iLO drivers

Overview

iLO drivers enable to take advantage of features of iLO management engine in HPE ProLiant servers. iLO drivers are targeted for HPE ProLiant Gen 8 systems and above which have iLO 4 management engine.

For more details, please refer the iLO driver document of Juno, Kilo and Liberty releases, and for up-to-date information (like tested platforms, known issues, etc), please check the iLO driver wiki page.

Currently there are 3 iLO drivers:

  • iscsi_ilo
  • agent_ilo
  • pxe_ilo

The iscsi_ilo and agent_ilo drivers provide security enhanced PXE-less deployment by using iLO virtual media to boot up the bare metal node. These drivers send management info through the management channel and separate it from the data channel which is used for deployment.

iscsi_ilo and agent_ilo drivers use deployment ramdisk built from diskimage-builder. The iscsi_ilo driver deploys from ironic conductor and supports both net-boot and local-boot of instance. agent_ilo deploys from bare metal node and supports both net-boot and local-boot of instance.

pxe_ilo driver uses PXE/iSCSI for deployment (just like normal PXE driver) and deploys from ironic conductor. Additionally it supports automatic setting of requested boot mode from nova. This driver doesn’t require iLO Advanced license.

Prerequisites

  • proliantutils is a python package which contains a set of modules for managing HPE ProLiant hardware.

    Install proliantutils module on the ironic conductor node. Minimum version required is 2.2.1:

    $ pip install "proliantutils>=2.2.1"

  • ipmitool command must be present on the service node(s) where ironic-conductor is running. On most distros, this is provided as part of the ipmitool package. Refer to Hardware Inspection Support for more information on recommended version.

Different Configuration for ilo drivers

Glance Configuration

  1. Configure Glance image service with its storage backend as Swift.

  2. Set a temp-url key for Glance user in Swift. For example, if you have configured Glance with user glance-swift and tenant as service, then run the below command:

    swift --os-username=service:glance-swift post -m temp-url-key:mysecretkeyforglance

  3. Fill the required parameters in the [glance] section in /etc/ironic/ironic.conf. Normally you would be required to fill in the following details:

    [glance]
swift_temp_url_key=mysecretkeyforglance
swift_endpoint_url=https://10.10.1.10:8080
swift_api_version=v1
swift_account=AUTH_51ea2fb400c34c9eb005ca945c0dc9e1
swift_container=glance

The details can be retrieved by running the below command:

$ swift --os-username=service:glance-swift stat -v | grep -i url

StorageURL:     http://10.10.1.10:8080/v1/AUTH_51ea2fb400c34c9eb005ca945c0dc9e1
Meta Temp-Url-Key: mysecretkeyforglance

  1. Swift must be accessible with the same admin credentials configured in Ironic. For example, if Ironic is configured with the below credentials in /etc/ironic/ironic.conf:

    [keystone_authtoken]
admin_password = password
admin_user = ironic
admin_tenant_name = service

    Ensure auth_version in keystone_authtoken to 2.

    Then, the below command should work.:

    $ swift --os-username ironic --os-password password --os-tenant-name service --auth-version 2 stat

                     Account: AUTH_22af34365a104e4689c46400297f00cb
                  Containers: 2
                     Objects: 18
                       Bytes: 1728346241
Objects in policy "policy-0": 18
  Bytes in policy "policy-0": 1728346241
           Meta Temp-Url-Key: mysecretkeyforglance
                 X-Timestamp: 1409763763.84427
                  X-Trans-Id: tx51de96a28f27401eb2833-005433924b
                Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
               Accept-Ranges: bytes

  2. Restart the Ironic conductor service:

    $ service ironic-conductor restart

Web server configuration on conductor

  • The HTTP(S) web server can be configured in many ways. For apache web server on Ubuntu, refer here

  • Following config variables need to be set in /etc/ironic/ironic.conf:

    • use_web_server_for_images in [ilo] section:

      [ilo]
use_web_server_for_images = True

    • http_url and http_root in [deploy] section:

      [deploy]
# Ironic compute node's http root path. (string value)
http_root=/httpboot

# Ironic compute node's HTTP server URL. Example:
# http://192.1.2.3:8080 (string value)
http_url=http://192.168.0.2:8080

use_web_server_for_images: If the variable is set to false, iscsi_ilo and agent_ilo uses swift containers to host the intermediate floppy image and the boot ISO. If the variable is set to true, these drivers use the local web server for hosting the intermediate files. The default value for use_web_server_for_images is False.

http_url: The value for this variable is prefixed with the generated intermediate files to generate a URL which is attached in the virtual media.

http_root: It is the directory location to which ironic conductor copies the intermediate floppy image and the boot ISO.

