Upgraded DPDK support in oVirt

DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit) is a set of open-source high-performance packet processing libraries and user space drivers.

oVirt support for DPDK was introduced in 2017, and is now enhanced in terms of deployment via Ansible and usage via Open Virtual Network.

While still experimental, OVN-DPDK in oVirt is now available in version 4.2.

What's new?

Ansible DPDK host setup

Host configuration for DPDK usage is now automated using Ansible. This primarly includes:

  • Hugepages configuration – hugepage size and quantity in the kernel.
  • CPU partitioning.
  • Binding NICs to userspace drivers.
  • OVS-DPDK related configuration (initialization, socket memory, pmd thread core binding, etc).

The role is installed via Ansible galaxy:

# ansible-galaxy install oVirt.dpdk-setup

An example playbook:

- hosts: dpdk_host_0
  vars:
    pci_drivers:
      "0000:02:00.1": "vfio-pci"
      "0000:02:00.2": "igb"
      "0000:02:00.3": ""
    configure_kernel: true
    bind_drivers: true
    set_ovs_dpdk: false
  roles:
    - ovirt-ansible-dpdk-setup

The role is controlled by 3 boolean variables (all set to true by default) and a dictionary of devices and their drivers:

  • configure_kernel – determines whether the kernel should be configured for DPDK usage (hugepages, CPU partitioning). WARNING: When set to true it is very likely to trigger a reboot of the host, unless all required configuration is already Continue reading

Linux Must for Network Engineers !!!!

Linux once used to be strict NO for Network engineer, we as network engineer always preferred to be comfortable with windows. But time has changed now ,Linux is everywhere starting from mobile device ,computers, servers, Hypervisor, network switches . Most of the network devices operating system is based on Linux.

Few important reason for network engineers to Learns Linux :-

  • Mostly open source projects (open stack, Docker etc. )tools are based on Linux which we as network engineers have to use.
  • Network devices are now having Linux as underlying shell.
  • Most of the software which are directly or indirectly related to networks are using development environment as Linux.

So lets start with basics of Linux which can help us in our day to day task:-

 

Sudo 

  • “Super user do” command is used to gain root privilege.Dollar sign($) signifies user does not have root privilege.Hash sign(#) signifies user have root privilege.

Pwd

  • Print working directory.

ls

  • List content of directory.

Man  <Command>

  • List manual pages of command

Cd..

  • Change current directory to parent directory

cd

  • Back to home directory

Cd ../..

  • Back two directory

Cd..

  • Moves back to previous working directory

Mkdir

  • makes new director

Mkdir -p

Intel Makes Money Hand Over Fist In The Datacenter

Despite the increasing competitive pressures that Intel is feeling in the datacenter and very serious issues that the company is having ramping up its 10 nanometer manufacturing processes, the datacenter business at Intel were booming in the second quarter, helping to drive a record second quarter and what is looking like will be a record full year for the chip maker. …

Intel Makes Money Hand Over Fist In The Datacenter was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

Announcing 2019 Bootcamp Locations!

East Coast, West Coast or International, we have a Bootcamp in a city near you! Check out our 2019 Bootcamp locations below, including a brand-new location; Salt Lake City, Utah.

Don’t see a city that works for you? We now offer online-live Bootcamp options as well. Check out our Bootcamps Site or contact a training advisor for more information.


Contact Us:

[email protected], +1 877-224-8987, +1 775-826-4344 (international Customers)

Some changes in how libpcap works you should know

I thought I'd document the solution to this problem I had.

The API libpcap is the standard cross-platform way of sniffing packets off the network. It works on Windows (winpcap), macOS, and all the Unixes. It's better than simply opening a "raw socket" on Unix platforms because it takes advantage of higher performance capabilities of the system, including specialized sniffing hardware.


Traditionally, you'd open an adapter with pcap_open(), whose function parameters set options like snap length, promiscuous mode, and timeouts.

However, in newer versions of the API, what you should do instead is call pcap_create(), then set the options individually with calls to functions like pcap_set_timeout(), then once you are ready to start capturing, call pcap_activate().

I mention this in relation to "TPACKET" and pcap_set_immediate_mode().

Over the years, Linux has been adding a "ring buffer" mode to packet capture. This is a trick where a packet buffer is memory mapped between user-space and kernel-space. It allows a packet-sniffer to pull packets out of the driver without the overhead of extra copies or system calls that cause a user-kernel space transition. This has gone through several generations.

