Bare Metal Instances in Overcloud

This documentation explains installing Ironic for providing bare metal instances in the overcloud to end users. This feature is supported starting with Newton.

Architecture and requirements

By default, TripleO installs ironic API and conductor services on the controller nodes. In an HA configuration the 3 conductor services form a hash ring and balance the nodes across it. For a really big bare metal cloud it’s highly recommended to move ironic-conductor services to separate roles, use the IronicConductor role shipped with TripleO as an example.

Note

Ironic services and API in the overcloud and in the undercloud are completely independent.

It is recommended to have at least 12 GiB of RAM on the undercloud and controllers. The controllers (or separate ironic-conductor roles) should have enough disk space to keep a cache of user instance images, at least 50 GiB is recommended.

It’s also highly recommended that you use at least two networks:

• Undercloud provisioning network (connects undercloud and overcloud nodes)

• Overcloud provisioning network (connects overcloud nodes and tenant bare metal instances)

Preparing undercloud

If you already have an instackenv.json file with all nodes prepared, you might want to leave some of the nodes for overcloud instances. E.g. if you have three nodes in the instackenv.json, you can split them:

jq '.nodes[0:2] | {nodes: .}' instackenv.json > undercloud.json

The format of the remaining nodes is TripleO-specific, so we need to convert it to something Ironic can understand without using TripleO workflows. E.g. for node using IPMI:

jq '.nodes[2:3] | {nodes: map({driver: .pm_type, name: .name,
    driver_info: {ipmi_username: .pm_user, ipmi_address: .pm_addr,
                  ipmi_password: .pm_password, ipmi_port: .pm_port},
    properties: {cpus: .cpu, cpu_arch: .arch,
                 local_gb: .disk, memory_mb: .memory},
    ports: .mac | map({address: .})})}' instackenv.json > overcloud-nodes.yaml

Note

This command intentionally omits the capabilities, as they are often TripleO-specific, e.g. they force local boot instead of network boot used by default in Ironic.

Then enroll only undercloud.json in your undercloud:

source stackrc
openstack overcloud node import --provide undercloud.json

Virtual

If you used tripleo-quickstart, you may have to delete the nodes that did not end up in undercloud.json.

Configuring and deploying ironic

Ironic can be installed by including one of the environment files shipped with TripleO, however, in most of the cases you’ll want to tweak certain parameters. This section assumes that a custom environment file called ironic-config.yaml exists. Please pay particular attention to parameters described in Essential configuration.

Essential configuration

The following parameters should be configured in advance for overcloud Ironic in an environment file:

• IronicEnabledHardwareTypes configures which hardware types will be supported in Ironic.

  Note

  Hardware types are the new generation of Ironic drivers. For example, the ipmi hardware type roughly corresponds to the pxe_ipmitool driver. Check driver configuration guide and driver-specific documentation for more details.

  When enabling hardware types, you usually have to enable more hardware interfaces that these types are compatible with. For example, when enabling the redfish hardware type, also enable redfish power and management interfaces. For example:

  parameter_defaults:
      IronicEnabledHardwareTypes:
          - ipmi
          - redfish
      IronicEnabledPowerInterfaces:
          - ipmitool
          - redfish
      IronicEnabledManagementInterfaces:
          - ipmitool
          - redfish
  

  Some drivers might require additional configuration to work properly. Check driver configuration guide and driver-specific documentation for more details.

  By default, the ipmi hardware type is enabled.

  Stable Branches

  The IronicEnabledDrivers option can also be used for releases prior to Queens. It sets the list of enabled classic drivers. The most often used bare metal driver is pxe_ipmitool. Also enabled by default are pxe_ilo and pxe_drac drivers.

• IronicCleaningDiskErase configures erasing hard drives before the first and after every deployment. There are two recommended values: full erases all data and metadata erases only disk metadata. The former is more secure, the latter is faster.

  Virtual

  It is highly recommended to set this parameter to metadata for virtual environments, as full cleaning can be extremely slow there.

Stable Branches :class: stable

NovaSchedulerDefaultFilters configures available scheduler filters. Before the Stein release, the AggregateInstanceExtraSpecsFilter could be used to separate flavors targeting virtual and bare metal instances. Starting with the Stein release, a flavor can only target one of them, so no additional actions are needed.

Additional configuration

• IronicCleaningNetwork sets the name or UUID of the overcloud network to use for node cleaning. Initially is set to provisioning and should be set to an actual UUID later when Configuring networks.

  Similarly, there are IronicProvisioningNetwork and IronicRescuingNetwork. See Configuring networks for details.

• IronicDefaultBootOption specifies whether the instances will boot from local disk (local) or from PXE or iPXE (netboot). This parameter was introduced in the Pike release with the default value of local. Before that netboot was used by default.

  Note

  This value can be overridden per node by setting the boot_option capability on both the node and a flavor.

