BlueStore Config Reference¶

Devices¶

BlueStore manages either one, two, or (in certain cases) three storage devices.

In the simplest case, BlueStore consumes a single (primary) storage device. The storage device is normally used as a whole, occupying the full device that is managed directly by BlueStore. This primary device is normally identified by a block symlink in the data directory.

The data directory is a tmpfs mount which gets populated (at boot time, or when ceph-volume activates it) with all the common OSD files that hold information about the OSD, like: its identifier, which cluster it belongs to, and its private keyring.

It is also possible to deploy BlueStore across one or two additional devices:

A write-ahead log (WAL) device (identified as block.wal in the data directory) can be used for BlueStore’s internal journal or write-ahead log. It is only useful to use a WAL device if the device is faster than the primary device (e.g., when it is on an SSD and the primary device is an HDD).
A DB device (identified as block.db in the data directory) can be used for storing BlueStore’s internal metadata. BlueStore (or rather, the embedded RocksDB) will put as much metadata as it can on the DB device to improve performance. If the DB device fills up, metadata will spill back onto the primary device (where it would have been otherwise). Again, it is only helpful to provision a DB device if it is faster than the primary device.

If there is only a small amount of fast storage available (e.g., less than a gigabyte), we recommend using it as a WAL device. If there is more, provisioning a DB device makes more sense. The BlueStore journal will always be placed on the fastest device available, so using a DB device will provide the same benefit that the WAL device would while also allowing additional metadata to be stored there (if it will fit). This means that if a DB device is specified but an explicit WAL device is not, the WAL will be implicitly colocated with the DB on the faster device.

A single-device (colocated) BlueStore OSD can be provisioned with:

ceph-volume lvm prepare --bluestore --data <device>

To specify a WAL device and/or DB device,

ceph-volume lvm prepare --bluestore --data <device> --block.wal <wal-device> --block.db <db-device>

Note

--data can be a Logical Volume using vg/lv notation. Other devices can be existing logical volumes or GPT partitions.

Provisioning strategies¶

Although there are multiple ways to deploy a BlueStore OSD (unlike Filestore which had just one), there are two common arrangements that should help clarify the deployment strategy:

block (data) only¶

If all devices are the same type, for example all rotational drives, and there are no fast devices to use for metadata, it makes sense to specifiy the block device only and to not separate block.db or block.wal. The lvm command for a single /dev/sda device looks like:

ceph-volume lvm create --bluestore --data /dev/sda

If logical volumes have already been created for each device, (a single LV using 100% of the device), then the lvm call for an LV named ceph-vg/block-lv would look like:

ceph-volume lvm create --bluestore --data ceph-vg/block-lv

block and block.db¶

If you have a mix of fast and slow devices (SSD / NVMe and rotational), it is recommended to place block.db on the faster device while block (data) lives on the slower (spinning drive).

You must create these volume groups and logical volumes manually as the ceph-volume tool is currently not able to do so automatically.

For the below example, let us assume four rotational (sda, sdb, sdc, and sdd) and one (fast) solid state drive (sdx). First create the volume groups:

$ vgcreate ceph-block-0 /dev/sda
$ vgcreate ceph-block-1 /dev/sdb
$ vgcreate ceph-block-2 /dev/sdc
$ vgcreate ceph-block-3 /dev/sdd

Now create the logical volumes for block:

$ lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n block-0 ceph-block-0
$ lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n block-1 ceph-block-1
$ lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n block-2 ceph-block-2
$ lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n block-3 ceph-block-3

We are creating 4 OSDs for the four slow spinning devices, so assuming a 200GB SSD in /dev/sdx we will create 4 logical volumes, each of 50GB:

$ vgcreate ceph-db-0 /dev/sdx
$ lvcreate -L 50GB -n db-0 ceph-db-0
$ lvcreate -L 50GB -n db-1 ceph-db-0
$ lvcreate -L 50GB -n db-2 ceph-db-0
$ lvcreate -L 50GB -n db-3 ceph-db-0

Finally, create the 4 OSDs with ceph-volume:

$ ceph-volume lvm create --bluestore --data ceph-block-0/block-0 --block.db ceph-db-0/db-0
$ ceph-volume lvm create --bluestore --data ceph-block-1/block-1 --block.db ceph-db-0/db-1
$ ceph-volume lvm create --bluestore --data ceph-block-2/block-2 --block.db ceph-db-0/db-2
$ ceph-volume lvm create --bluestore --data ceph-block-3/block-3 --block.db ceph-db-0/db-3

These operations should end up creating four OSDs, with block on the slower rotational drives with a 50 GB logical volume (DB) for each on the solid state drive.