Note

HTTPS is strongly recommended over HTTP web server configuration for security enhancement. The iscsi_ilo and agent_ilo will send the instance’s configdrive over an encrypted channel if web server is HTTPS enabled.

Enable driver

  1. Build a deploy ISO (and kernel and ramdisk) image, see Building or downloading a deploy ramdisk image

  2. See Glance Configuration for configuring glance image service with its storage backend as swift.

  3. Upload this image to Glance:

    glance image-create --name deploy-ramdisk.iso --disk-format iso --container-format bare < deploy-ramdisk.iso

  4. Add the driver name to the list of enabled_drivers in /etc/ironic/ironic.conf. For example, for iscsi_ilo driver:

    enabled_drivers = fake,pxe_ssh,pxe_ipmitool,iscsi_ilo

    Similarly it can be added for agent_ilo and pxe_ilo drivers.

  5. Restart the ironic conductor service:

    $ service ironic-conductor restart

Drivers

iscsi_ilo driver

Overview

iscsi_ilo driver was introduced as an alternative to pxe_ipmitool and pxe_ipminative drivers for HPE ProLiant servers. iscsi_ilo uses virtual media feature in iLO to boot up the bare metal node instead of using PXE or iPXE.

Target Users

  • Users who do not want to use PXE/TFTP protocol in their data centers.

  • Users who have concerns with PXE protocol’s security issues and want to have a security enhanced PXE-less deployment mechanism.

    The PXE driver passes management information in clear-text to the bare metal node. However, if swift proxy server and glance have HTTPS endpoints (See Enabling HTTPS in Swift, Enabling HTTPS in Image service for more information), the iscsi_ilo driver provides enhanced security by exchanging management information with swift and glance endpoints over HTTPS. The management information, deploy ramdisk and boot images for the instance will be retrieved over encrypted management network via iLO virtual media.

Tested Platforms

This driver should work on HPE ProLiant Gen7 Servers with iLO 3, Gen8 Servers and above with iLO 4. It has been tested with the following servers:

  • ProLiant DL380 G7
  • ProLiant DL380e Gen8
  • ProLiant DL580 Gen8 UEFI
  • ProLiant DL180 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant DL360 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant DL380 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant XL450 Gen9 UEFI

For more up-to-date information on server platform support info, refer iLO driver wiki page.

Features

  • PXE-less deploy with virtual media.
  • Automatic detection of current boot mode.
  • Automatic setting of the required boot mode, if UEFI boot mode is requested by the nova flavor’s extra spec.
  • Supports booting the instance from virtual media (netboot) as well as booting locally from disk. By default, the instance will always boot from virtual media for partition images.
  • UEFI Boot Support
  • UEFI Secure Boot Support
  • Passing management information via secure, encrypted management network (virtual media) if swift proxy server and glance have HTTPS endpoints. See Enabling HTTPS in Swift, Enabling HTTPS in Image service for more information. User image provisioning is done using iSCSI over data network, so this driver has the benefit of security enhancement with the same performance. It segregates management info from data channel.
  • Supports both out-of-band and in-band cleaning operations. For more details, see In-band vs out-of-band.
  • Remote Console
  • HW Sensors
  • Works well for machines with resource constraints (lesser amount of memory).
  • Support for out-of-band hardware inspection.
  • Swiftless deploy for intermediate images
  • HTTP(S) Based Deploy.
  • iLO drivers with standalone ironic.