• IronicDefaultDeployInterface specifies the way a node is deployed, see the deploy interfaces documentation for details. The default is iscsi, starting with the Rocky release the direct deploy is also configured out of box. The ansible deploy interface requires extensive configuration as described in Extending overcloud nodes provisioning.

• IronicDefaultNetworkInterface specifies the network management implementation for bare metal nodes. The default value of flat means that the provisioning network is shared between all nodes, and will also be available to tenants.

  If you configure an ML2 mechanism driver that supports bare metal port binding (networking-fujitsu, networking-cisco and some others), then you can use the neutron implementation. In that case, Ironic and Neutron will fully manage networking for nodes, including plugging and unplugging the provision and cleaning network. The IronicProvisioningNetwork parameter has to be configured in a similar way to IronicCleaningNetwork (and in most cases to the same value). See Configuring ml2-ansible for multi-tenant networking for a brief example and multi-tenant networking documentation for more details.

  Note

  Please check with your switch vendor to learn if your switch and its ML2 driver support bare metal port binding.

  Alternatively, you can use the networking-ansible ML2 plugin, which supports a large variety of switch vendors and models. It is supported by TripleO starting with the Rocky release.

• IronicImageDownloadSource when using the direct deploy interface this option (introduced in the Stein release) specifies what serves as a source for pulling the image from ironic-python-agent:

  • swift (the default) pulls the image from an Object Storage service (swift) temporary URL. This requires the Image service (glance) to be backed by the Object Storage service. If the image is not in the raw format, it will be converted in memory on the target node, so enough RAM is required.

  • http makes ironic-conductor cache the image on the local HTTP server (the same as for iPXE) and serve it from there. The image gets converted to raw format by default and thus can be served directly to the target block device without in-memory conversion.

Using a Custom Network for Overcloud Provisioning

The Pike release provided the the ability to define a custom network, this has been further enhanced in Queens to allow for the definition of a VLAN in the network definition. Using a custom network to provision Overcloud nodes for Ironic has the advantage of moving all Ironic services off of the Undercloud Provisioning network (control plane) so that routing or bridging to the control plane is not necessary. This can increase security, and isolates tenant bare metal node provisioning from the overcloud node provisioning done by the undercloud.

Follow the instructions in Deploying with Custom Networks to add an additional network, in this example called OcProvisioning, to network_data.yaml:

# custom network for Overcloud provisioning
- name: OcProvisioning
  name_lower: oc_provisioning
  vip: true
  vlan: 205
  ip_subnet: '172.23.3.0/24'
  allocation_pools: [{'start': '172.23.3.10', 'end': '172.23.3.200'}]

The ServiceNetMap can be updated in network-environment.yaml to move the Ironic services used for Overcloud provisioning to the new network:

ServiceNetMap:
     IronicApiNetwork: oc_provisioning # changed from ctlplane
     IronicNetwork: oc_provisioning # changed from ctlplane

Add the new network to the roles file roles_data.yaml for controller:

networks:
  - External
  - InternalApi
  - Storage
  - StorageMgmt
  - Tenant
  - OcProvisioning

Add the new network to the NIC config controller.yaml file. Starting in Queens, the example NIC config files will automatically populated with this new network when it is in network_data.yaml and roles_data.yaml so this step is not necessary:

- type: vlan
  vlan_id:
    get_param: OcProvisioningNetworkVlanID
  addresses:
  - ip_netmask:
      get_param: OcProvisioningIpSubnet

Note

The baremetal nodes will send and received untagged VLAN traffic in order to properly run DHCP and PXE boot.

Deployment

Add the ironic environment file when deploying:

openstack overcloud deploy --templates \
    -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/services/ironic-overcloud.yaml \
    -e ironic-config.yaml

To deploy Ironic in containers for Pike-Rocky releases please, use /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/services-docker/ironic.yaml instead.

Note

We don’t require any virtual compute nodes for the bare metal only case, so feel free to set ComputeCount: 0 in your environment file, if you don’t need them.

If using a custom network in Pike or later, include the network_data.yaml and roles_data.yaml files in the deployment:

-n /home/stack/network_data.yaml \
-r /home/stack/roles_data.yaml \

In addition, if network-environment.yaml was updated to include the ServiceNetMap changes, include the updated and generated network-environment.yaml files:

-e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/network-environment.yaml \
-e /home/stack/templates/environments/network-environment.yaml \

Validation

Check that Ironic works by connecting to the overcloud and trying to list the nodes (you should see an empty response, but not an error):

source overcloudrc
baremetal node list

You can also check the enabled driver list:

$ baremetal driver list
+---------------------+-------------------------+
| Supported driver(s) | Active host(s)          |
+---------------------+-------------------------+
| ipmi                | overcloud-controller-0. |
| pxe_drac            | overcloud-controller-0. |
| pxe_ilo             | overcloud-controller-0. |
| pxe_ipmitool        | overcloud-controller-0. |
| redfish             | overcloud-controller-0. |
+---------------------+-------------------------+

Note

This commands shows both hardware types and classic drivers combined.

