ironic-python-agent/doc/source/admin/hardware_managers.rst

Built-in hardware managers

GenericHardwareManager

This is the default hardware manager for ironic-python-agent. It provides support for hardware-inventory and the default deploy, clean, and service steps.

Deploy steps

deploy.write_image(node, ports, image_info, configdrive=None)

A deploy step backing the write_image deploy step of the direct deploy interface <admin/interfaces/deploy.html#direct-deploy>. Should not be used explicitly, but can be overridden to provide a custom way of writing an image.

deploy.erase_devices_metadata(node, ports)

Erases partition tables from all recognized disk devices. Can be used with software RAID since it requires empty holder disks.

raid.apply_configuration(node, ports, raid_config, delete_existing=True)

Apply a software RAID configuration. It belongs to the raid interface and must be used through the ironic RAID feature <admin/raid.html>.

Injecting files

deploy.inject_files(node, ports, files, verify_ca=True)

This optional deploy step (introduced in the Wallaby release series) allows injecting arbitrary files into the node. The list of files is built from the optional inject_files property of the node concatenated with the explicit files argument. Each item in the list is a dictionary with the following fields:

path (required)

An absolute path to the file on the target partition. All missing directories will be created.

partition

Specifies the target partition in one of 3 ways:

• A number is treated as a partition index (starting with 1) on the root device.
• A path is treated as a block device path (e.g. /dev/sda1 or /dev/disk/by-partlabel/<something>.
• If missing, the agent will try to find a partition containing the first component of the path on the root device. E.g. for /etc/sysctl.d/my.conf, look for a partition containing /etc.

deleted

If True, the file is deleted, not created. Incompatible with content.

content

Data to write. Incompatible with deleted. Can take two forms:

• A URL of the content. Can use Python-style formatting to build a node specific URL, e.g. http://server/{node[uuid]}/{ports[0][address]}.
• Base64 encoded binary contents.

mode, owner, group

Numeric mode, owner ID and group ID of the file.

dirmode

Numeric mode of the leaf directory if it has to be created.

This deploy step is disabled by default and can be enabled via a deploy template or via the ipa-inject-files-priority kernel parameter.

Known limitations:

• Names are not supported for owner and group.
• LVM is not supported.

Clean steps

deploy.burnin_cpu

Stress-test the CPUs of a node via stress-ng for a configurable amount of time. Disabled by default.

deploy.burnin_disk

Stress-test the disks of a node via fio. Disabled by default.

deploy.burnin_memory

Stress-test the memory of a node via stress-ng for a configurable amount of time. Disabled by default.

deploy.burnin_network

Stress-test the network of a pair of nodes via fio for a configurable amount of time. Disabled by default.

deploy.erase_devices

Securely erases all information from all recognized disk devices. Relatively fast when secure ATA erase is available, otherwise can take hours, especially on a virtual environment. Enabled by default.

deploy.erase_devices_metadata

Erases partition tables from all recognized disk devices. Can be used as an alternative to the much longer erase_devices step.

deploy.erase_pstore

Erases entries from pstore, the kernel's oops/panic logger. Disabled by default. Can be enabled via priority overrides.

raid.create_configuration

Create a RAID configuration. This step belongs to the raid interface and must be used through the ironic RAID feature <admin/raid.html>.

raid.delete_configuration

Delete the RAID configuration. This step belongs to the raid interface and must be used through the ironic RAID feature <admin/raid.html>.