Requirements

  • iLO 4 Advanced License needs to be installed on iLO to enable Virtual Media feature.
  • Swift Object Storage Service - iLO driver uses swift to store temporary FAT images as well as boot ISO images.
  • Glance Image Service with swift configured as its backend - When using iscsi_ilo driver, the image containing the deploy ramdisk is retrieved from swift directly by the iLO.

Deploy Process

Refer to Netboot with glance and swift and Localboot with glance and swift for partition images for the deploy process of partition image and Localboot with glance and swift for the deploy process of whole disk image.

Configuring and Enabling the driver

Refer to Glance Configuration and Enable driver.

Registering ProLiant node in ironic

Nodes configured for iLO driver should have the driver property set to iscsi_ilo. The following configuration values are also required in driver_info:

  • ilo_address: IP address or hostname of the iLO.
  • ilo_username: Username for the iLO with administrator privileges.
  • ilo_password: Password for the above iLO user.
  • ilo_deploy_iso: The glance UUID of the deploy ramdisk ISO image.
  • ca_file: (optional) CA certificate file to validate iLO.
  • client_port: (optional) Port to be used for iLO operations if you are using a custom port on the iLO. Default port used is 443.
  • client_timeout: (optional) Timeout for iLO operations. Default timeout is 60 seconds.
  • console_port: (optional) Node’s UDP port for console access. Any unused port on the ironic conductor node may be used.

Note

To update SSL certificates into iLO, you can refer to HPE Integrated Lights-Out Security Technology Brief. You can use iLO hostname or IP address as a ‘Common Name (CN)’ while generating Certificate Signing Request (CSR). Use the same value as ilo_address while enrolling node to Bare Metal service to avoid SSL certificate validation errors related to hostname mismatch.

Note

If configuration values for ca_file, client_port and client_timeout are not provided in the driver_info of the node, the corresponding config variables defined under [ilo] section in ironic.conf will be used.

For example, you could run a similar command like below to enroll the ProLiant node:

ironic node-create -d iscsi_ilo -i ilo_address=<ilo-ip-address> -i ilo_username=<ilo-username> -i ilo_password=<ilo-password> -i ilo_deploy_iso=<glance-uuid-of-deploy-iso>

Boot modes

Refer to Boot mode support section for more information.

UEFI Secure Boot

Refer to UEFI Secure Boot Support section for more information.

Node cleaning

Refer to Node Cleaning Support for more information.

Hardware Inspection

Refer to Hardware Inspection Support for more information.

Swiftless deploy for intermediate deploy and boot images

Refer to Swiftless deploy for intermediate images for more information.

HTTP(S) Based Deploy

Refer to HTTP(S) Based Deploy Support for more information.

iLO drivers with standalone ironic

Refer to Support for iLO drivers with Standalone Ironic for more information.

RAID Configuration

Refer to RAID Support for more information.

agent_ilo driver

Overview

agent_ilo driver was introduced as an alternative to agent_ipmitool and agent_ipminative drivers for HPE ProLiant servers. agent_ilo driver uses virtual media feature in HPE ProLiant bare metal servers to boot up the Ironic Python Agent (IPA) on the bare metal node instead of using PXE. For more information on IPA, refer https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Ironic-python-agent.

Target Users

  • Users who do not want to use PXE/TFTP protocol on their data centres.

  • Users who have concerns on PXE based agent driver’s security and want to have a security enhanced PXE-less deployment mechanism.

    The PXE based agent drivers pass management information in clear-text to the bare metal node. However, if swift proxy server and glance have HTTPS endpoints (See Enabling HTTPS in Swift, Enabling HTTPS in Image service for more information), the agent_ilo driver provides enhanced security by exchanging authtoken and management information with swift and glance endpoints over HTTPS. The management information and deploy ramdisk will be retrieved over encrypted management network via iLO.

Tested Platforms

This driver should work on HPE ProLiant Gen7 Servers with iLO 3, Gen8 Servers and above with iLO 4. It has been tested with the following servers:

  • ProLiant DL380 G7
  • ProLiant DL380e Gen8
  • ProLiant DL580e Gen8
  • ProLiant DL360 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant DL380 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant DL180 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant XL450 Gen9 UEFI

For more up-to-date information, check the iLO driver wiki page.