For HA configuration you should see all three controllers:

$ baremetal driver list
+---------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Supported driver(s) | Active host(s)                                                                                             |
+---------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ipmi                | overcloud-controller-0.localdomain, overcloud-controller-1.localdomain, overcloud-controller-2.localdomain |
| pxe_drac            | overcloud-controller-0.localdomain, overcloud-controller-1.localdomain, overcloud-controller-2.localdomain |
| pxe_ilo             | overcloud-controller-0.localdomain, overcloud-controller-1.localdomain, overcloud-controller-2.localdomain |
| pxe_ipmitool        | overcloud-controller-0.localdomain, overcloud-controller-1.localdomain, overcloud-controller-2.localdomain |
| redfish             | overcloud-controller-0.localdomain, overcloud-controller-1.localdomain, overcloud-controller-2.localdomain |
+---------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If this list is empty or does not show any of the controllers, then the openstack-ironic-conductor service on this controller failed to start. The likely cause is missing dependencies for vendor drivers.

Finally, check that Nova recognizes both virtual and bare metal compute services. In HA case there should be at least 4 services in total:

$ openstack compute service list --service nova-compute
+----+--------------+-------------------------------------+------+---------+-------+----------------------------+
| ID | Binary       | Host                                | Zone | Status  | State | Updated At                 |
+----+--------------+-------------------------------------+------+---------+-------+----------------------------+
| 21 | nova-compute | overcloud-novacompute-0.localdomain | nova | enabled | up    | 2017-10-11T13:57:21.000000 |
| 30 | nova-compute | overcloud-controller-2.localdomain  | nova | enabled | up    | 2017-10-11T13:57:16.000000 |
| 33 | nova-compute | overcloud-controller-1.localdomain  | nova | enabled | up    | 2017-10-11T13:57:16.000000 |
| 54 | nova-compute | overcloud-controller-0.localdomain  | nova | enabled | up    | 2017-10-11T13:57:14.000000 |
+----+--------------+-------------------------------------+------+---------+-------+----------------------------+

Post-deployment configuration

In this section we configure OpenStack for both bare metal and virtual machines provisioning.

You need at least 3 nodes to use bare metal provisioning: one for the undercloud, one for the controller and one for the actual instance. This guide assumes using both virtual and bare metal computes, so to follow it you need at least one more node, 4 in total for a non-HA configuration or 6 for HA.

This guide uses one network for simplicity. If you encounter weird DHCP, PXE or networking issues with such a single-network configuration, try shutting down the introspection DHCP server on the undercloud after the initial introspection is finished:

sudo systemctl stop openstack-ironic-inspector-dnsmasq

Resource classes

Starting with the Pike release, bare metal instances are scheduled based on custom resource classes. In case of Ironic, a resource class will correspond to a flavor. When planning your bare metal cloud, think of a way to split all nodes into classes, and create flavors accordingly. See bare metal flavor documentation for more details.

Preparing networking

Next, we need to create at least one network for nodes to use. By default Ironic uses the tenant network for the provisioning process, and the same network is often configured for cleaning.

As already mentioned, this guide assumes only one physical network shared between undercloud and overcloud. In this case the subnet address must match the one on the undercloud, but the allocation pools must not overlap (including the pool used by undercloud introspection).

For example, the following commands will work with the default undercloud parameters:

source overcloudrc
openstack network create --share --provider-network-type flat \
    --provider-physical-network datacentre --external provisioning
openstack subnet create --network provisioning \
    --subnet-range 192.168.24.0/24 --gateway 192.168.24.40 \
    --allocation-pool start=192.168.24.41,end=192.168.24.100 provisioning-subnet
openstack router create default-router
openstack router add subnet default-router provisioning-subnet

We will use this network for bare metal instances (both for provisioning and as a tenant network), as well as an external network for virtual instances. In a real situation you will only use it as provisioning, and create a separate physical network as external.

Now you can create a regular tenant network to use for virtual instances and use the default-router to link the provisioning and tenant networks:

openstack network create tenant-net
openstack subnet create --network tenant-net --subnet-range 192.0.3.0/24 \
    --allocation-pool start=192.0.3.10,end=192.0.3.20 tenant-subnet
openstack router add subnet default-router tenant-subnet

Networking using a custom network

If using a custom network for overcloud provisioning, create a network of type vlan with VlanID matching the OcProvisioning network created during deployment:

openstack network create --share --provider-network-type vlan \
  --provider-physical-network datacentre --provider-segment 205 provisioning

Use a subnet range outside of the allocation_pool defined in network_data.yaml, for example:

openstack subnet create --network provisioning --subnet-range \
  172.21.2.0/24 --gateway 172.21.2.1  --allocation-pool \
  start=172.21.2.201,end=172.21.2.250 provisioning-subnet

As defined in Preparing networking, you can create a tenant network along with a default-router to link the provisioning and tenant networks.

