From 4912254d8b8bdbdffe55ac8c87c766b07358d638 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jarek Potiuk Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2023 14:01:11 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Update git-sync description in Helm Chart documentation There are quite a few recurring themes when it comes to using git-sync for DAG synchronisation and this documentation is an attempt to capture results of a number of discussions and conversations. It adds some notes that might make it possible to make more informed decisions by our users and Deployment managers who want to make decisions on how they should synchronize their DAGs. The changes include: * notes on potential side-effects one has to be aware when using both git-sync and persistence together (there are some unobvious operations performed by git-sync that might affect performances of persistence solutions) * notes on how you can use multiple git repositories with git-sync using submodule approach - including link to a real-life use case from Airflow summit where it has been used in production for 100s of repositories. --- docs/helm-chart/manage-dags-files.rst | 80 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++- docs/spelling_wordlist.txt | 2 +- 2 files changed, 79 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/helm-chart/manage-dags-files.rst b/docs/helm-chart/manage-dags-files.rst index 05b283410ff7f..9d74c2c852a9e 100644 --- a/docs/helm-chart/manage-dags-files.rst +++ b/docs/helm-chart/manage-dags-files.rst @@ -98,8 +98,11 @@ If you are deploying an image from a private repository, you need to create a se --set images.airflow.pullPolicy=Always \ --set registry.secretName=gitlab-registry-credentials +Using Git-sync +-------------- + Mounting DAGs using Git-Sync sidecar with Persistence enabled -------------------------------------------------------------- +............................................................. This option will use a Persistent Volume Claim with an access mode of ``ReadWriteMany``. The scheduler pod will sync DAGs from a git repository onto the PVC every configured number of @@ -117,8 +120,9 @@ for details. # by setting the dags.persistence.* and dags.gitSync.* values # Please refer to values.yaml for details + Mounting DAGs using Git-Sync sidecar without Persistence --------------------------------------------------------- +........................................................ This option will use an always running Git-Sync sidecar on every scheduler, webserver (if ``airflowVersion < 2.0.0``) and worker pods. @@ -137,6 +141,78 @@ seconds. If you are using the ``KubernetesExecutor``, Git-sync will run as an in When using ``apache-airflow >= 2.0.0``, :ref:`DAG Serialization ` is enabled by default, hence Webserver does not need access to DAG files, so ``git-sync`` sidecar is not run on Webserver. +Notes for combining git-sync and persistence +............................................ + +While using both git-sync and persistence for DAGs is possible, it is generally not recommended unless the +deployment manager carefully considered the trade-offs it brings. There are cases when git-sync without +persistence has other trade-offs (for example delays in synchronization of DAGS vs. rate-limiting of Git +servers) that can often be mitigated (for example by sending signals to git-sync containers via web-hooks +when new commits are pushed to the repository) but there might be cases where you still might want to choose +git-sync and Persistence together, but as a Deployment Manager you should be aware of some consequences it has. + +git-sync solution is primarily designed to be used for local, POSIX-compliant volumes to checkout Git +repositories into. Part of the process of synchronization of commits from git-sync involves checking out +new version of files in a freshly created folder and swapping symbolic links to the new folder, after the +checkout is complete. This is done to ensure that the whole DAGs folder is consistent at all times. The way +git-sync works with symbolic-link swaps, makes sure that Parsing the DAGs always work on a consistent +(single-commit-based) set of files in the whole DAG folder. + +This approach, however might have undesirable side effects when the folder that git-sync works on is not +a local volume, but is a persistent volume (so effectively a networked, distributed volume). Depending on +the technology behind the persistent volumes might handle git-sync approach differently and with non-obvious +consequences. There are a lot of persistence solutions available for various K8S installations and each of +them has different characteristics, so you need to carefully test and monitor your filesystem to make sure +those undesired side effects do not affect you. Those effects might change over time or depend on parameters +like how often the files are being scanned by the Dag File Processor, the number and complexity of your +DAGs, how remote and how distributed your persistent volumes are, how many IOPS you allocate for some of +the filesystem (usually highly paid feature of such filesystems is how many IOPS you can get) and many other +factors. + +The way git-sync works with symbolic links swapping generally causes a linear growth of the throughput and +potential delays in synchronization. The networking traffic from checkouts comes in bursts and the bursts +are linearly proportional to the number and size of files you have in the repository, makes it vulnerable +to pretty sudden and unexpected demand increase. Most of the persistence solution work "good enough" for +smaller/shorter burst of traffic, but when they outgrow certain thresholds, you need to upgrade the +networking to a much more capable and expensive options. This is difficult to control and impossible to +mitigate, so you might be suddenly faced with situation to pay a lot more for IOPS/persistence option to +keep your DAGs sufficiently synchronized to avoid inconsistencies and delays in synchronization. + +The side-effects that you might observe: + +* burst of networking/communication at the moment when new commit is checked out (because of the quick + succession of deleting old files, creating new files, symbolic link swapping. +* temporary lack of consistency between files in DAG folders while DAGS are being synced (because of delays + in distributing changes to individual files for various nodes in the cluster) +* visible drops of performance of the persistence solution when your DAG number grows, drops that might + amplify the side effects described above. +* some of persistence solutions might lack filesystem functionality that git-sync needs to perform the sync + (for example changing permissions or creating symbolic links). While those can often be mitigated it is + only recommended to use git-sync with fully POSIX-filesystem compliant persistence filesystems. + +General recommendation to use git-sync with local volumes only, and if you want to also use persistence, you +need to make sure that the persistence solution you use is POSIX-compliant and you monitor the side-effects +it might have. + +Synchronizing multiple Git repositories with git-sync +..................................................... + +Airflow git-sync integration in the Helm Chart, does not allow to configure multiple repositories to be +synchronized at the same time. The DAG folder must come from single git repository. However it is possible +to use `submodules `_ to create an "umbrella" repository +that you can use to bring a number of git repositories checked out together (with ``--submodules recursive`` +option). There are success stories of Airflow users using such approach with 100s of repositories put +together as submodules via such "umbrella" repo approach. When you choose this solution, however, +you need to work out the way how to ling the submodules, when to updated the umbrella repo when "submodule" +repository change and work out versioning approach and automate it. This might be as simple as always +using latest versions of all the submodule repositories, or as complex as managing versioning of shared +libraries, DAGs and code across multiple teams and doing that following your release process. + +An example of such complex approach can found in this +`Manage DAGs at scale `_ presentation from the Airflow +Summit. + + Mounting DAGs from an externally populated PVC ---------------------------------------------- diff --git a/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt b/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt index f51dc1215fc05..d3725c6e4db49 100644 --- a/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt +++ b/docs/spelling_wordlist.txt @@ -1426,7 +1426,7 @@ Subdirectory subdirectory subfolder subfolders -Submodules +submodule submodules subnet subnets