Service steps

Service steps can be invoked by an operator of a baremetal node, to modify or perform some intermediate action outside the realm of normal use of a deployed bare metal instance. This is similar in form of interaction to cleaning, and ultimately some cleaning and deployment steps are available to be used.

deploy.burnin_cpu

Stress-test the CPUs of a node via stress-ng for a configurable amount of time.

deploy.burnin_memory

Stress-test the memory of a node via stress-ng for a configurable amount of time.

deploy.burnin_network

Stress-test the network of a pair of nodes via fio for a configurable amount of time.

raid.create_configuration

Create a RAID configuration. This step belongs to the raid interface and must be used through the ironic RAID feature <admin/raid.html>.

raid.apply_configuration(node, ports, raid_config, delete_existing=True)

Apply a software RAID configuration. It belongs to the raid interface and must be used through the ironic RAID feature <admin/raid.html>.

raid.delete_configuration

Delete the RAID configuration. This step belongs to the raid interface and must be used through the ironic RAID feature <admin/raid.html>.

deploy.write_image(node, ports, image_info, configdrive=None)

A step backing the write_image deploy step of the direct deploy interface <admin/interfaces/deploy.html#direct-deploy>. Should not be used explicitly, but can be overridden to provide a custom way of writing an image.

deploy.inject_files(node, ports, files, verify_ca=True)

A step to inject files into a system. Specifically this step is documented earlier in this documentation.

Note

The Ironic Developers chose to limit the items available for service steps such that the risk of data distruction is generally minimized. That being said, it could be reasonable to reconfigure RAID devices through local hardware managers or to write the base OS image as part of a service operation. As such, caution should be taken, and if additional data erasure steps are needed you may want to consider moving a node through cleaning to remove the workload. Otherwise, if you have a use case, please feel free to reach out to the Ironic Developers so we can understand and enable your use case.

Cleaning safeguards

The stock hardware manager contains a number of safeguards to prevent unsafe conditions from occuring.

Devices Skip List

A list of devices that Ironic does not touch during the cleaning and deployment process can be specified in the node properties field under skip_block_devices. This should be a list of dictionaries containing hints to identify the drives. For example:

'skip_block_devices': [{'name': '/dev/vda', 'vendor': '0x1af4'}]

To prevent software RAID devices from being deleted, put their volume name (defined in the target_raid_config) to the list.

Note: one dictionary with one value for each of the logical disks. For example:

'skip_block_devices': [{'volume_name': 'large'}, {'volume_name': 'temp'}]

Shared Disk Cluster Filesystems

Commonly used shared disk cluster filesystems, when detected, causes cleaning processes on stock hardware manager methods to abort prior to destroying the contents on the disk.

These filesystems include IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS), VmWare Virtual Machine File System (VMFS), and Red Hat Global File System (GFS2).

For information on troubleshooting, and disabling this check, see /admin/troubleshooting.

Custom hardware managers

MellanoxDeviceHardwareManager

This is a custom hardware manager for ironic-python-agent. It provides support for Nvidia/Mellanox NICs.

• You can get the binraies firmware for all Nvidia/Mellanox NICs from here Nvidia firmware downloads
• And you can get the deviceID from here Nvidia/Mellanox NICs list
• Also you can check here MFT decumentation for some supported parameters

Clean steps

update_nvidia_nic_firmware_image(node, ports, images)

A clean step used to update Nvidia/Mellanox NICs firmware images from the required parameter images list. it's disabled by default. Each image in the list is a dictionary with the following fields:

url (required)

The url of the firmware image (file://, http://).

checksum (required)

checksum of the provided image.

checksumType (required)

checksum type, it could be (md5/sha512/sha256).

componentFlavor (required)

The PSID of the nic.

version (required)

version of the firmware image , it must be the same as in the image file.

update_nvidia_nic_firmware_settings(node, ports, settings)

A clean step used to update Nvidia/Mellanox NICs firmware settings from the required parameter settings list. it's disabled by default. Each settings in the list is a dictionary with the following fields:

deviceID (required)

The ID of the NIC

globalConfig

The global configuration for NIC

function0Config

The per-function configuration of the first port of the NIC

function1Config

The per-function configuration of the second port of the NIC

Service steps

The Clean steps supported by the MellanoxDeviceHardwareManager are also available as Service steps if an infrastructure operator wishes to apply new firmware for a running machine.