Configuring networks

Ironic has to be configured to use three networks for its internal purposes:

• Cleaning network is used during cleaning and is mandatory to configure.

  This network can be configured to a name or UUID during deployment via the IronicCleaningNetwork parameter.

• Provisioning network is used during deployment if the network interface is set to neutron (either explicitly or via setting IronicDefaultNetworkInterface during installation).

  This network is supported by TripleO starting with the Pike release and can be configured to a name or UUID during deployment via the IronicProvisioningNetwork parameter.

• Rescuing network is used when starting the rescue process - repairing broken instances through a special ramdisk.

  This network is supported by TripleO starting wince the Rocky release and can be configured to a name or UUID during deployment via the IronicRescuingNetwork parameter.

Starting with the Ocata release, Ironic is configured to use network called provisioning for all three networks by default. However, network names are not unique. A user creating another network with the same name will break bare metal provisioning. Thus, it’s highly recommended to update the deployment, providing the provider network UUID.

Use the following command to get the UUID:

openstack network show provisioning -f value -c id

Configuring networks on deployment

To update the whole deployment update the environment file you’ve created, setting IronicCleaningNetwork to the this UUID, for example:

parameter_defaults:
    IronicCleaningNetwork: c71f4bfe-409b-4292-818f-21cdf910ee06

In the Pike release or newer, also set the provisioning network. You can use the same network or create a new one:

parameter_defaults:
    IronicCleaningNetwork: c71f4bfe-409b-4292-818f-21cdf910ee06
    IronicProvisioningNetwork: c71f4bfe-409b-4292-818f-21cdf910ee06

In the Rocky release or newer, also set the rescuing network. You can use the same network or create a new one:

parameter_defaults:
    IronicCleaningNetwork: c71f4bfe-409b-4292-818f-21cdf910ee06
    IronicProvisioningNetwork: c71f4bfe-409b-4292-818f-21cdf910ee06
    IronicRescuingNetwork: c71f4bfe-409b-4292-818f-21cdf910ee06

Finally, run the deploy command with exactly the same arguments as before (don’t forget to include the environment file if it was not included previously).

Configuring networks per node

Alternatively, you can set the networks per node starting with the Queens release.

When enrolling nodes, add cleaning_network, provisioning_network and/or rescuing_network to the driver_info dictionary when Preparing inventory.

After enrolling nodes, you can update each of them with the following command (adjusting it for your release):

baremetal node set <node> \
    --driver-info cleaning_network=<network uuid> \
    --driver-info provisioning_network=<network uuid> \
    --driver-info rescuing_network=<network uuid>

Adding deployment images

Ironic requires the ironic-python-agent image stored in Glance. You can use the same images you already have on the undercloud:

source overcloudrc
openstack image create --public --container-format aki \
    --disk-format aki --file ~/ironic-python-agent.kernel deploy-kernel
openstack image create --public --container-format ari \
    --disk-format ari --file ~/ironic-python-agent.initramfs deploy-ramdisk

Note

These commands assume that the images are in the home directory, which is often the case for TripleO.

Creating flavors

As usual with OpenStack, you need to create at least one flavor to be used during deployment. As bare metal resources are inherently not divisible, the flavor will set minimum requirements (CPU count, RAM and disk sizes) that a node must fulfil, see bare metal flavor documentation for details.

Creating a single flavor is sufficient for the simplest case:

source overcloudrc
openstack flavor create --ram 1024 --disk 20 --vcpus 1 baremetal

Note

The disk argument will be used to determine the size of the root partition. The ram and vcpus arguments are ignored for bare metal, starting with the Pike release, if the flavor is configured as explained below.

Starting with the Pike release, switch to scheduling based on resource classes, as explained in the bare metal flavor documentation:

openstack flavor set baremetal --property resources:CUSTOM_BAREMETAL=1
openstack flavor set baremetal --property resources:VCPU=0
openstack flavor set baremetal --property resources:MEMORY_MB=0
openstack flavor set baremetal --property resources:DISK_GB=0

Creating host aggregates

Note

If you don’t plan on using virtual instances, you can skip this step. It also won’t be required in the Stein release, after bare metal nodes stopped report CPU, memory and disk properties.

Stable Branches

For a hybrid bare metal and virtual environment before the Pike release you have to set up host aggregates for virtual and bare metal hosts. You can also optionally follow this procedure until the Stein release. We will use a property called baremetal to link flavors to host aggregates:

openstack aggregate create --property baremetal=true baremetal-hosts
openstack aggregate create --property baremetal=false virtual-hosts
openstack flavor set baremetal --property baremetal=true

Warning

This association won’t work without AggregateInstanceExtraSpecsFilter enabled as described in Essential configuration.

Warning

Any property you set on flavors has to be duplicated on aggregates, otherwise scheduling will fail.

