Testing Ceph BlueStore with the Kraken release

Ceph version Kraken (11.2.0) has been released and the Release Notes tell us that the new BlueStore backend for the OSDs is now available.

BlueStore

The current backend for the OSDs is the FileStore which mainly uses the XFS filesystem to store it’s data. To overcome several limitations of XFS and POSIX in general the BlueStore backend was developed.

It will provide more performance (mainly writes), data safety due to checksumming and compression.

Users are encouraged to test BlueStore starting with the Kraken release for non-production and non-critical data sets and report back to the community.

Deploying with BlueStore

To deploy OSDs with BlueStore you can use the ceph-deploy by using the –bluestore flag.

I created a simple test cluster with three machines: alpha, bravo and charlie.

Each machine will be running a ceph-mon and ceph-osd proces.

This is the sequence of ceph-deploy commands I used to deploy the cluster

ceph-deploy new alpha bravo charlie
ceph-deploy mon create alpha bravo charlie

Now, edit the ceph.conf file in the current directory and add:

[osd]
enable_experimental_unrecoverable_data_corrupting_features = bluestore

With this setting we allow the use of BlueStore and we can now deploy our OSDs:

ceph-deploy --overwrite-conf osd create --bluestore alpha:sdb bravo:sdb charlie:sdb

Running BlueStore

This tiny cluster how runs three OSDs with BlueStore:

root@alpha:~# ceph -s
    cluster c824e460-2f09-4994-8b2f-108aedc52d19
     health HEALTH_OK
     monmap e2: 3 mons at {alpha=[2001:db8::100]:6789/0,bravo=[2001:db8::101]:6789/0,charlie=[2001:db8::102]:6789/0}
            election epoch 14, quorum 0,1,2 alpha,bravo,charlie
        mgr active: charlie standbys: alpha, bravo
     osdmap e14: 3 osds: 3 up, 3 in
            flags sortbitwise,require_jewel_osds,require_kraken_osds
      pgmap v24: 64 pgs, 1 pools, 0 bytes data, 0 objects
            43356 kB used, 30374 MB / 30416 MB avail
                  64 active+clean
root@alpha:~#
root@alpha:~# ceph osd tree
ID WEIGHT  TYPE NAME        UP/DOWN REWEIGHT PRIMARY-AFFINITY 
-1 0.02907 root default                                       
-2 0.00969     host alpha                                     
 0 0.00969         osd.0         up  1.00000          1.00000 
-3 0.00969     host bravo                                     
 1 0.00969         osd.1         up  1.00000          1.00000 
-4 0.00969     host charlie                                   
 2 0.00969         osd.2         up  1.00000          1.00000 
root@alpha:~#

On alpha I see that osd.0 only has a small partition for a bit of configuration and the rest is used by BlueStore.

root@alpha:~# df -h /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-0
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1        97M  5.4M   92M   6% /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-0
root@alpha:~# lsblk 
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0    8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0  7.5G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0    1K  0 part 
└─sda5   8:5    0  510M  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   0   10G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   0  100M  0 part /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-0
└─sdb2   8:18   0  9.9G  0 part 
sdc      8:32   0   10G  0 disk 
root@alpha:~# cat /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-0/type
bluestore
root@alpha:~#

The OSDs should work just like OSDs running FileStore, but they should perform better.

Running headless VirtualBox inside Nested KVM

For the Ceph training at 42on I use VirtualBox to build Virtual Machines. This is because they work under MacOS, Windows and Linux.

For the internal Git at 42on we use Gitlab and I wanted to use Gitlab’s CI to build my Virtual Machines automatically.

As we don’t have any physical hardware at 42on (everything runs in the cloud) I wanted to see if I could run VirtualBox Headless inside a VM with Nested KVM enabled.

Nested KVM

The first thing I checked was if my KVM Virtual Machine actually supported Nested KVM. This can be verified with the kvm-ok command under Ubuntu:

root@glrun01:~# kvm-ok 
INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used
root@glrun01:~#

Now that’s verified I tried to install VirtualBox.

VirtualBox

Installing VirtualBox is straight forward. Just add the repository and install the packages. Don’t forget to reboot afterwards to make sure all kernel modules are loaded and properly installed.

apt-get install virtualbox

VirtualBox Extension Pack

The trick to get everything working properly is to install Oracle’s VirtualBox Extension Pack. It took me a while to figure out that I need to install it manually. It wasn’t done by default after install.

You need to download the pack and install it using the VBoxManage command.

wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.0.24/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.0.24.vbox-extpack
vboxmanage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.0.24.vbox-extpack
vboxmanage list extpacks
vboxmanage setproperty vrdeextpack "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack"

With that installed and configured I rebooted the machine again just to be sure.

It works!

With that it actually worked. The VirtualBox VMs can now be built inside a Nested KVM machine controlled by Gitlab’s CI 🙂

3 years of Model S ownership

September 26th 2013

On 26-09-2013 the day had finally arrived: Delivery of my Tesla Model S!

In the morning my Delivery Specialist send me this picture asking me if I was ready (with a smiley behind it 😉 ).

