Troubleshooting Ironic-Python-Agent (IPA)

This document contains basic trouble shooting information for IPA.

Gaining Access to IPA on a node

In order to access a running IPA instance a user must be added or enabled on the image. Below we will cover several ways to do this.

Access via ssh

ironic-python-agent-builder

SSH access can be added to DIB built IPA images with the dynamic-login 0 or the devuser element 1

The dynamic-login element allows the operator to inject a SSH key when the image boots. Kernel command line parameters are used to do this.

dynamic-login element example:

  • Add sshkey="ssh-rsa BBA1..." to kernel_append_params setting in the ironic.conf file

  • Restart the ironic-conductor with the command service ironic-conductor restart

Install ironic-python-agent-builder following the guide 2

devuser element example:

export DIB_DEV_USER_USERNAME=username
export DIB_DEV_USER_PWDLESS_SUDO=yes
export DIB_DEV_USER_AUTHORIZED_KEYS=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
ironic-python-agent-builder -o /path/to/custom-ipa -e devuser debian

tinyipa

If you want to enable SSH access to the image, set AUTHORIZE_SSH variable in your shell to true before building the tinyipa image:

export AUTHORIZE_SSH=true

By default it will use default public RSA (or, if not available, DSA) key of the user running the build (~/.ssh/id_{rsa,dsa}.pub).

To provide other public SSH key, export full path to it in your shell before building tinyipa as follows:

export SSH_PUBLIC_KEY=/path/to/other/ssh/public/key

The user to use for access is default Tiny Core Linux user tc. This user has no password and has password-less sudo permissions. Installed SSH server is configured to disable Password authentication.

Access via console

If you need to use console access, passwords must be enabled there are a couple ways to enable this depending on how the IPA image was created:

ironic-python-agent-builder

Users wishing to use password access can be add the dynamic-login 0 or the devuser element 1

The dynamic-login element allows the operator to change the root password dynamically when the image boots. Kernel command line parameters are used to do this.

dynamic-login element example:

Generate a ENCRYPTED_PASSWORD with the openssl passwd -1 command
Add rootpwd="$ENCRYPTED_PASSWORD" value on the kernel_append_params setting in /etc/ironic/ironic.conf
Restart the ironic-conductor with the command service ironic-conductor restart

Users can also be added to DIB built IPA images with the devuser element 1

Install ironic-python-agent-builder following the guide 2

Example:

export DIB_DEV_USER_USERNAME=username
export DIB_DEV_USER_PWDLESS_SUDO=yes
export DIB_DEV_USER_PASSWORD=PASSWORD
ironic-python-agent-builder -o /path/to/custom-ipa -e devuser debian

tinyipa

The image built with scripts provided in tinyipa folder of Ironic Python Agent Builder repository by default auto-logins the default Tiny Core Linux user tc to the console. This user has no password and has password-less sudo permissions.

How to pause the IPA for debugging

When debugging issues with the IPA, in particular with cleaning, it may be necessary to log in to the RAM disk before the IPA actually starts (and delay the launch of the IPA). One easy way to do this is to set maintenance on the node and then trigger cleaning. Ironic will boot the node into the RAM disk, but the IPA will stall until the maintenance state is removed. This opens a time window to log into the node.

Another way to do this is to add simple cleaning steps in a custom hardware manager which sleep until a certain condition is met, e.g. until a given file exists. Having multiple of these “barrier steps” allows to go through the cleaning steps and have a break point in between them.

Set IPA to debug logging

Debug logging can be enabled a several different ways. The easiest way is to add ipa-debug=1 to the kernel command line. To do this:

  • Append ipa-debug=1 to the kernel_append_params setting in the ironic.conf file

  • Restart the ironic-conductor with the command service ironic-conductor restart

If the system is running and uses systemd then editing the services file will be required.

  • systemctl edit ironic-python-agent.service

  • Append --debug to end of the ExecStart command

  • Restart IPA. See the Manually restart IPA section below.

Where can I find the IPA logs

Retrieving the IPA logs will differ depending on which base image was used.

