Bug 1392267 - [Docs][SHE] local storage requirement for 4.0 upgrade are not clear
Summary: [Docs][SHE] local storage requirement for 4.0 upgrade are not clear
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager
Classification: Red Hat
Component: Documentation
Version: 4.0.3
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
high
medium
Target Milestone: ovirt-4.1.3
: ---
Assignee: Emma Heftman
QA Contact: Tahlia Richardson
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2016-11-07 04:03 UTC by Marina Kalinin
Modified: 2021-08-30 12:25 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-07-17 09:22:24 UTC
oVirt Team: Docs
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Bugzilla 1347340 0 high CLOSED [RFE] hosted engine should check the actual size of the qcow instead of relying on the OVA 2021-08-30 13:38:08 UTC
Red Hat Issue Tracker RHV-43210 0 None None None 2021-08-30 12:12:52 UTC
Red Hat Knowledge Base (Solution) 2991641 0 None None None 2017-04-04 19:24:02 UTC

Internal Links: 1347340

Description Marina Kalinin 2016-11-07 04:03:57 UTC
Today in the HE Upgrade Guide[1] we say:

"Before upgrading the Manager virtual machine, ensure the /var/tmp  directory contains enough free space to extract the appliance files. If  it does not, you can specify a different directory or mount alternate  storage that does have the required space. The VDSM user and KVM group  must have read, write, and execute permissions on the directory."

But how much is enough? Should provide a number or a link.

Reading next paragraph:
"The upgrade procedure creates a backup disk on the self-hosted engine  storage domain. You therefore need additional free space on the storage  domain for the new appliance being deployed (50 GB by default)."


Now looking into HE guide, deployment section[2], the space requirements are not clear either:

"You must have prepared storage for your self-hosted engine environment.  For more information on preparing storage for your deployment, see the Storage chapter of the Administration Guide."  

But this does not tell how much space is required.
And then we say:
"To use the RHV-M Virtual Appliance for the Manager installation, ensure one directory is at least 60 GB. The hosted-engine script first checks if /var/tmp  has enough space to extract the appliance files. If not, you can  specify a different directory or mount external storage. The VDSM user  and KVM group must have read, write, and execute permissions on the  directory."

Which contradicts with the 50G above.
Looking into this old bug from earlier releases, it says - 60G:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1317740#c19


If we reached to the consensus of 60G in the past, let's keep it 60 for all. 

[1] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en/red-hat-virtualization/4.0/single/self-hosted-engine-guide/#Upgrading_the_Self-Hosted_Engine
[2] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en/red-hat-virtualization/4.0/paged/self-hosted-engine-guide/chapter-2-deploying-self-hosted-engine

Comment 1 Yaniv Lavi 2016-11-08 12:45:37 UTC
Can you please provide a clear reply to this?

Comment 2 Simone Tiraboschi 2016-11-08 12:58:51 UTC
Marina,
the appliance disk image is now a qcow2 file so it's a sparse volume.

After fixing https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1347340 now we require on the local temp disk just the space to fit the qcow2 sparse image.
The space check is performed at runtime against the actual file size; we cannot warrant it in advance but something bettween 2 and 4 GB is a plausible requirement.

Comment 3 Marina Kalinin 2016-11-08 19:01:45 UTC
(In reply to Simone Tiraboschi from comment #2)
> Marina,
> the appliance disk image is now a qcow2 file so it's a sparse volume.
> 
> After fixing https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1347340 now we
> require on the local temp disk just the space to fit the qcow2 sparse image.
> The space check is performed at runtime against the actual file size; we
> cannot warrant it in advance but something bettween 2 and 4 GB is a
> plausible requirement.

Simone, thank you for your reply.

Looking into the docs, there have few locations where we need to recommend space to the user:
1. In the upgrade section, where to extract the appliance. 
This is the first paragraph I mentioned in the bug description.
What would you recommend to state there? 4G? 5G?

2. In the upgrade section, the space for the upgrade itself, when we copy the whole current, 3.6, HE VM disk to the same storage domain.
What would you recommend to state there? Currently we recommend 50G.

3. In the deployment section. Currently we recommend 60G free space for extracting the RPM. What should we recommend here.

4. I didn't see recommendations for HE Storage Domain in the deployment guide. It should be checked as well, but maybe as a separate bug. Especially if it is going to host the DWH database always. 50G may not be enough?