Features

  • PXE-less deploy with virtual media using Ironic Python Agent(IPA).
  • Support for out-of-band cleaning operations.
  • Remote Console
  • HW Sensors
  • IPA runs on the bare metal node and pulls the image directly from swift.
  • Supports booting the instance from virtual media (netboot) as well as booting locally from disk. By default, the instance will always boot from virtual media for partition images.
  • Segregates management info from data channel.
  • UEFI Boot Support
  • UEFI Secure Boot Support
  • Support to use default in-band cleaning operations supported by Ironic Python Agent. For more details, see In-band vs out-of-band.
  • Support for out-of-band hardware inspection.
  • Swiftless deploy for intermediate images.
  • HTTP(S) Based Deploy.
  • iLO drivers with standalone ironic.
  • Supports tenant network isolation for node instances provisioned for vlan type networks.

Requirements

  • iLO 4 Advanced License needs to be installed on iLO to enable Virtual Media feature.
  • Swift Object Storage Service - iLO driver uses swift to store temporary FAT images as well as boot ISO images.
  • Glance Image Service with swift configured as its backend - When using agent_ilo driver, the image containing the agent is retrieved from swift directly by the iLO.

Deploy Process

Refer to Netboot with glance and swift and Localboot with glance and swift for partition images for the deploy process of partition image and Localboot with glance and swift for the deploy process of whole disk image.

Configuring and Enabling the driver

Refer to Glance Configuration and Enable driver.

Registering ProLiant node in ironic

Nodes configured for iLO driver should have the driver property set to agent_ilo. The following configuration values are also required in driver_info:

  • ilo_address: IP address or hostname of the iLO.
  • ilo_username: Username for the iLO with administrator privileges.
  • ilo_password: Password for the above iLO user.
  • ilo_deploy_iso: The glance UUID of the deploy ramdisk ISO image.
  • ca_file: (optional) CA certificate file to validate iLO.
  • client_port: (optional) Port to be used for iLO operations if you are using a custom port on the iLO. Default port used is 443.
  • client_timeout: (optional) Timeout for iLO operations. Default timeout is 60 seconds.
  • console_port: (optional) Node’s UDP port for console access. Any unused port on the ironic conductor node may be used.

Note

To update SSL certificates into iLO, you can refer to HPE Integrated Lights-Out Security Technology Brief. You can use iLO hostname or IP address as a ‘Common Name (CN)’ while generating Certificate Signing Request (CSR). Use the same value as ilo_address while enrolling node to Bare Metal service to avoid SSL certificate validation errors related to hostname mismatch.

Note

If configuration values for ca_file, client_port and client_timeout are not provided in the driver_info of the node, the corresponding config variables defined under [ilo] section in ironic.conf will be used.

For example, you could run a similar command like below to enroll the ProLiant node:

ironic node-create -d agent_ilo -i ilo_address=<ilo-ip-address> -i ilo_username=<ilo-username> -i ilo_password=<ilo-password> -i ilo_deploy_iso=<glance-uuid-of-deploy-iso>

Boot modes

Refer to Boot mode support section for more information.

UEFI Secure Boot

Refer to UEFI Secure Boot Support section for more information.

Node Cleaning

Refer to Node Cleaning Support for more information.

Hardware Inspection

Refer to Hardware Inspection Support for more information.

Swiftless deploy for intermediate deploy and boot images

Refer to Swiftless deploy for intermediate images for more information.

HTTP(S) Based Deploy

Refer to HTTP(S) Based Deploy Support for more information.

iLO drivers with standalone ironic

Refer to Support for iLO drivers with Standalone Ironic for more information.

RAID Configuration

Refer to RAID Support for more information.

pxe_ilo driver

Overview

pxe_ilo driver uses PXE/iSCSI (just like pxe_ipmitool driver) to deploy the image and uses iLO to do power and management operations on the bare metal node(instead of using IPMI).

Target Users

  • Users who want to use PXE/iSCSI for deployment in their environment or who don’t have Advanced License in their iLO.
  • Users who don’t want to configure boot mode manually on the bare metal node.