Then for all flavors you’ve created for virtual instances set the same baremetal property to false, for example:

openstack flavor create --ram 1024 --disk 20 --vcpus 1 virtual
openstack flavor set virtual --property baremetal=false

Creating instance images

You can build your images using diskimage-builder tool already available on the undercloud, for example:

disk-image-create centos7 baremetal dhcp-all-interfaces grub2 -o centos-image

Note

The following elements are actually optional:

• dhcp-all-interfaces makes the resulting instance get IP addresses for all NICs via DHCP.

• grub2 installs the grub bootloader on the image, so that local boot can be used in additional to PXE booting.

This command creates a so called partition image, i.e. an image containing only root partition. Ironic also supports whole disk images, i.e. images with the whole partition table embedded. This may be the only option when running non-Linux images. Please check the images documentation for more details on building and using images.

Three components are created for every partition image: the main image with qcow2 extension, the kernel with vmlinuz extension and the initrd image with initrd extension.

Upload them with the following command:

source overcloudrc
KERNEL_ID=$(openstack image create --file centos-image.vmlinuz --public \
    --container-format aki --disk-format aki -f value -c id \
    centos-image.vmlinuz)
RAMDISK_ID=$(openstack image create --file centos-image.initrd --public \
    --container-format ari --disk-format ari -f value -c id \
    centos-image.initrd)
openstack image create --file centos-image.qcow2 --public \
    --container-format bare --disk-format qcow2 \
    --property kernel_id=$KERNEL_ID --property ramdisk_id=$RAMDISK_ID \
    centos-image

Note

A whole disk image will only have one component - the image itself with qcow2 extension. Do not set kernel_id and ramdisk_id properties for such images.

Enrolling nodes

For all nodes you’re enrolling you need to know:

• BMC (IPMI, iDRAC, iLO, etc) address and credentials,

• MAC address of the PXE booting NIC,

• CPU count and architecture, memory size in MiB and root disk size in GiB,

• Serial number or WWN of the root device, if the node has several hard drives.

In the future some of this data will be provided by the introspection process, which is not currently available in the overcloud.

This guide uses inventory files to enroll nodes. Alternatively, you can enroll nodes directly from CLI, see the enrollment documentation for details.

Preparing inventory

Your inventory file (e.g. overcloud-nodes.yaml from Preparing undercloud) should be in the following format:

nodes:
    - name: node-0
      driver: ipmi
      driver_info:
        ipmi_address: <BMC HOST>
        ipmi_username: <BMC USER>
        ipmi_password: <BMC PASSWORD>
        ipmi_port: <BMC PORT>
      resource_class: baremetal
      properties:
        cpu_arch: <CPU ARCHITECTURE>
        local_gb: <ROOT DISK IN GIB>
        root_device:
            serial: <ROOT DISK SERIAL>
      ports:
        - address: <PXE NIC MAC>
          pxe_enabled: true
          local_link_connection:
            switch_id: <SWITCH MAC>
            switch_info: <SWITCH NAME>
            port_id: <INTERFACE NAME>

• The driver field must be one of IronicEnabledDrivers or IronicEnabledHardwareTypes, which we set when Configuring and deploying ironic.

  Stable Branch

  Hardware types are only available since the Pike release. In the example above use pxe_ipmitool instead of ipmi for older releases.

• The resource_class field corresponds to a custom resource class, as explained in Resource classes.

• The root_device property is optional, but it’s highly recommended to set it if the bare metal node has more than one hard drive. There are several properties that can be used instead of the serial number to designate the root device, see the root device hints documentation for details.

• The local_gb field specifies the size (in GiB) of the root device. Its value must match the size of the device specified by the root_device property. However, to allow for partitioning, it’s highly recommended to subtract 1 GiB from it.

• Exactly one port with pxe_enabled set to true must be specified in the ports list. It has to match the NIC used for provisioning.

  Note

  More ports with pxe_enabled=false can be specified safely here. They won’t be used for provisioning, but they are used with the neutron network interface.

Stable Branch

• The memory_mb and cpus properties are mandatory before the Pike release and can optionally be used before Stein.

  Warning

  Do not populate memory_mb and cpus before the Stein release if you do not use host aggregates for separating virtual and bare metal flavors as described in Creating host aggregates.

• local_link_connection is required when using the neutron network interface. This information is needed so ironic/neutron can identify which interfaces on switches corresponding to the ports defined in ironic.

  • switch_id the ID the switch uses to identify itself over LLDP(usually the switch MAC).

  • switch_info the name associated with the switch in ML2HostConfigs (see ML2HostConfigs in ml2-ansible example)

  • port_id the name associated with the interface on the switch.

Enrolling nodes

The overcloud-nodes.yaml file prepared in the previous steps can now be imported in Ironic:

source overcloudrc
baremetal create overcloud-nodes.yaml

Warning

This command is provided by Ironic, not TripleO. It also does not feature support for updates, so if you need to change something, you have to use baremetal node set and similar commands.

