --split-reserved-cpus-across-numa=false --must-gather-dir-path /must-gather --power-consumption-mode=ultra-low-latency --offlined-cpu-count=6 > my-performance-profile.yaml

    The Performance Profile Creator arguments are shown in the Performance Profile Creator arguments table. The following arguments are required:

    • reserved-cpu-count

    • mcp-name

    • rt-kernel

    The mcp-name argument in this example is set to worker-cnf based on the output of the command oc get mcp. For single-node OpenShift use --mcp-name=master.

  6. Review the created YAML file:

    $ cat my-performance-profile.yaml
    Example output
    apiVersion: performance.openshift.io/v2
kind: PerformanceProfile
metadata:
  name: performance
spec:
  cpu:
    isolated: 2-39,48-79
    offlined: 42-47
    reserved: 0-1,40-41
  machineConfigPoolSelector:
    machineconfiguration.openshift.io/role: worker-cnf
  nodeSelector:
    node-role.kubernetes.io/worker-cnf: ""
  numa:
    topologyPolicy: restricted
  realTimeKernel:
    enabled: true
  workloadHints:
    highPowerConsumption: true
    realTime: true

  7. Apply the generated profile:

    $ oc apply -f my-performance-profile.yaml

How to run podman to create a performance profile

The following example illustrates how to run podman to create a performance profile with 20 reserved CPUs that are to be split across the NUMA nodes.

Node hardware configuration:

  • 80 CPUs

  • Hyperthreading enabled

  • Two NUMA nodes

  • Even numbered CPUs run on NUMA node 0 and odd numbered CPUs run on NUMA node 1

Run podman to create the performance profile:

$ podman run --entrypoint performance-profile-creator -v /must-gather:/must-gather:z registry.redhat.io/openshift4/ose-cluster-node-tuning-operator:v4.13 --mcp-name=worker-cnf --reserved-cpu-count=20 --rt-kernel=true --split-reserved-cpus-across-numa=true --must-gather-dir-path /must-gather > my-performance-profile.yaml

The created profile is described in the following YAML:

  apiVersion: performance.openshift.io/v2
  kind: PerformanceProfile
  metadata:
    name: performance
  spec:
    cpu:
      isolated: 10-39,50-79
      reserved: 0-9,40-49
    nodeSelector:
      node-role.kubernetes.io/worker-cnf: ""
    numa:
      topologyPolicy: restricted
    realTimeKernel:
      enabled: true

In this case, 10 CPUs are reserved on NUMA node 0 and 10 are reserved on NUMA node 1.

Running the Performance Profile Creator wrapper script

The performance profile wrapper script simplifies the running of the Performance Profile Creator (PPC) tool. It hides the complexities associated with running podman and specifying the mapping directories and it enables the creation of the performance profile.

Prerequisites

  • Access to the Node Tuning Operator image.

  • Access to the must-gather tarball.

Procedure

  1. Create a file on your local machine named, for example, run-perf-profile-creator.sh:

    $ vi run-perf-profile-creator.sh

  2. Paste the following code into the file:

    #!/bin/bash

readonly CONTAINER_RUNTIME=${CONTAINER_RUNTIME:-podman}
readonly CURRENT_SCRIPT=$(basename "$0")
readonly CMD="${CONTAINER_RUNTIME} run --entrypoint performance-profile-creator"
readonly IMG_EXISTS_CMD="${CONTAINER_RUNTIME} image exists"
readonly IMG_PULL_CMD="${CONTAINER_RUNTIME} image pull"
readonly MUST_GATHER_VOL="/must-gather"

NTO_IMG="registry.redhat.io/openshift4/ose-cluster-node-tuning-operator:v4.13"
MG_TARBALL=""
DATA_DIR=""

usage() {
  print "Wrapper usage:"
  print "  ${CURRENT_SCRIPT} [-h] [-p image][-t path] -- [performance-profile-creator flags]"
  print ""
  print "Options:"
  print "   -h                 help for ${CURRENT_SCRIPT}"
  print "   -p                 Node Tuning Operator image"
  print "   -t                 path to a must-gather tarball"

  ${IMG_EXISTS_CMD} "${NTO_IMG}" && ${CMD} "${NTO_IMG}" -h
}

function cleanup {
  [ -d "${DATA_DIR}" ] && rm -rf "${DATA_DIR}"
}
trap cleanup EXIT

exit_error() {
  print "error: $*"
  usage
  exit 1
}

print() {
  echo  "$*" >&2
}

check_requirements() {
  ${IMG_EXISTS_CMD} "${NTO_IMG}" || ${IMG_PULL_CMD} "${NTO_IMG}" || \
      exit_error "Node Tuning Operator image not found"

