diff --git a/ironic_lib/disk_utils.py b/ironic_lib/disk_utils.py
index 46d68658..5a1f2507 100644
--- a/ironic_lib/disk_utils.py
+++ b/ironic_lib/disk_utils.py
@@ -559,20 +559,34 @@ def _get_configdrive(configdrive, node_uuid, tempdir=None):
     else:
         data = configdrive
 
-    try:
-        data = io.BytesIO(base64.decode_as_bytes(data))
-    except Exception as exc:
-        error_msg = (_('Config drive for node %(node)s is not base64 encoded '
-                       'or the content is malformed. %(cls)s: %(err)s.')
-                     % {'node': node_uuid, 'err': exc,
-                        'cls': type(exc).__name__})
-        if is_url:
-            error_msg += _(' Downloaded from "%s".') % configdrive
-        raise exception.InstanceDeployFailure(error_msg)
-
     configdrive_file = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(delete=False,
                                                    prefix='configdrive',
                                                    dir=tempdir)
+
+    try:
+        data = io.BytesIO(base64.decode_as_bytes(data))
+    except Exception as exc:
+        if isinstance(data, bytes):
+            LOG.debug('Config drive for node %(node)s is not base64 encoded '
+                      '(%(error)s), assuming binary',
+                      {'node': node_uuid, 'error': exc})
+            configdrive_mb = int(math.ceil(len(data) / units.Mi))
+            configdrive_file.write(data)
+            configdrive_file.close()
+            return (configdrive_mb, configdrive_file.name)
+        else:
+            configdrive_file.close()
+            utils.unlink_without_raise(configdrive_file.name)
+
+            error_msg = (_('Config drive for node %(node)s is not base64 '
+                           'encoded or the content is malformed. '
+                           '%(cls)s: %(err)s.')
+                         % {'node': node_uuid, 'err': exc,
+                            'cls': type(exc).__name__})
+            if is_url:
+                error_msg += _(' Downloaded from "%s".') % configdrive
+            raise exception.InstanceDeployFailure(error_msg)
+
     configdrive_mb = 0
     with gzip.GzipFile('configdrive', 'rb', fileobj=data) as gunzipped:
         try:
diff --git a/ironic_lib/tests/test_disk_utils.py b/ironic_lib/tests/test_disk_utils.py
index a35924e8..11974563 100644
--- a/ironic_lib/tests/test_disk_utils.py
+++ b/ironic_lib/tests/test_disk_utils.py
@@ -996,6 +996,17 @@ class GetConfigdriveTestCase(base.IronicLibTestCase):
                                           fileobj=mock.ANY)
         mock_copy.assert_called_once_with(mock.ANY, mock.ANY)
 
+    def test_get_configdrive_binary(self, mock_requests, mock_copy):
+        mock_requests.return_value = mock.MagicMock(content=b'content')
+        tempdir = tempfile.mkdtemp()
+        (size, path) = disk_utils._get_configdrive('http://1.2.3.4/cd',
+                                                   'fake-node-uuid',
+                                                   tempdir=tempdir)
+        self.assertTrue(path.startswith(tempdir))
+        self.assertEqual(b'content', open(path, 'rb').read())
+        mock_requests.assert_called_once_with('http://1.2.3.4/cd')
+        self.assertFalse(mock_copy.called)
+
     @mock.patch.object(gzip, 'GzipFile', autospec=True)
     def test_get_configdrive_base64_string(self, mock_gzip, mock_requests,
                                            mock_copy):