How Do I Enable NIC Multi-Queue for an Image?

Scenarios

With the increase of network I/O bandwidth, a single vCPU cannot meet the requirement of processing NIC interruptions. NIC multi-queue allows multiple vCPUs to process NIC interruptions, thereby improving network PPS and I/O performance.

ECSs Supporting NIC Multi-Queue

NIC multi-queue can be enabled on an ECS only when the ECS specifications, virtualization type, and image meet the requirements described in this section.

• For details about the ECS specifications that support NIC multi-queue, see ECS Types.
  

  If the number of NIC queues is greater than 1, NIC multi-queue is supported.

• Only KVM ECSs support NIC multi-queue.
• The Linux public images listed in Table 2 support NIC multi-queue.
  

  • Windows OSs have not commercially supported NIC multi-queue. If you enable NIC multi-queue for a Windows image, starting an ECS created using such an image may be slow.
  • You are advised to upgrade the kernel version of Linux ECSs to 2.6.35 or later. Otherwise, NIC multi-queue is not supported.

    Run the uname -r command to check the kernel version. If the version is earlier than 2.6.35, contact technical support to upgrade it.

Operation Instructions

Assume that an ECS has the required specifications and virtualization type.

• If the ECS was created using a public image listed in ECSs Supporting NIC Multi-Queue, NIC multi-queue has been enabled on the ECS by default. Therefore, you do not need to manually enable NIC multi-queue for it.
• If the ECS was created using an external image file with an OS listed in ECSs Supporting NIC Multi-Queue, perform the following operations to enable NIC multi-queue:
  

  Currently, NIC multi-queue is only available for Ethernet NICs.

  1. Register the External Image File as a Private Image.
  2. Set NIC Multi-Queue for the Image.
  3. Create an ECS from the Private Image.
  4. Run the Script for Configuring NIC Multi-Queue.

Register the External Image File as a Private Image

Set NIC Multi-Queue for the Image

Windows OSs have not commercially supported NIC multi-queue. If you enable NIC multi-queue for a Windows image, starting an ECS created using such an image may be slow.

Use either of the following methods to set NIC multi-queue.

Method 3: Add hw_vif_multiqueue_enabled to the image using an API.

1. Obtain a token. For details, see Authentication.
2. Call an API to update image information. For details, see Updating Image Information (Native OpenStack API).
3. Add X-Auth-Token to the request header.

   The value of X-Auth-Token is the token obtained in step 1.

4. Add Content-Type to the request header.

   The value of Content-Type is application/openstack-images-v2.1-json-patch.

   The request URI is in the following format:

   PATCH /v2/images/{image_id}

   The request body is as follows:

   [       
            { 
             "op":"add",
             "path":"/hw_vif_multiqueue_enabled", 
             "value": "true" 
            } 
    ]

   Figure 1 shows an example request body for setting NIC multi-queue.

   Figure 1 Example request body
   

Create an ECS from the Private Image

Run the Script for Configuring NIC Multi-Queue

Windows OSs have not commercially supported NIC multi-queue. If you enable NIC multi-queue for a Windows image, starting an ECS created using such an image may be slow.

For Linux OSs, the script for automatically configuring NIC multi-queue is provided. If an ECS has multiple NICs, running the script will automatically enable multi-queue for all the NICs.

1. Log in to the ECS and run the following command to check the number of queues supported by and enabled for a NIC:

   ethtool -l NIC

   Example:

   [root@localhost ~]# ethtool -l eth0   #View the number of queues used by NIC eth0.
   Channel parameters for eth0:
   Pre-set maximums:
   RX:               0
   TX:               0
   Other:            0
   Combined:         4   #The NIC supports a maximum of four queues.
   Current hardware settings:
   RX:               0
   TX:               0
   Other:            0
   Combined:         1   #One queue has been enabled for the NIC.

   If the values of the two Combined fields are the same, NIC multi-queue has been enabled. No further action is required.

2. Run the following command to download the configuration script multi-queue-hw:

   wget https://ecs-instance-driver.obs.cn-north-1.myhuaweicloud.com/multi-queue-hw

   The download path is https://ecs-instance-driver.obs.cn-north-1.myhuaweicloud.com/multi-queue-hw.

3. Run the following command to make the script executable:

   chmod +x multi-queue-hw

4. Run the following command to place the multi-queue-hw script in the /etc/init.d directory:

   mv multi-queue-hw /etc/init.d

   Enter y when the following information is displayed:

   mv: overwrite '/etc/init.d/multi-queue-hw'?

5. Run the following command to run the script:

   /etc/init.d/multi-queue-hw start

   NIC multi-queue script takes effect immediately after the script is executed but becomes invalid once the ECS stops.

6. Add a startup item for each OS so that NIC multi-queue is automatically enabled upon the ECS startup.
   • For CentOS, Red Hat, Fedora, EulerOS, SUSE, and openSUSE, run the following command:

     chkconfig multi-queue-hw on

   • For Ubuntu, run the following command:

     update-rc.d multi-queue-hw defaults 90 10

   • For Debian, run the following command:

     systemctl enable multi-queue-hw