One of the latest generations causes the pcap_next() function Continue reading

It’s About Time and Project Management

I stumbled across a Reddit thread today from /u/Magician_Hiker that posed a question I’ve always found fascinating. When we work on projects, it always seems like there is a disconnect between the project management team and the engineering team doing the work. The statement posted at the top of this thread is as follows:

Project Managers only plan for when things go right.

Engineers always plan for when things go wrong.

How did we get here? And can anything be done about it?

Projecting Management

I’ve had a turn or two at project management. I got my Project+ many years back, and even more years before that I had to learn all about project management in college. The science behind project management is storied and deep. The idea of having someone assigned to keep things running on task and making sure all the little details get taken care of is a huge boon as the size of projects grow.

As an engineer, can you imagine trying to juggle three different installations across 5 different sites that all need to be coordinated together? Can you think about the effort needed to make sure that everything works together and is done on Continue reading

Weekend Reads 072718

Google has not had any of its 85,000+ employees successfully phished on their work-related accounts since early 2017, when it began requiring all employees to use physical Security Keys in place of passwords and one-time codes, the company told KrebsOnSecurity. @Krebs on Security

Open-plan offices have taken off because of a desire to increase interaction and collaboration among workers. But an innovative new study has found that employees in open-plan offices spend 73% less time in face-to-face interactions. Email and messaging use shot up by over 67%. —Libby Sander @Intellectual Takeout

There’s a misconception that everything will benefit from running in the cloud. All workloads are not equal, and not all workloads will see a measurable effect on the bottom line from moving to the cloud. —Jason Baker @Opensource.com

One way or another we’ve been working on various aspects of securing the Internet’s inter-domain routing system for many years. I recall presentations dating back to the late ’90’s that point vaguely to using some form of digital signature on BGP updates that would allow a BGP speaker to assure themselves as to the veracity of a route advertisement. The concept is by no means a new one, and even Continue reading

The End Of Xeon Phi – It’s Xeon And Maybe GPUs From Here

To a certain extent, the “Knights” family of parallel processors, sold under the brand name Xeon Phi, by Intel were exactly what they were supposed to be: A non-mainstream product that tried out a different architecture than its mainstream Xeon family of server processors and that was aimed at the high performance computing jet set that is, by definition, supposed to take risks on new architectures. …

The End Of Xeon Phi – It’s Xeon And Maybe GPUs From Here was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

Creating a Multi-Tier Kubernetes App in GCP and AWS

This post details my experience with creating a simple multi-tier Kubernetes app using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS) by taking advantage of the free tier accounts for each service. The app comprises a Redis master for storage, multiple Redis read replicas (a.k.a Slaves), and load-balanced web frontends. Kubernetes acts as a Frontend … Continue reading Creating a Multi-Tier Kubernetes App in GCP and AWS →

How to Reform Basic Education for a Digital Future: Views from a Multistakeholder Group

In June 2018, in the city of Panamá, a parallel session was organized by the Internet Society during the international meeting of ICANN 62. This session had the aim of promoting a key discussion underlining our digital future: the impacts of technology and the Internet on future jobs.

This article is an outcome of the discussion carried out by a particularly diverse table of young people* from different stakeholder groups that choose the subject of “the future of education” as its central debate point.

The question that drove the debate was: what should basic education look like in the future? This inquiry originates from the fact that the mainstream method presently deployed across the world assumes memorization of information as the most substantial part of the learning experience.

Even schools that attempt diverging methodologies still need to invest in that route to some degree, as the selection processes of most universities and many job opportunities rely on some form of standardized testing.

A glaring problem with this approach, though, is that memorization is something that most machines are incredible at, while most humans can only hold on to a certain amount of information in a reliable manner.

So, why are we Continue reading

REVIEW: Best VPN routers for small business

When selecting VPN routers, small businesses want ones that support the VPN protocols they desire as well as ones that fit their budgets, are easy to use and have good documentation.We looked at five different models from five different vendors: Cisco, D-Link, and DrayTek, Mikrotik and ZyXEL. Our evaluation called for setting up each unit and weighing the relative merits of their price, features and user-friendliness.[ Learn who's developing quantum computers.] Below is a quick summary of the results:To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

REVIEW: Best VPN routers for small business

When selecting VPN routers, small businesses want ones that support the VPN protocols they desire as well as ones that fit their budgets, are easy to use and have good documentation.We looked at five different models from five different vendors: Cisco, D-Link, and DrayTek, Mikrotik and ZyXEL. Our evaluation called for setting up each unit and weighing the relative merits of their price, features and user-friendliness.[ Learn who's developing quantum computers.] Below is a quick summary of the results:To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

1 … 1,547 1,548 1,549 1,550 1,551 … 3,870