Comment 4 Simone Tiraboschi 2017-01-31 09:33:05 UTC
(In reply to Marina from comment #3)
> Looking into the docs, there have few locations where we need to recommend
> space to the user:
> 1. In the upgrade section, where to extract the appliance. 
> This is the first paragraph I mentioned in the bug description.
> What would you recommend to state there? 4G? 5G?

5G to avoid changing it in a near future.
 
> 2. In the upgrade section, the space for the upgrade itself, when we copy
> the whole current, 3.6, HE VM disk to the same storage domain.
> What would you recommend to state there? Currently we recommend 50G.

In 3.6 the appliance size was targeted to 50G so the backup will be 50G as well.

> 3. In the deployment section. Currently we recommend 60G free space for
> extracting the RPM. What should we recommend here.

5G

> 4. I didn't see recommendations for HE Storage Domain in the deployment
> guide. It should be checked as well, but maybe as a separate bug. Especially
> if it is going to host the DWH database always. 50G may not be enough?

Now the user can also specify a custom size for the engine VM disk and we grow the disk and the primary partition (with cloud-utils-growpart) at setup time till that size.

Comment 5 Ryan Barry 2017-04-04 18:24:38 UTC
Just to update -- yes, 5GB is totally safe. The current appliance "needs" about 3.2GB of space locally.

Comment 6 Facundo Jaspe 2017-04-04 18:40:52 UTC
Hi,

I can confirm the docs for 4.1 have been fixed:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_virtualization/4.1/html/self-hosted_engine_guide/chap-deploying_self-hosted_engine#Deploying_Self-Hosted_Engine_on_RHEL

"To use the RHV-M Virtual Appliance for the Manager installation, one directory must be at least 5 GB. The deployment process will check if /var/tmp has enough space to extract the appliance files. If not, you can specify a different directory or mount external storage. "

Facundo

Comment 7 Lucy Bopf 2017-06-20 05:19:14 UTC
Assigning to Emma for review.

Emma, we need to make the changes suggested in commment 4. (It looks like at least one part has already been covered in the 4.1 doc, perhaps as part of a different bug.)

Comment 8 Emma Heftman 2017-06-27 10:09:45 UTC
(In reply to Simone Tiraboschi from comment #4)
> (In reply to Marina from comment #3)
> > Looking into the docs, there have few locations where we need to recommend
> > space to the user:
> > 1. In the upgrade section, where to extract the appliance. 
> > This is the first paragraph I mentioned in the bug description.
> > What would you recommend to state there? 4G? 5G?
> 
> 5G to avoid changing it in a near future.
>  
> > 2. In the upgrade section, the space for the upgrade itself, when we copy
> > the whole current, 3.6, HE VM disk to the same storage domain.
> > What would you recommend to state there? Currently we recommend 50G.
> 
> In 3.6 the appliance size was targeted to 50G so the backup will be 50G as
> well.
> 
> > 3. In the deployment section. Currently we recommend 60G free space for
> > extracting the RPM. What should we recommend here.
> 
> 5G
> 
> > 4. I didn't see recommendations for HE Storage Domain in the deployment
> > guide. It should be checked as well, but maybe as a separate bug. Especially
> > if it is going to host the DWH database always. 50G may not be enough?
> 
> Now the user can also specify a custom size for the engine VM disk and we
> grow the disk and the primary partition (with cloud-utils-growpart) at setup
> time till that size.

Hi Sandro. Can you please confirm that what you're saying here is that there is nothing to document in terms of a minimum size?

Comment 9 Emma Heftman 2017-07-09 08:32:14 UTC
(In reply to Emma Heftman from comment #8)
> (In reply to Simone Tiraboschi from comment #4)
> > (In reply to Marina from comment #3)
> > > Looking into the docs, there have few locations where we need to recommend
> > > space to the user:
> > > 1. In the upgrade section, where to extract the appliance. 
> > > This is the first paragraph I mentioned in the bug description.
> > > What would you recommend to state there? 4G? 5G?
> > 
> > 5G to avoid changing it in a near future.
> >  
> > > 2. In the upgrade section, the space for the upgrade itself, when we copy
> > > the whole current, 3.6, HE VM disk to the same storage domain.
> > > What would you recommend to state there? Currently we recommend 50G.
> > 
> > In 3.6 the appliance size was targeted to 50G so the backup will be 50G as
> > well.
> > 
> > > 3. In the deployment section. Currently we recommend 60G free space for
> > > extracting the RPM. What should we recommend here.
> > 
> > 5G
> > 
> > > 4. I didn't see recommendations for HE Storage Domain in the deployment
> > > guide. It should be checked as well, but maybe as a separate bug. Especially
> > > if it is going to host the DWH database always. 50G may not be enough?
> > 
> > Now the user can also specify a custom size for the engine VM disk and we
> > grow the disk and the primary partition (with cloud-utils-growpart) at setup
> > time till that size.
> 
> Hi Sandro. Can you please confirm that what you're saying here is that there
> is nothing to document in terms of a minimum size?
Hi Simone, can you please let me know whether what you're saying in step 4 is that there is nothing to document in terms of minimum size.