The nodes appear in the enroll provision state, you need to check their BMC credentials and make them available:

DEPLOY_KERNEL=$(openstack image show deploy-kernel -f value -c id)
DEPLOY_RAMDISK=$(openstack image show deploy-ramdisk -f value -c id)

for uuid in $(baremetal node list --provision-state enroll -f value -c UUID);
do
    baremetal node set $uuid \
        --driver-info deploy_kernel=$DEPLOY_KERNEL \
        --driver-info deploy_ramdisk=$DEPLOY_RAMDISK \
        --driver-info rescue_kernel=$DEPLOY_KERNEL \
        --driver-info rescue_ramdisk=$DEPLOY_RAMDISK
    baremetal node manage $uuid --wait &&
        baremetal node provide $uuid
done

The deploy kernel and ramdisk were created as part of Adding deployment images.

The baremetal node provide command makes a node go through cleaning procedure, so it might take some time depending on the configuration. Check your nodes status with:

baremetal node list --fields uuid name provision_state last_error

Wait for all nodes to reach the available state. Any failures during cleaning has to be corrected before proceeding with deployment.

Populating host aggregates

Note

If you don’t plan on using virtual instances, you can skip this step. It also won’t be required in the Stein release, after bare metal nodes stopped report CPU, memory and disk properties.

Stable Branch

For hybrid bare metal and virtual case you need to specify which host belongs to which host aggregates (virtual or baremetal as created in Creating host aggregates).

When the default host names are used, we can take advantage of the fact that every virtual host will have compute in its name. All bare metal hypervisors will be assigned to one (non-HA) or three (HA) controller hosts. So we can do the assignment with the following commands:

source overcloudrc
for vm_host in $(openstack hypervisor list -f value -c "Hypervisor Hostname" | grep compute);
do
    openstack aggregate add host virtual-hosts $vm_host
done

openstack aggregate add host baremetal-hosts overcloud-controller-0.localdomain
# Ignore the following two for a non-HA environment
openstack aggregate add host baremetal-hosts overcloud-controller-1.localdomain
openstack aggregate add host baremetal-hosts overcloud-controller-2.localdomain

Note

Every time you scale out compute nodes, you need to add newly added hosts to the virtual-hosts aggregate.

Checking available resources

Check that nodes are really enrolled and the power state is reflected correctly (it may take some time):

$ source overcloudrc
$ baremetal node list
+--------------------------------------+------------+---------------+-------------+--------------------+-------------+
| UUID                                 | Name       | Instance UUID | Power State | Provisioning State | Maintenance |
+--------------------------------------+------------+---------------+-------------+--------------------+-------------+
| a970c5db-67dd-4676-95ba-af1edc74b2ee | instance-0 | None          | power off   | available          | False       |
| bd99ec64-4bfc-491b-99e6-49bd384b526d | instance-1 | None          | power off   | available          | False       |
+--------------------------------------+------------+---------------+-------------+--------------------+-------------+

After a few minutes, new hypervisors should appear in Nova and the stats should display the sum of bare metal and virtual resources:

$ openstack hypervisor list
+----+--------------------------------------+
| ID | Hypervisor Hostname                  |
+----+--------------------------------------+
|  2 | overcloud-novacompute-0.localdomain  |
| 17 | bd99ec64-4bfc-491b-99e6-49bd384b526d |
| 20 | a970c5db-67dd-4676-95ba-af1edc74b2ee |
+----+--------------------------------------+

Note

Each bare metal node becomes a separate hypervisor in Nova. The hypervisor host name always matches the associated node UUID.

Next you can use the Placement API (available only via cURL for the time being) to check that bare metal resources are properly exposed. Start with checking that all nodes are recorded:

$ token=$(openstack token issue -f value -c id)
$ endpoint=$(openstack endpoint show placement -f value -c publicurl)
$ curl -sH "X-Auth-Token: $token" $endpoint/resource_providers | jq -r '.resource_providers | map({node: .name, uuid})'
[
  {
    "uuid": "9dff98a8-6fc9-4a05-8d78-c1d5888d9fde",
    "node": "overcloud-novacompute-0.localdomain"
  },
  {
    "uuid": "61d741b5-33d6-40a1-bcbe-b38ea34ca6c8",
    "node": "bd99ec64-4bfc-491b-99e6-49bd384b526d"
  },
  {
    "uuid": "e22bc261-53be-43b3-848f-e29c728142d3",
    "node": "a970c5db-67dd-4676-95ba-af1edc74b2ee"
  }
]

Then for each of the bare metal resource providers (having node UUIDs as names) check their inventory:

$ curl -sH "X-Auth-Token: $token" $endpoint/resource_providers/e22bc261-53be-43b3-848f-e29c728142d3/inventories | jq .inventories
{
  "CUSTOM_BAREMETAL": {
    "max_unit": 1,
    "min_unit": 1,
    "step_size": 1,
    "reserved": 0,
    "total": 1,
    "allocation_ratio": 1
  }
}

You see the custom baremetal resource class reported, as well as available disk space (only before the Queens release). If you see an empty inventory, nova probably consider the node unavailable. Check No Valid Host Found Error for tips on a potential cause.