Tesla Model S 2013

It was 3 years since I ordered my Model S, so I couldn’t wait to pick it up! (In the back you see the Blue Model S of my colleague)

Specifications

These are the options I chose for my Model S:

  • 85kWh non-performance (RWD)
  • Pearl White
  • All Glass Panoramic Roof
  • Base 19″ wheels
  • Black Nappa Leather Interior
  • Piano Black Décor
  • Tech Package
  • Sound Studio Package
  • Active Air Suspension
  • Lighting Package
  • Parking Sensors
  • Twin Chargers (22kW)

Price: EUR 97.890,00 (Including all taxes)

Afterwards I swapped the 19″ base wheels for the 19″ Cyclone Grey. These wheels are no longer available.

SuperCharger Germany

September 2016

Fast forward 3 years and 141.466km: I’m still super happy with my Model S. Best car ever, hands down.

The 100.000km mark was hit at November 14th 2015 as I was almost home. Literally, I was just 200m away from my house. So I could stop I take a good picture.

100.000km on Model S

Now, 3 years later it is well over 141.000km and will probably hit 150.000km somewhere in October.

Tesla Model S 141k km

Tesla Model S driveway

The roadtrips I did in these 3 years were all over Europe:

  • 3x: Octoberfest in München (DE): 2.000km
  • 3x: To Prague (CZ): 2.2000km
  • 3x: To Berlin (DE): 2.000km
  • 2x: Northern Norway above the Arctic circle: 6.000km
  • 2x: Summer roadtrip to Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland: 3.500km
  • 1x: To Swansea in Wales (UK): 1.500km

Each of these trips were with either friends or my girlfriend. Awesome trips, each of them. All powered by the ever expanding SuperCharger network.

Over the Air software updates

Due to the over the Air software updates the car only got better and better in these 3 years. A few things (but not all of them) which were added:

  • Trip Planner using SuperChargers
  • Spotify integration (awesome!)
  • New UI
  • Calender sync
  • Slightly improved efficieny

All for free and while my car was parked at home. My other cars never got better over time, they always got worse.

Problems

In three years I’ve driven my car to a lot of places in Europe (see below). From the cold in Norway to the heat of Italy.

Did I have some issues? Yes, but to be clear: I was never stranded! It did not malfunction in such a way that it was disabled.

So what did I experience?

  • Humming drivetrain. It was replaced 3 times under warranty
  • Main contactor failure in battery. Reboot of car worked and contactor was replaced.
  • Fogging rear lights
  • Slave charger failure. Causing reduced charging speed with AC charging
  • Window washer pump failure.

Again, none of these issues left me stranded along the road. They were also all fixed under warranty except for the window washer pump. That was EUR 100 in total.

Maintenance

In total my S went for service 3 times. I figured once every year would be enough. I paid two invoices of EUR 700,00 each. The other ones were discounted from the referral credit I have at Tesla.

Including the washer fluid pump my total expenses on service and maintenance were EUR 800,00. Not bad I would say!

Energy Consumption

About 70% of my charging is done at home, the rest at SuperChargers and other (public) chargers.

There is a kWh meter in front of my charging station at home and I’ve used about 20.000kWh. Judging from my 70% ‘charge at home’ assumption my total energy usage in 3 years was roughly 28.000kWh.

28.000kWh / 141.000km = 198Wh/km, which is about what I see in my general consumption in the car.

Roadtrips

As I wrote above I undertook multiple Roadtrips in the three years, but the best trips I did were the trips to Wales, Norway and to Slovenia. I wrote blogs about two of them:

I didn’t write a blogpost about my roadtrip through Europe in June 2015, but you can see the route below (Prague, Austria, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Netherlands).

I tried to draw the routes I’ve driven on a Google Maps overview.

Routes Tesla Model S

Highlights

In the threee years I still think my trips to the Arctic are the highlights for me. However, there were more highlights, so I gathered a bunch of pictures I took and added them below in a random order.

Route 74 between Norway and Sweden:

Route 74 in Norway

Stuck on the arctic circle in Norway:

Model S stuck Arctic Circle

On the Lofoten Islands in Norway:

Car under snow from back

Model S next to house Lofoten

Octoberfest in München: (I’m the green blouse)

Octoberfest in München.

Charging at Fastned using 50kW CHAdeMO.

Charging at Fastned

In the Belgian Ardennes:

In the Belgian Ardennes

On a train in Austria going towards Bad Gastein:

On train in Austria

At the Slovenian <> Italian border:

Slovenian Border

Conclusion

After owning a Audi A3 2.0TDI (2007), Toyota Auris Hybrid (2011) and BMW M5 E39 (1999) I can saw that Model S is the best car I’ve ever owned. I love driving it and still enjoy every KM. (Except when stuck in traffic….). Even without Autopilot it is still an amazing car!

People still come up to me to ask things about the car and are really interested.

As I said. Best car ever. Period. I will never by a car which burns fossil fuel again.

My deposit for Model 3 was made at the day they opened. Waiting!