Pre-Deployment Checklist

This section covers tasks that must be completed before deploying Contrail Cloud 13.1 or 13.2.

Shared Configuration Between Network and Servers

The following information must be consistent between the Contrail Cloud configuration and the network devices that are connected to the servers:

VLAN IDs for the fast-interface networks.
ESI must match on the pairs of switch ports for the same bond connections.
VRFs for routing between rack subnets must be configured on each leaf switch.
External network must be reachable by users outside the cloud environment.
MTU must be correctly configured in the fabric, physical servers, and overcloud roles.

The network infrastructure must meet the following requirements:

Every server must have access to the Contrail Cloud repository satellite or to an instance of Capsule Server that is connected to it. The satellite is used to distribute packages and control software versions.
The jumphost must have access to the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) or to the vendor-specific equivalent of every managed server.
The jumphost must have an interface in the same broadcast domain as each managed server’s provisioning interface to allow PXE booting (provision network). This setup can be created by stretching a Layer 2 network across the interfaces using technologies like VXLAN or VLAN.

DHCP Relay in the network fabric is not supported.

To configure an IP Fabric with EVPN-VXLAN in a Contrail Cloud environment, see the Data Center Fabric Architecture Guide.
The networking for management switches and IP Fabric has been configured as described in the previous sections of this document.
The undercloud running on the jumphost must be the only DHCP server in the network.
Switch ports on the provisioning network should be configured to skip STP negotiation.
If SR-IOV will be used on a compute node, the feature needs to be enabled in the BIOS of all compute nodes using SR-IOV.

The undercloud is deployed as a virtual machine on a Linux kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) on the jumphost.

You must ensure the jumphost:

Runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6 installed with the base packages only.
Does not run virtual machines other than the undercloud and Contrail Command. The Contrail Cloud provisioning scripts often delete other virtual machines running on the jumphost during the Contrail Cloud installation.
Has a network connection that can reach the Contrail Cloud Satellite or an instance of Capsule proxy, and also has IPMI access to physical hardware.
Has a network connection that can be used for provisioning the control hosts and VMs, compute nodes, and storage nodes.
Meets the memory requirements—RAM, vCPUs and disks—as specified in this document. See Contrail Cloud Software.
Supports users, including a root user who has password-free sudo access and ssh access to the localhost.
Resolves Internet and satellite site addresses with DNS.
Is time synchronized with an NTP source.

The overcloud hosts—storage nodes, compute nodes, and control hosts—must meet the following requirements:

Hardware RAID for OS partitions must be configured.
The boot order must be configured to boot from PXE first and to boot from disk second.
PXE on interface used for provisioning must be enabled. You do not need to enable PXE on all interfaces.
The latest BIOS version must be running.
The latest NIC firmware must be running.
Verify BIOS boot mode (legacy or UEFI). If the boot mode is UEFI, enable the UEFI boot mode in the capabilities: boot_mode: hierarchy in the inventory.yml file.