Sizing¶

When using a mixed spinning and solid drive setup it is important to make a large enough block.db logical volume for BlueStore. Generally, block.db should have as large as possible logical volumes.

The general recommendation is to have block.db size in between 1% to 4% of block size. For RGW workloads, it is recommended that the block.db size isn’t smaller than 4% of block, because RGW heavily uses it to store metadata (omap keys). For example, if the block size is 1TB, then block.db shouldn’t be less than 40GB. For RBD workloads, 1% to 2% of block size is usually enough.

In older releases, internal level sizes mean that the DB can fully utilize only specific partition / LV sizes that correspond to sums of L0, L0+L1, L1+L2, etc. sizes, which with default settings means roughly 3 GB, 30 GB, 300 GB, and so forth. Most deployments will not substantially benefit from sizing to accomodate L3 and higher, though DB compaction can be facilitated by doubling these figures to 6GB, 60GB, and 600GB.

Improvements in releases beginning with Nautilus 14.2.12 and Octopus 15.2.6 enable better utilization of arbitrary DB device sizes, and the Pacific release brings experimental dynamic level support. Users of older releases may thus wish to plan ahead by provisioning larger DB devices today so that their benefits may be realized with future upgrades.

When not using a mix of fast and slow devices, it isn’t required to create separate logical volumes for block.db (or block.wal). BlueStore will automatically colocate these within the space of block.

Automatic Cache Sizing¶

BlueStore can be configured to automatically resize its caches when TCMalloc is configured as the memory allocator and the bluestore_cache_autotune setting is enabled. This option is currently enabled by default. BlueStore will attempt to keep OSD heap memory usage under a designated target size via the osd_memory_target configuration option. This is a best effort algorithm and caches will not shrink smaller than the amount specified by osd_memory_cache_min. Cache ratios will be chosen based on a hierarchy of priorities. If priority information is not available, the bluestore_cache_meta_ratio and bluestore_cache_kv_ratio options are used as fallbacks.

bluestore_cache_autotune

Description: Automatically tune the space ratios assigned to various BlueStore caches while respecting minimum values.
Type: Boolean
Required: Yes
Default: True

osd_memory_target

Description: When TCMalloc is available and cache autotuning is enabled, try to keep this many bytes mapped in memory. Note: This may not exactly match the RSS memory usage of the process. While the total amount of heap memory mapped by the process should usually be close to this target, there is no guarantee that the kernel will actually reclaim memory that has been unmapped. During initial development, it was found that some kernels result in the OSD’s RSS memory exceeding the mapped memory by up to 20%. It is hypothesised however, that the kernel generally may be more aggressive about reclaiming unmapped memory when there is a high amount of memory pressure. Your mileage may vary.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: Yes
Default: 4294967296

bluestore_cache_autotune_chunk_size

Description: The chunk size in bytes to allocate to caches when cache autotune is enabled. When the autotuner assigns memory to various caches, it will allocate memory in chunks. This is done to avoid evictions when there are minor fluctuations in the heap size or autotuned cache ratios.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 33554432

bluestore_cache_autotune_interval

Description: The number of seconds to wait between rebalances when cache autotune is enabled. This setting changes how quickly the allocation ratios of various caches are recomputed. Note: Setting this interval too small can result in high CPU usage and lower performance.
Type: Float
Required: No
Default: 5

osd_memory_base

Description: When TCMalloc and cache autotuning are enabled, estimate the minimum amount of memory in bytes the OSD will need. This is used to help the autotuner estimate the expected aggregate memory consumption of the caches.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 805306368

osd_memory_expected_fragmentation

Description: When TCMalloc and cache autotuning is enabled, estimate the percentage of memory fragmentation. This is used to help the autotuner estimate the expected aggregate memory consumption of the caches.
Type: Float
Required: No
Default: 0.15

osd_memory_cache_min

Description: When TCMalloc and cache autotuning are enabled, set the minimum amount of memory used for caches. Note: Setting this value too low can result in significant cache thrashing.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 134217728

osd_memory_cache_resize_interval

Description: When TCMalloc and cache autotuning are enabled, wait this many seconds between resizing caches. This setting changes the total amount of memory available for BlueStore to use for caching. Note that setting this interval too small can result in memory allocator thrashing and lower performance.
Type: Float
Required: No
Default: 1

