ironic-specs/priorities/queens-priorities.rst

Queens Project Priorities

This is a list of development priorities the Ironic team is prioritizing for Queens development, in order of priority. Note that this is not our complete backlog for the cycle, we still hope to review and land non-priority items.

The primary contact(s) listed is/are responsible for tracking the status of that work and herding cats to help get that work done. They are not the only contributor(s) to this work, and not necessary doing most of the coding! They are expected to be available on IRC and the ML for questions, and report status on the whiteboard for the weekly IRC sync-up. The number of primary contacts is limited to 2-3 maximum to simplify communication. We expect at least one of them to have core privileges to simplify getting changes in.

Essential Priorities

Priority	Primary Contacts
Ironic client version negotiation	TheJulia, dtantsur
External project auth rework	pas-ha, TheJulia
Old ironic CLI deprecation	rloo
Classic drivers deprecation	dtantsur
Reference architecture guide	dtantsur, sambetts
Traits support planning	johnthetubaguy, TheJulia, dtantsur, mgoddard

High Priorities

Priority	Primary Contacts
Neutron event processing	vdrok, vsaienk0, sambetts
Routed networks support	sambetts, vsaienk0, bfournie
Rescue mode	rloo, stendulker, aparnav
Clean up deploy interfaces	vdrok
Zuul v3 jobs in-tree	sambetts, derekh, jlvillal
Graphical console	pas-ha, vdrok, rpioso
BIOS config framework	dtantsur, yolanda, rpioso
Ansible deploy interface	pas-ha, yuriyz

Details

Ironic client version negotiation

Currently, we only support using a single API version for the whole life time of an ironic client instance. We need to support using several versions in the same client. We also need a way for the client to negotiate a maximum mutually supported version with a server. Then we need to switch to using this negotiated version in the OSC CLI by default. Finally, we will use the version negotiation in the ironic virt driver.

External project auth rework

Work is under way to change how ironic authenticates with other OpenStack services, so that it uses keystoneauth adapters. This will make it uniform, consistent, straightforward, and compatible with the latest OpenStack best practices.

Old ironic CLI deprecation

We would like to deprecate the ironic CLI tool in favour of openstack baremetal commands based on OpenStackClient.

Classic drivers deprecation

We would like to deprecate the ability to load classic drivers, as well as classic drivers themselves, in favour of hardware types. We are providing a migration guide for the switch, and we are also considering writing an automated migration tool, though it may be tricky. See ../specs/approved/classic-drivers-future for details.

Reference architecture guide

To help new deployers make the right choices, we need a document describing a reference architecture for an ironic deployment, especially around multi-tenant networking and co-existing with VMs.

Neutron event processing

Currently ironic has no way to determine when certain asynchronous events actually finish in neutron, and with what result. Nova, on the contrary, uses a special neutron driver, which filters out notifications and posts some of them to a special nova API endpoint. We should do the same.

Routed networks support

Ironic should become aware of L2 segments available to connected networks as well as which L2 networks are actually available to nodes to correctly pick subnet (IP address) when doing provisioning/cleaning.

Rescue mode

This is necessary for users that lose regular access to their machine (e.g. lost passwords). The rescue mode spec <../specs/approved/implement-rescue-mode> was merged in Newton, the code is partially done, let's put some effort into finishing it in Queens.

Clean up deploy interfaces

There is a lot of duplication between the iscsi and direct deploy interface implementations. We need to clean them up to simplify future maintenance.

Zuul v3 jobs in-tree

With the switch to Zuul v3 we can now have our job definitions in our source tree. Let us switch all jobs during this cycle.

Graphical console

We need a way to expose graphical (e.g. VNC) consoles to users from drivers that support it.

BIOS config framework

Some drivers support setting BIOS (UEFI, etc) configuration out-of-band. We would like to introduce a framework (HTTP and driver API) for drivers to expose this feature to users.

Ansible deploy interface

A deploy interface using ansible was developed out-of-tree and is currently a part of ironic-staging-drivers. We need to import it into ironic to simplify advanced use cases, requiring extensive customizations. The spec <../specs/approved/ansible-deploy-driver> was approved, now we need to clean up the code and move it in-tree.

Traits support planning

Nova is switching from capabilities to traits in the coming cycles. We should make sure we are ready for the switch. The minimum goal for Queens is to have a specification approved, outlining our plan on traits support.