  • Operating system that do not use systemd (ie Ubuntu 14.04)

    • logs will be found in the /var/log/ folder.

  • Operating system that do use systemd (ie Fedora, CentOS, RHEL)

    • logs may be viewed with sudo journalctl -u ironic-python-agent

    • if using a diskimage-builder ramdisk, it may be configured to output all contents of the journal, including ironic-python-agent logs, by enabling the journal-to-console element.

In addition, Ironic is configured to retrieve IPA logs upon failures by default, you can learn more about this feature in the Ironic troubleshooting guide.

Manually restart IPA

In some cases it is helpful to enable debug mode on a running node. If the system does not use systemd then IPA can be restarted directly:

sudo /usr/local/bin/ironic-python-agent [--debug]

If the system uses systemd then systemctl can be used to restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart ironic-python-agent.service

Cleaning halted with ProtectedDeviceError

The IPA service has halted cleaning as one of the block devices within or attached to the bare metal node contains a class of filesystem which MAY cause irreparable harm to a potentially running cluster if accidently removed.

These filesystems may be used for only local storage and as a result be safe to erase. However if a shared block device is in use, such as a device supplied via a Storage Area Network utilizing protocols such as iSCSI or FibreChannel. Ultimately the Host Bus Adapter (HBA) may not be an entirely “detectable” entity given the hardware market place and aspects such as “SmartNICs” and Converged Network Adapters with specific offload functions to support standards like “NVMe over Fabric” (NVMe-oF).

By default, the agent will prevent these filesystems from being deleted and will halt the cleaning process when detected. The cleaning process can be re-triggered via Ironic’s state machine once one of the documented settings have been used to notify the agent that no action is required.

What filesystems are looked for

IBM General Parallel Filesystem

Red Hat Global Filesystem 2

VmWare Virtual Machine FileSystem (VMFS)

I’m okay with deleting, how do I tell IPA to clean the disk(s)?

Four potential ways exist to signal to IPA. Please note, all of these options require access either to the node in Ironic’s API or ability to modify Ironic configuration.

Via Ironic

Note

This option requires that the version of Ironic be sufficient enough to understand and explicitly provide this option to the Agent.

Inform Ironic to provide the option to the Agent:

baremetal node set --driver-info wipe_special_filesystems=True

Via a node’s kernel_append_params setting

This may be set on a node level by utilizing the override kernel_append_params setting which can be utilized on a node level. Example:

baremetal node set --driver-info kernel_append_params="ipa-guard-special-filesystems=False"

Alternatively, if you wish to set this only once, you may use the instance_info field, which is wiped upon teardown of the node. Example:

baremetal node set --instance-info kernel_append_params="ipa-guard-special-filesystems=False"

Via Ironic’s Boot time PXE parameters (Globally)

Globally, this setting may be passed by modifying the ironic.conf configuration file on your cluster by adding ipa-guard-special-filesystems=False string to the [pxe]kernel_append_params parameter.

Warning

If your running a multi-conductor deployment, all of your ironic.conf configuration files will need to be updated to match.

Via Ramdisk configuration

This option requires modifying the ramdisk, and is the most complex, but may be advisable if you have a mixed environment cluster where shared clustered filesystems may be a concern on some machines, but not others.

Warning

This requires rebuilding your agent ramdisk, and modifying the embedded configuration file for the ironic-python-agent. If your confused at all by this statement, this option is not for you.

Edit /etc/ironic_python_agent/ironic_python_agent.conf and set the parameter [DEFAULT]guard_special_filesystems to False.

References

0(1,2)

Dynamic-login DIB element: https://github.com/openstack/diskimage-builder/tree/master/diskimage_builder/elements/dynamic-login

1(1,2,3)

DevUser DIB element: https://github.com/openstack/diskimage-builder/tree/master/diskimage_builder/elements/devuser

2(1,2)

ironic-python-agent-builder: https://docs.openstack.org/ironic-python-agent-builder/latest/install/index.html