Manual Cache Sizing¶

The amount of memory consumed by each OSD for BlueStore caches is determined by the bluestore_cache_size configuration option. If that config option is not set (i.e., remains at 0), there is a different default value that is used depending on whether an HDD or SSD is used for the primary device (set by the bluestore_cache_size_ssd and bluestore_cache_size_hdd config options).

BlueStore and the rest of the Ceph OSD daemon do the best they can to work within this memory budget. Note that on top of the configured cache size, there is also memory consumed by the OSD itself, and some additional utilization due to memory fragmentation and other allocator overhead.

The configured cache memory budget can be used in a few different ways:

Key/Value metadata (i.e., RocksDB’s internal cache)
BlueStore metadata
BlueStore data (i.e., recently read or written object data)

Cache memory usage is governed by the following options: bluestore_cache_meta_ratio and bluestore_cache_kv_ratio. The fraction of the cache devoted to data is governed by the effective bluestore cache size (depending on bluestore_cache_size[_ssd|_hdd] settings and the device class of the primary device) as well as the meta and kv ratios. The data fraction can be calculated by <effective_cache_size> * (1 - bluestore_cache_meta_ratio - bluestore_cache_kv_ratio)

bluestore_cache_size

Description: The amount of memory BlueStore will use for its cache. If zero, bluestore_cache_size_hdd or bluestore_cache_size_ssd will be used instead.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: Yes
Default: 0

bluestore_cache_size_hdd

Description: The default amount of memory BlueStore will use for its cache when backed by an HDD.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: Yes
Default: 1 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 (1 GB)

bluestore_cache_size_ssd

Description: The default amount of memory BlueStore will use for its cache when backed by an SSD.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: Yes
Default: 3 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 (3 GB)

bluestore_cache_meta_ratio

Description: The ratio of cache devoted to metadata.
Type: Floating point
Required: Yes
Default: .4

bluestore_cache_kv_ratio

Description: The ratio of cache devoted to key/value data (RocksDB).
Type: Floating point
Required: Yes
Default: .4

bluestore_cache_kv_max

Description: The maximum amount of cache devoted to key/value data (RocksDB).
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: Yes
Default: 512 * 1024*1024 (512 MB)

Checksums¶

BlueStore checksums all metadata and data written to disk. Metadata checksumming is handled by RocksDB and uses crc32c. Data checksumming is done by BlueStore and can make use of crc32c, xxhash32, or xxhash64. The default is crc32c and should be suitable for most purposes.

Full data checksumming does increase the amount of metadata that BlueStore must store and manage. When possible, e.g., when clients hint that data is written and read sequentially, BlueStore will checksum larger blocks, but in many cases it must store a checksum value (usually 4 bytes) for every 4 kilobyte block of data.

It is possible to use a smaller checksum value by truncating the checksum to two or one byte, reducing the metadata overhead. The trade-off is that the probability that a random error will not be detected is higher with a smaller checksum, going from about one in four billion with a 32-bit (4 byte) checksum to one in 65,536 for a 16-bit (2 byte) checksum or one in 256 for an 8-bit (1 byte) checksum. The smaller checksum values can be used by selecting crc32c_16 or crc32c_8 as the checksum algorithm.

The checksum algorithm can be set either via a per-pool csum_type property or the global config option. For example,

ceph osd pool set <pool-name> csum_type <algorithm>

bluestore_csum_type

Description: The default checksum algorithm to use.
Type: String
Required: Yes
Valid Settings: none, crc32c, crc32c_16, crc32c_8, xxhash32, xxhash64
Default: crc32c

Inline Compression¶

BlueStore supports inline compression using snappy, zlib, or lz4. Please note that the lz4 compression plugin is not distributed in the official release.