  [ -n "${MG_TARBALL}" ] || exit_error "Must-gather tarball file path is mandatory"
  [ -f "${MG_TARBALL}" ] || exit_error "Must-gather tarball file not found"

  DATA_DIR=$(mktemp -d -t "${CURRENT_SCRIPT}XXXX") || exit_error "Cannot create the data directory"
  tar -zxf "${MG_TARBALL}" --directory "${DATA_DIR}" || exit_error "Cannot decompress the must-gather tarball"
  chmod a+rx "${DATA_DIR}"

  return 0
}

main() {
  while getopts ':hp:t:' OPT; do
    case "${OPT}" in
      h)
        usage
        exit 0
        ;;
      p)
        NTO_IMG="${OPTARG}"
        ;;
      t)
        MG_TARBALL="${OPTARG}"
        ;;
      ?)
        exit_error "invalid argument: ${OPTARG}"
        ;;
    esac
  done
  shift $((OPTIND - 1))

  check_requirements || exit 1

  ${CMD} -v "${DATA_DIR}:${MUST_GATHER_VOL}:z" "${NTO_IMG}" "$@" --must-gather-dir-path "${MUST_GATHER_VOL}"
  echo "" 1>&2
}

main "$@"

  3. Add execute permissions for everyone on this script:

    $ chmod a+x run-perf-profile-creator.sh

  4. Optional: Display the run-perf-profile-creator.sh command usage:

    $ ./run-perf-profile-creator.sh -h
    Expected output
    Wrapper usage:
  run-perf-profile-creator.sh [-h] [-p image][-t path] -- [performance-profile-creator flags]

Options:
   -h                 help for run-perf-profile-creator.sh
   -p                 Node Tuning Operator image (1)
   -t                 path to a must-gather tarball (2)
A tool that automates creation of Performance Profiles

Usage:
  performance-profile-creator [flags]

Flags:
      --disable-ht                        Disable Hyperthreading
  -h, --help                              help for performance-profile-creator
      --info string                       Show cluster information; requires --must-gather-dir-path, ignore the other arguments. [Valid values: log, json] (default "log")
      --mcp-name string                   MCP name corresponding to the target machines (required)
      --must-gather-dir-path string       Must gather directory path (default "must-gather")
      --offlined-cpu-count int            Number of offlined CPUs
      --per-pod-power-management          Enable Per Pod Power Management
      --power-consumption-mode string     The power consumption mode.  [Valid values: default, low-latency, ultra-low-latency] (default "default")
      --profile-name string               Name of the performance profile to be created (default "performance")
      --reserved-cpu-count int            Number of reserved CPUs (required)
      --rt-kernel                         Enable Real Time Kernel (required)
      --split-reserved-cpus-across-numa   Split the Reserved CPUs across NUMA nodes
      --topology-manager-policy string    Kubelet Topology Manager Policy of the performance profile to be created. [Valid values: single-numa-node, best-effort, restricted] (default "restricted")
      --user-level-networking             Run with User level Networking(DPDK) enabled

    There two types of arguments:

    • Wrapper arguments namely -h, -p and -t

    • PPC arguments
    1 Optional: Specify the Node Tuning Operator image. If not set, the default upstream image is used: registry.redhat.io/openshift4/ose-cluster-node-tuning-operator:v4.13.
    2 -t is a required wrapper script argument and specifies the path to a must-gather tarball.

  5. Run the performance profile creator tool in discovery mode:

    Discovery mode inspects your cluster using the output from must-gather. The output produced includes information on:

    • The NUMA cell partitioning with the allocated CPU IDs

    • Whether hyperthreading is enabled

    Using this information you can set appropriate values for some of the arguments supplied to the Performance Profile Creator tool.

    		 
    $ ./run-perf-profile-creator.sh -t /must-gather/must-gather.tar.gz -- --info=log

    The info option requires a value which specifies the output format. Possible values are log and JSON. The JSON format is reserved for debugging.

  6. Check the machine config pool:

    $ oc get mcp
    Example output
    NAME         CONFIG                                                 UPDATED   UPDATING   DEGRADED   MACHINECOUNT   READYMACHINECOUNT   UPDATEDMACHINECOUNT   DEGRADEDMACHINECOUNT   AGE
master       rendered-master-acd1358917e9f98cbdb599aea622d78b       True      False      False      3              3                   3                     0                      22h
worker-cnf   rendered-worker-cnf-1d871ac76e1951d32b2fe92369879826   False     True       False      2              1                   1                     0                      22h

  7. Create a performance profile:

    $ ./run-perf-profile-creator.sh -t /must-gather/must-gather.tar.gz -- --mcp-name=worker-cnf --reserved-cpu-count=2 --rt-kernel=true > my-performance-profile.yaml

    The Performance Profile Creator arguments are shown in the Performance Profile Creator arguments table. The following arguments are required:

    • reserved-cpu-count

    • mcp-name

    • rt-kernel

    The mcp-name argument in this example is set to worker-cnf based on the output of the command oc get mcp. For single-node OpenShift use --mcp-name=master.