Booting a bare metal instance

You will probably want to create a keypair to use for logging into instances. For example, using SSH public key from undercloud:

source overcloudrc
openstack keypair create --public-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub undercloud-key

Now you’re ready to boot your first bare metal instance:

openstack server create --image centos-image --flavor baremetal \
    --nic net-id=$(openstack network show provisioning -f value -c id) \
    --key-name undercloud-key instance-0

After some time (depending on the image), you will see the prepared instance:

$ openstack server list
+--------------------------------------+------------+--------+-----------------------------+
| ID                                   | Name       | Status | Networks                    |
+--------------------------------------+------------+--------+-----------------------------+
| 2022d237-e249-44bd-b864-e7f536a8e439 | instance-0 | ACTIVE | provisioning=192.168.24.50  |
+--------------------------------------+------------+--------+-----------------------------+

Note

If you encounter “No valid host found” error from Nova, make sure to read the undercloud troubleshooting guide on this topic: No Valid Host Found Error.

Let’s check that it actually got scheduled on a bare metal machine:

$ openstack server show instance-0 -c "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host" -c "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname"
+-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Field                               | Value                                |
+-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host                | overcloud-controller-0.localdomain   |
| OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname | bd99ec64-4bfc-491b-99e6-49bd384b526d |
+-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+

You can now log into it:

$ ssh centos@192.168.24.50
The authenticity of host '192.168.24.50 (192.168.24.50)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is eb:35:45:c5:ed:d9:8a:e8:4b:20:db:06:10:6f:05:74.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.24.50' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
[centos@instance-0 ~]$

Now let’s try the same with a virtual instance:

openstack server create --image centos-image --flavor virtual \
    --nic net-id=$(openstack network show tenant-net -f value -c id) \
    --key-name undercloud-key instance-1

This instance gets scheduled on a virtual host:

$ openstack server show instance-1 -c "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host" -c "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname"
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Field                               | Value                               |
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host                | overcloud-novacompute-0.localdomain |
| OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname | overcloud-novacompute-0.localdomain |
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

Booting a bare metal instance from a cinder volume

Cinder volumes can be used to back a baremetal node over iSCSI, in order to do this each baremetal node must first be configured to boot from a volume. The connector ID for each node should be unique, below we achieve this by incrementing the value of <NUM>:

$ baremetal node set --property capabilities=iscsi_boot:true --storage-interface cinder <NODEID>
$ baremetal volume connector create --node <NODEID> --type iqn --connector-id iqn.2010-10.org.openstack.node<NUM>

The image used should be configured to boot from a iSCSI root disk, on Centos 7 this is achieved by ensuring that the iscsi module is added to the ramdisk and passing rd.iscsi.firmware=1 to the kernel in the grub config:

$ mkdir /tmp/mountpoint
$ guestmount -i -a /tmp/CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2 /tmp/mountpoint
$ mount -o bind /dev /tmp/mountpoint/dev
$ chroot /tmp/mountpoint /bin/bash
chroot> mv /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf_
chroot> echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" > /etc/resolv.conf
chroot> yum install -y iscsi-initiator-utils
chroot> mv /etc/resolv.conf_ /etc/resolv.conf
# Be careful here to update the correct ramdisk (check/boot/grub2/grub.cfg)
chroot> dracut --force --add "network iscsi" /boot/initramfs-3.10.0-693.5.2.el7.x86_64.img 3.10.0-693.5.2.el7.x86_64
# Edit the file /etc/default/grub and add rd.iscsi.firmware=1 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=...
chroot> vi /etc/default/grub
chroot> exit
$ umount /tmp/mountpoint/dev
$ guestunmount /tmp/mountpoint
$ guestfish -a /tmp/CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2 -m /dev/sda1 sh "/sbin/grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg"

Note

This image can no longer be used to do regular local boot, a situation that should be fixed in future versions.

This image can then be added to glance and a volume created from it:

$ openstack image create --disk-format qcow2 --container-format bare --file /tmp/CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud.qcow2 centos-bfv
$ openstack volume create --size 10 --image centos-bfv --bootable centos-test-volume

Finally this volume can be used to back a baremetal instance:

$ openstack server create --flavor baremetal --volume centos-test-volume --key default centos-test

Configuring ml2-ansible for multi-tenant networking

Ironic can be configured to use a neutron ML2 mechanism driver for baremetal port binding. In this example we use the ml2-ansible plugin to configure ports on a Juniper switch (the plugin supports multiple switch types) to ensure baremetal networks are isolated from each other.

ml2-ansible configuration

The following parameters must be configured in an environment file and used when deploying the overcloud:

• ML2HostConfigs: this mapping contains a entry for each switch netansible will configure, for each switch there should be a key(where the key is used to identify the switch) and a mapping containing details specific to the switch, the following details should be provided

  • ansible_network_os: network platform the switch corresponds to.