Whether data in BlueStore is compressed is determined by a combination of the compression mode and any hints associated with a write operation. The modes are:

none: Never compress data.
passive: Do not compress data unless the write operation has a compressible hint set.
aggressive: Compress data unless the write operation has an incompressible hint set.
force: Try to compress data no matter what.

For more information about the compressible and incompressible IO hints, see rados_set_alloc_hint().

Note that regardless of the mode, if the size of the data chunk is not reduced sufficiently it will not be used and the original (uncompressed) data will be stored. For example, if the bluestore compression required ratio is set to .7 then the compressed data must be 70% of the size of the original (or smaller).

The compression mode, compression algorithm, compression required ratio, min blob size, and max blob size can be set either via a per-pool property or a global config option. Pool properties can be set with:

ceph osd pool set <pool-name> compression_algorithm <algorithm>
ceph osd pool set <pool-name> compression_mode <mode>
ceph osd pool set <pool-name> compression_required_ratio <ratio>
ceph osd pool set <pool-name> compression_min_blob_size <size>
ceph osd pool set <pool-name> compression_max_blob_size <size>

bluestore_compression_algorithm

Description: The default compressor to use (if any) if the per-pool property compression_algorithm is not set. Note that zstd is not recommended for BlueStore due to high CPU overhead when compressing small amounts of data.
Type: String
Required: No
Valid Settings: lz4, snappy, zlib, zstd
Default: snappy

bluestore_compression_mode

Description: The default policy for using compression if the per-pool property compression_mode is not set. none means never use compression. passive means use compression when clients hint that data is compressible. aggressive means use compression unless clients hint that data is not compressible. force means use compression under all circumstances even if the clients hint that the data is not compressible.
Type: String
Required: No
Valid Settings: none, passive, aggressive, force
Default: none

bluestore_compression_required_ratio

Description: The ratio of the size of the data chunk after compression relative to the original size must be at least this small in order to store the compressed version.
Type: Floating point
Required: No
Default: .875

bluestore_compression_min_blob_size

Description: Chunks smaller than this are never compressed. The per-pool property compression_min_blob_size overrides this setting.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 0

bluestore_compression_min_blob_size_hdd

Description: Default value of bluestore compression min blob size for rotational media.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 128K

bluestore_compression_min_blob_size_ssd

Description: Default value of bluestore compression min blob size for non-rotational (solid state) media.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 8K

bluestore_compression_max_blob_size

Description: Chunks larger than this value are broken into smaller blobs of at most bluestore_compression_max_blob_size bytes before being compressed. The per-pool property compression_max_blob_size overrides this setting.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 0

bluestore_compression_max_blob_size_hdd

Description: Default value of bluestore compression max blob size for rotational media.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 512K

bluestore_compression_max_blob_size_ssd

Description: Default value of bluestore compression max blob size for non-rotational (SSD, NVMe) media.
Type: Unsigned Integer
Required: No
Default: 64K

SPDK Usage¶

If you want to use the SPDK driver for NVMe devices, you must prepare your system. Refer to SPDK document for more details.

SPDK offers a script to configure the device automatically. Users can run the script as root:

$ sudo src/spdk/scripts/setup.sh

You will need to specify the subject NVMe device’s device selector with the “spdk:” prefix for bluestore_block_path.

For example, you can find the device selector of an Intel PCIe SSD with:

$ lspci -mm -n -D -d 8086:0953

The device selector always has the form of DDDD:BB:DD.FF or DDDD.BB.DD.FF.

and then set:

bluestore_block_path = spdk:0000:01:00.0

Where 0000:01:00.0 is the device selector found in the output of lspci command above.

To run multiple SPDK instances per node, you must specify the amount of dpdk memory in MB that each instance will use, to make sure each instance uses its own dpdk memory

In most cases, a single device can be used for data, DB, and WAL. We describe this strategy as colocating these components. Be sure to enter the below settings to ensure that all IOs are issued through SPDK.:

bluestore_block_db_path = ""
bluestore_block_db_size = 0
bluestore_block_wal_path = ""
bluestore_block_wal_size = 0

Otherwise, the current implementation will populate the SPDK map files with kernel file system symbols and will use the kernel driver to issue DB/WAL IO.