Orthos2 lacks any information on cpu type

[tonyj-suse]

query name, cpu_model, cpu_id, cpu_physical where architecture = x86_64 returns "-" for every model and id.

This is a regression from orthos v1.

Also in regards to Orthos v1 at a past Labs Conference when Orthos features were being discussed several SUSE Labs members pressured the v1 developer to add more information (specifically Family/Model/Stepping) to the cpu info.

This never happened and as stated above we actually now have less information (apparently none) in v2.

This cpu information is a constant and does not vary between OS (SLE, OpenSUSE) releases.

Suggesting people use 'racktables' or 'netbox' isn't an acceptable answer. Obviously this cpu info needs to be in these platforms but it also needs to be exported to orthos2 so that developers can query orthos to find a machine of a specific flavor. Customers regularly report bugs against specific cpu types and employees have a need to be able to locate similar hardware.

[tonyj-suse]

I also understand that obtaining this FMS info for all machines would be hard resource wise.

However this is solvable. We can make it a requirement that it be entered into netbox for all new hardware (and exported to orthos2) and we can provide a mechanism for employees to provide the information for an existing machine.

[hreinecke]

There is a tool called 'nazara' (started by an apprentice) which is supposed to pick up machine information and feed it into netbox (which really is the proper place for this kind of information). Orthos can/will pick it up from there.

[tonyj-suse]

I have no issue with the info being in netbox. As I said in first comment, that sounds like a solid plan.

However the info from netbox (or a useful subset) needs to be available (exported) to whatever system is used to find and reserve hardware. Having to query netbox, then check on a different system if the machine is free, else back to netbox isn't practical.

Also pre-production x86_64 cpus have Family, Model, Stepping just the same as production cpus. As I said, Boris and I asked for this to be added to orthos v1 years ago at a past Labs Conf discussion but it never happened and it seems we have lost all cpu info in v2. This low level of cpu info should be in netbox (obviously generalized to support similar from different archs). It is easy to map this low level hardware info to something more human readable but the inverse is not.

Thanks!

[SchoolGuy]

Most time used for Orthos 2 is put into the supporting infrastructure and the machines themselves. This is on our roadmap and I am doing my best. Feel free to approach me at SUSE Labs during the week to get more details. If you have time to spare, of course I will be happy to accept help.

[olafhering]

Citing from an email

Just some thoughts:
It seems this FMS are 3 x86 specific fields. In case there should
be some generic "cpu model" search capability, this would not
work well. Hence my suggestion to turn those three integers
into a string, maybe like 0xa,0xb,0xc, or 10,11,12. In case
the primary source of truth becomes Netbox, we would be able to find
machines which are not in Orthos. Orthos would just pull the data
from Netbox verbatim, just like the other data. The CPU is usually
a static property for most systems, so this may work well enough.


Regarding the actual CPU search, it seems it is desirable to
search for either "6,78,3" or "i7-6600U" to find the CPU mentioned
earlier. In case Netbox and Orthos has a free text search, both
would be found. In case there is the capability to search either
FMS or a human readable string, two data fields need to exist.

Maybe we could store it like "FMS:6,78,3 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6600U CPU @ 2.60GHz",
or leave out some redundant parts like "Intel(R) Core(TM)".
But if redundant parts are removed, people would not be able to
copy&paste text from /proc/cpuinfo, so that does not work well.

It seems a combined "FMS:x,y,z ${model string}" is generic enough
to also cover non-x86. Like on some random ARM machine I see:
CPU implementer : 0xc0
CPU architecture: 8
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xac4
CPU revision    : 0
In case this is shown on all ARM, it could be combined into something
like "ARM:x,y,z,...".

[tonyj-suse]

"it seems it is desirable to search for either "6,78,3"

Actually many times you would want to search for 6,78 or 6,78,*. The stepping is the "bugfix" release (kinda) and so not always relevant. Sometimes I've needed it. Often not. This is my concern with packing everything into a single string, whatever the query interface ends up being (to query orthos) needs to support the above.

Also the string i7-6600U is derivable from FMS. If netbox has a backend mechanism to turn FMS into a string (via a lookup of a static table) and present this, I would suggest this rather than adding the string into the actual field.