Comment 10 Emma Heftman 2017-07-09 09:01:42 UTC
Hi Simone, 
With regards to the recommended storage domain.

In the 4.0 and 4.1 SHE Guide it says:

You must have prepared storage for your self-hosted engine environment. At least two storage domains are required:

-A shared storage domain dedicated to the Manager virtual machine. This domain is created during the self-hosted engine deployment, and must be at least 60 GB. 

-A data storage domain for regular virtual machine data. This domain must be added to the self-hosted engine environment after the deployment is complete. 


https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_virtualization/4.0/html/self-hosted_engine_guide/chap-deploying_self-hosted_engine#Deploying_Self-Hosted_Engine_on_RHEL


Please confirm whether this is correct for 4.0 and for 4.1

Thanks!

Comment 11 Emma Heftman 2017-07-09 09:20:59 UTC
Hi Simone

I also noticed that in step 5 of the Deploying Self-Hosted Engine on Red Hat Virtualization Host section, where the appliance tool itself is document, it shows the appliance asking 

"Please specify path to a temporary directory with at least 50 GB [/var/tmp]:"


Just wanted to confirm that the appliance itself now says 5 GB instead of 50 GB in both 4.0 and 4.1.

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_virtualization/4.0/html-single/self-hosted_engine_guide/#Deploying_Self-Hosted_Engine_on_RHVH

Comment 12 Emma Heftman 2017-07-09 10:13:08 UTC
Hi Simone
Please review the following changes:
4.0:

2.1.2. Configuring a RHEL-Based Self-Hosted Engine
Says that one directory should be 5 GB.

http://file.tlv.redhat.com/~eheftman/bz1392267/html-single/#Configuring_the_Self-Hosted_Engine

2.2 Deploying Self-Hosted Engine on Red Hat Virtualization Host
Updated all cases where var/tmp required 50/60 GB

http://file.tlv.redhat.com/~eheftman/bz1392267/html-single/#Deploying_Self-Hosted_Engine_on_RHVH

5.3 Upgrading a RHEL-Based Self-Hosted Engine Environment
Updated to say that /var/tmp directory should contain 5 GB

http://file.tlv.redhat.com/~eheftman/bz1392267/html-single/#Upgrading_the_Self-Hosted_Engine

4.1:

Same change to 5.3 as mentioned above. Other changes were not requireed.

Comment 13 Simone Tiraboschi 2017-07-09 21:54:29 UTC
(In reply to Emma Heftman from comment #10)
> Hi Simone, 
> With regards to the recommended storage domain.
> 
> In the 4.0 and 4.1 SHE Guide it says:
> 
> You must have prepared storage for your self-hosted engine environment. At
> least two storage domains are required:
> 
> -A shared storage domain dedicated to the Manager virtual machine. This
> domain is created during the self-hosted engine deployment, and must be at
> least 60 GB. 
> 
> -A data storage domain for regular virtual machine data. This domain must be
> added to the self-hosted engine environment after the deployment is
> complete. 
> 
> 
> https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_virtualization/4.0/
> html/self-hosted_engine_guide/chap-deploying_self-
> hosted_engine#Deploying_Self-Hosted_Engine_on_RHEL
> 
> 
> Please confirm whether this is correct for 4.0 and for 4.1

Yes, it is.

> Thanks!

Comment 14 Simone Tiraboschi 2017-07-09 21:59:18 UTC
(In reply to Emma Heftman from comment #11)
> Hi Simone
> 
> I also noticed that in step 5 of the Deploying Self-Hosted Engine on Red Hat
> Virtualization Host section, where the appliance tool itself is document, it
> shows the appliance asking 
> 
> "Please specify path to a temporary directory with at least 50 GB
> [/var/tmp]:"
> 
> 
> Just wanted to confirm that the appliance itself now says 5 GB instead of 50
> GB in both 4.0 and 4.1.
> 
> https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_virtualization/4.0/
> html-single/self-hosted_engine_guide/#Deploying_Self-Hosted_Engine_on_RHVH

The code checks against the actual size of the QCOw2 size, the threshold is not hard-coded but it's just the real size of the file that now is about 3.5 GB.
5 GB is a conservative estimate.  