  • ansible_host: switch IP

  • ansible_user: user to connect to the switch as

  • ansible_ssh_pass: (optional, alternatively use a private key) password

  • ansible_ssh_private_key_file: (optional, alternatively use a password) private key

  • manage_vlans: (optional, boolean) - If the vlan networks have not been defined on your switch and the ansible_user has permission to create them, this should be left as true. If not then you need to set to false and ensure they are created by a user with the appropriate permissions.

  • mac: (optional) - Chassis MAC ID of the switch

• IronicDefaultNetworkInterface set the default network type for nodes being deployed. In most cases when using multi-tenant networking you’ll want to set this to neutron. If the default isn’t set to neutron here then the network-interface needs to be set on a per node bases. This can be done with the --network-interface parameter to either the node create or node set command.

The overcloud deploy command must also include -e /usr/share/openstack-tripleo-heat-templates/environments/services/neutron-ml2-ansible.yaml in order to set OS::TripleO::Services::NeutronCorePlugin and NeutronMechanismDrivers.

ml2-ansible example

In this minimalistic example we have a baremetal node (ironic-0) being controlled by ironic in the overcloud. This node is connected to a juniper switch with ironic/neutron controlling the vlan id for the switch:

   +-------------------------------+
   |                       xe-0/0/7+-+
   |            switch1            | |
   |xe-0/0/1                       | |
   +-------------------------------+ |
      |                              |
      |                              |
+---------------+        +-----------------+
|     |         |        |                 |
| br-baremetal  |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
|   Overcloud   |        |    Ironic-0     |
|               |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
|               |        |                 |
+---------------+        +-----------------+

Switch config for xe-0/0/7 should be removed before deployment, and xe-0/0/1 should be a member of the vlan range 1200-1299:

xe-0/0/1 {
    native-vlan-id XXX;
    unit 0 {
        family ethernet-switching {
            interface-mode trunk;
            vlan {
                members [ XXX 1200-1299 ];
            }
        }
    }
}

We first need to deploy ironic in the overcloud and include the following configuration:

parameter_defaults:
  IronicProvisioningNetwork: baremetal
  IronicCleaningNetwork: baremetal
  IronicDefaultNetworkInterface: neutron
  NeutronMechanismDrivers: openvswitch,ansible
  NeutronNetworkVLANRanges: baremetal:1200:1299
  NeutronFlatNetworks: datacentre,baremetal
  NeutronBridgeMappings: datacentre:br-ex,baremetal:br-baremetal
  ML2HostConfigs:
    switch1:
      ansible_network_os: junos
      ansible_host: 10.9.95.25
      ansible_user: ansible
      ansible_ssh_pass: ansible_password
      manage_vlans: false

Once the overcloud is deployed, we need to create a network that will be used as a provisioning (and cleaning) network:

openstack network create --provider-network-type vlan --provider-physical-network baremetal \
  --provider-segment 1200 baremetal
openstack subnet create --network baremetal --subnet-range 192.168.25.0/24 --ip-version 4 \
  --allocation-pool start=192.168.25.30,end=192.168.25.50 baremetal-subnet

Note

This network should be routed to the ctlplane network on the overcloud (while on this network the ironic-0 will need access to the TFTP/HTTP and the ironic API), one way to achieve this would be to set up a network representing the ctlplane network and add a router between them:

openstack network create --provider-network-type flat --provider-physical-network \
  baremetal ctlplane
openstack subnet create --network ctlplane --subnet-range 192.168.24.0/24 \
  --ip-version 4 --gateway 192.168.24.254 --no-dhcp ctlplane-subnet
openstack router create provisionrouter
openstack router add subnet provisionrouter baremetal-subnet
openstack router add subnet provisionrouter ctlplane-subnet

Each overcloud controller will also need a route added to route traffic bound for 192.168.25.0/24 via 192.168.24.254, this can be done in the network template when deploying the overcloud.

If not already provided in overcloud-nodes.yaml above, the local-link-connection values for switch_info, port_id and switch_id can be provided here:

baremetal port set --local-link-connection switch_info=switch1 \
  --local-link-connection port_id=xe-0/0/7 \
  --local-link-connection switch_id=00:00:00:00:00:00 <PORTID>

The node can now be registered with ironic and cleaned in the usual way, once the node is available it can be used by another tenant in a regular VLAN network:

openstack network create tenant-net
openstack subnet create --network tenant-net --subnet-range 192.168.3.0/24 \
  --allocation-pool start=192.168.3.10,end=192.168.3.20 tenant-subnet
openstack server create --flavor baremetal --image overcloud-full \
  --key default --network tenant-net test1

Assuming an external network is available the server can then be allocated a floating ip:

openstack router create external
openstack router add subnet external tenant-subnet
openstack router set --external-gateway external external
openstack floating ip create external
openstack server add floating ip test1 <IP>