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diff --git a/packages/blog/content/posts/deterministic-hostnames.md b/packages/blog/content/posts/deterministic-hostnames.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..43dc7d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/packages/blog/content/posts/deterministic-hostnames.md @@ -0,0 +1,80 @@ +--- +title: "Deterministic and unique network hostnames" +date: "2024-11-10" +--- + +As part of building out a Kubernetes cluster, I wanted to build and distribute a +single OS image to create stateless worker nodes. Using network booting, and +some clever tricks to differentiate nodes, we can create a scaleable and +efficient farm of workers for a cluster that don't even need disks. + +The idea came from a plan to build a cluster using the +[compute blade](https://computeblade.com/), and a few Raspberry Pi SBCs I +already own. Running the cluster from an SD card is not recommended due to the +not-so-great reliability of the flash used by most manufacturers, so I wanted to +try PXE booting each Pi to save money rather than purchasing an SSD for each +one. The compute blades do support an NVMe disk, but I plan to use those for a +storage cluster later, so they need to remain empty. + +## Base image + +Alpine Linux has been my preferred server OS for a long time. It provides a very +lightweight base system, and bundles an excellent bootstrapping system, +[apkovl](https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_local_backup), that allows the +user to save a set of customisations to an system as an overlay to a stock +Alpine live image. In other words, we can create our image once, save the +changes as an `apkovl.tar.gz` file, and apply the same changes to a base system +on boot. This file can even be provided as a +[kernel parameter](https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/PXE_boot#Guide_to_options) +and will be fetched from a remote webserver automatically! + +Since the image and configuration will be shipped to the node via the network, +an added benefit of using Alpine is its tiny space consumption. I'm not using +enough nodes for this to really matter, but it's a cool optimization regardless. + +## Differentiating the nodes + +One of the main goals of this project is that there should be no persistent +storage required outside the boot image itself. Since every node will download +and generate the same root file-system on startup, the first problem that arises +is how the nodes will identify themselves both on the network and the cluster, +given that it's not possible to name them ahead of time. In other words, any +given node has to generate a unique hostname that won't collide with other +workers, and that will be the same each time that node boots. + +Since these nodes will not have a predefined name, we have to rely on +characteristics of the hardware to differentiate each one. The hardware MAC +address is perfect for this, since it's unique to to each node and will not be +wiped away after the node reboots. On a system like Linux that exposes its +hardware through a _sysfs_, we can find a file containing the address at +`/sys/class/net/eth0/address`. I don't really like the idea of attaching the +literal MAC address of the node to its network hostname, since it's a security +risk, and a bit too verbose. Instead, we can transform it into something safer +using a `sha1sum`, which is already present on our Alpine base system: + +```console +sha1sum /sys/class/net/eth0/address | head -c 6 | awk '{print "worker-" $0}' +``` + +### Applying the new name + +Ideally, the node should apply its generated hostname before reaching out for an +address over DHCP or joining the cluster. We can make sure it happens before any +traffic is sent out by adding a `pre-up` command to the right interface in +`/etc/network/interfaces`: + +``` + +... + +auto eth0 +iface eth0 inet dhcp + pre-up sha1sum /sys/class/net/eth0/address | head -c 6 | awk '{print "worker-" $0}' > /etc/hostname + +... +``` + +The VM I tested with looks outputs `worker-e2fae8`. Pretty clean result, and if +you want to know the physical node that maps to each hostname, you can take note +of the MAC address beforehand and generate the same hash on another computer to +match them up. |