If there is enough space in the default temp dir the code simply use that without asking at all.

Comment 15 Emma Heftman 2017-07-10 07:35:11 UTC
(In reply to Simone Tiraboschi from comment #14)
> (In reply to Emma Heftman from comment #11)
> > Hi Simone
> > 
> > I also noticed that in step 5 of the Deploying Self-Hosted Engine on Red Hat
> > Virtualization Host section, where the appliance tool itself is document, it
> > shows the appliance asking 
> > 
> > "Please specify path to a temporary directory with at least 50 GB
> > [/var/tmp]:"
> > 
> > 
> > Just wanted to confirm that the appliance itself now says 5 GB instead of 50
> > GB in both 4.0 and 4.1.
> > 
> > https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_virtualization/4.0/
> > html-single/self-hosted_engine_guide/#Deploying_Self-Hosted_Engine_on_RHVH
> 
> The code checks against the actual size of the QCOw2 size, the threshold is
> not hard-coded but it's just the real size of the file that now is about 3.5
> GB.
> 5 GB is a conservative estimate.  
> 
> If there is enough space in the default temp dir the code simply use that
> without asking at all.

Thanks Simone. So you're saying we need to remove this step from the installation altogether?

Comment 16 Simone Tiraboschi 2017-07-13 07:49:28 UTC
(In reply to Emma Heftman from comment #15)
> > If there is enough space in the default temp dir the code simply use that
> > without asking at all.
> 
> Thanks Simone. So you're saying we need to remove this step from the
> installation altogether?

No, the actual text is good. We just need to modify the threshold in the doc.

I'd just say from:
"To use the RHV-M Virtual Appliance for the Manager installation, ensure one directory is at least 60 GB. The hosted-engine script first checks if /var/tmp has enough space to extract the appliance files. If not, you can specify a different directory or mount external storage. The VDSM user and KVM group must have read, write, and execute permissions on the directory."

To:
"To use the RHV-M Virtual Appliance for the Manager installation, ensure one directory is at least 5 GB. The hosted-engine script first checks if /var/tmp has enough space to extract the appliance files. If not, you can specify a different directory or mount external storage. The VDSM user and KVM group must have read, write, and execute permissions on the directory."

I'll instead remove this paragraph
"Please specify path to a temporary directory with at least 50 GB [/var/tmp]:"
from the examples in section 5, since the question is going to be asked only if /var/tmp is not suitable.

Comment 18 Emma Heftman 2017-07-13 09:37:12 UTC
(In reply to Simone Tiraboschi from comment #16)
> (In reply to Emma Heftman from comment #15)
> > > If there is enough space in the default temp dir the code simply use that
> > > without asking at all.
> > 
> > Thanks Simone. So you're saying we need to remove this step from the
> > installation altogether?
> 
> No, the actual text is good. We just need to modify the threshold in the doc.
> 
> I'd just say from:
> "To use the RHV-M Virtual Appliance for the Manager installation, ensure one
> directory is at least 60 GB. The hosted-engine script first checks if
> /var/tmp has enough space to extract the appliance files. If not, you can
> specify a different directory or mount external storage. The VDSM user and
> KVM group must have read, write, and execute permissions on the directory."
> 
> To:
> "To use the RHV-M Virtual Appliance for the Manager installation, ensure one
> directory is at least 5 GB. The hosted-engine script first checks if
> /var/tmp has enough space to extract the appliance files. If not, you can
> specify a different directory or mount external storage. The VDSM user and
> KVM group must have read, write, and execute permissions on the directory."
> 
> I'll instead remove this paragraph
> "Please specify path to a temporary directory with at least 50 GB
> [/var/tmp]:"
> from the examples in section 5, since the question is going to be asked only
> if /var/tmp is not suitable.

Thanks Simone. The last section that you told me to remove is actually what I was referring to :)

Comment 19 Emma Heftman 2017-07-13 09:51:08 UTC
Simone, I noticed that the Migration procedure also mentioned the 60 GB requirement for the appliance, so I updated that too for 4.0 and 4.1.


Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.