  8. Review the created YAML file:

    $ cat my-performance-profile.yaml
    Example output
    apiVersion: performance.openshift.io/v2
kind: PerformanceProfile
metadata:
  name: performance
spec:
  cpu:
    isolated: 1-39,41-79
    reserved: 0,40
  nodeSelector:
    node-role.kubernetes.io/worker-cnf: ""
  numa:
    topologyPolicy: restricted
  realTimeKernel:
    enabled: false

  9. Apply the generated profile:

    Install the Node Tuning Operator before applying the profile.

    		 
    $ oc apply -f my-performance-profile.yaml

Performance Profile Creator arguments

Table 1. Performance Profile Creator arguments
Argument Description

disable-ht

Disable hyperthreading.

Possible values: true or false.

Default: false.

If this argument is set to true you should not disable hyperthreading in the BIOS. Disabling hyperthreading is accomplished with a kernel command line argument.

info

This captures cluster information and is used in discovery mode only. Discovery mode also requires the must-gather-dir-path argument. If any other arguments are set they are ignored.

Possible values:

  • log

  • JSON

    These options define the output format with the JSON format being reserved for debugging.

Default: log.

mcp-name

MCP name for example worker-cnf corresponding to the target machines. This parameter is required.

must-gather-dir-path

Must gather directory path. This parameter is required.

When the user runs the tool with the wrapper script must-gather is supplied by the script itself and the user must not specify it.

offlined-cpu-count

Number of offlined CPUs.

This must be a natural number greater than 0. If not enough logical processors are offlined then error messages are logged. The messages are:

Error: failed to compute the reserved and isolated CPUs: please ensure that reserved-cpu-count plus offlined-cpu-count should be in the range [0,1]
Error: failed to compute the reserved and isolated CPUs: please specify the offlined CPU count in the range [0,1]

power-consumption-mode

The power consumption mode.

Possible values:

  • default: CPU partitioning with enabled power management and basic low-latency.

  • low-latency: Enhanced measures to improve latency figures.

  • ultra-low-latency: Priority given to optimal latency, at the expense of power management.

Default: default.

per-pod-power-management

Enable per pod power management. You cannot use this argument if you configured ultra-low-latency as the power consumption mode.

Possible values: true or false.

Default: false.

profile-name

Name of the performance profile to create. Default: performance.

reserved-cpu-count

Number of reserved CPUs. This parameter is required.

This must be a natural number. A value of 0 is not allowed.

rt-kernel

Enable real-time kernel. This parameter is required.

Possible values: true or false.

split-reserved-cpus-across-numa

Split the reserved CPUs across NUMA nodes.

Possible values: true or false.

Default: false.

topology-manager-policy

Kubelet Topology Manager policy of the performance profile to be created.

Possible values:

  • single-numa-node

  • best-effort

  • restricted

Default: restricted.

user-level-networking

Run with user level networking (DPDK) enabled.

Possible values: true or false.

Default: false.

Reference performance profiles

A performance profile template for clusters that use OVS-DPDK on OpenStack

To maximize machine performance in a cluster that uses Open vSwitch with the Data Plane Development Kit (OVS-DPDK) on Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP), you can use a performance profile.

You can use the following performance profile template to create a profile for your deployment.

A performance profile template for clusters that use OVS-DPDK
apiVersion: performance.openshift.io/v2
kind: PerformanceProfile
metadata:
  name: cnf-performanceprofile
spec:
  additionalKernelArgs:
    - nmi_watchdog=0
    - audit=0
    - mce=off
    - processor.max_cstate=1
    - idle=poll
    - intel_idle.max_cstate=0
    - default_hugepagesz=1GB
    - hugepagesz=1G
    - intel_iommu=on
  cpu:
    isolated: <CPU_ISOLATED>
    reserved: <CPU_RESERVED>
  hugepages:
    defaultHugepagesSize: 1G
    pages:
      - count: <HUGEPAGES_COUNT>
        node: 0
        size: 1G
  nodeSelector:
    node-role.kubernetes.io/worker: ''
  realTimeKernel:
    enabled: false
    globallyDisableIrqLoadBalancing: true

Insert values that are appropriate for your configuration for the CPU_ISOLATED, CPU_RESERVED, and HUGEPAGES_COUNT keys.

To learn how to create and use performance profiles, see the "Creating a performance profile" page in the "Scalability and performance" section of the OpenShift Container Platform documentation.

Additional resources