Tested Platforms

This driver should work on HPE ProLiant Gen7 Servers with iLO 3, Gen8 Servers and above with iLO 4. It has been tested with the following servers:

  • ProLiant DL380 G7
  • ProLiant DL380e Gen8
  • ProLiant DL380e Gen8
  • ProLiant DL580 Gen8 (BIOS/UEFI)
  • ProLiant DL360 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant DL380 Gen9 UEFI
  • ProLiant XL450 Gen9 UEFI

For more up-to-date information, check the iLO driver wiki page.

Features

  • Automatic detection of current boot mode.
  • Automatic setting of the required boot mode, if UEFI boot mode is requested by the nova flavor’s extra spec.
  • Supports both out-of-band and in-band cleaning operations. For more details, see In-band vs out-of-band.
  • Support for out-of-band hardware inspection.
  • Supports UEFI Boot mode
  • Supports UEFI Secure Boot
  • HTTP(S) Based Deploy.

Requirements

None.

Configuring and Enabling the driver

  1. Build a deploy image, see Building or downloading a deploy ramdisk image

  2. Upload this image to glance:

    glance image-create --name deploy-ramdisk.kernel --disk-format aki --container-format aki < deploy-ramdisk.kernel
glance image-create --name deploy-ramdisk.initramfs --disk-format ari --container-format ari < deploy-ramdisk.initramfs

  3. Add pxe_ilo to the list of enabled_drivers in /etc/ironic/ironic.conf. For example::

    enabled_drivers = fake,pxe_ssh,pxe_ipmitool,pxe_ilo

  4. Restart the ironic conductor service:

    service ironic-conductor restart

Registering ProLiant node in ironic

Nodes configured for iLO driver should have the driver property set to pxe_ilo. The following configuration values are also required in driver_info:

  • ilo_address: IP address or hostname of the iLO.
  • ilo_username: Username for the iLO with administrator privileges.
  • ilo_password: Password for the above iLO user.
  • deploy_kernel: The glance UUID of the deployment kernel.
  • deploy_ramdisk: The glance UUID of the deployment ramdisk.
  • ca_file: (optional) CA certificate file to validate iLO.
  • client_port: (optional) Port to be used for iLO operations if you are using a custom port on the iLO. Default port used is 443.
  • client_timeout: (optional) Timeout for iLO operations. Default timeout is 60 seconds.
  • console_port: (optional) Node’s UDP port for console access. Any unused port on the ironic conductor node may be used.

Note

To update SSL certificates into iLO, you can refer to HPE Integrated Lights-Out Security Technology Brief. You can use iLO hostname or IP address as a ‘Common Name (CN)’ while generating Certificate Signing Request (CSR). Use the same value as ilo_address while enrolling node to Bare Metal service to avoid SSL certificate validation errors related to hostname mismatch.

Note

If configuration values for ca_file, client_port and client_timeout are not provided in the driver_info of the node, the corresponding config variables defined under [ilo] section in ironic.conf will be used.

For example, you could run a similar command like below to enroll the ProLiant node:

ironic node-create -d pxe_ilo -i ilo_address=<ilo-ip-address> -i ilo_username=<ilo-username> -i ilo_password=<ilo-password> -i deploy_kernel=<glance-uuid-of-pxe-deploy-kernel> -i deploy_ramdisk=<glance-uuid-of-deploy-ramdisk>

Boot modes

Refer to Boot mode support section for more information.

UEFI Secure Boot

Refer to UEFI Secure Boot Support section for more information.

Node Cleaning

Refer to Node Cleaning Support for more information.

Hardware Inspection

Refer to Hardware Inspection Support for more information.

HTTP(S) Based Deploy

Refer to HTTP(S) Based Deploy Support for more information.

iLO drivers with standalone ironic

Refer to Support for iLO drivers with Standalone Ironic for more information.

RAID Configuration

Refer to RAID Support for more information.

Functionalities across drivers

Boot mode support

The following drivers support automatic detection and setting of boot mode (Legacy BIOS or UEFI).

  • pxe_ilo

  • iscsi_ilo

  • agent_ilo

  • When boot mode capability is not configured:

    • If config variable default_boot_mode in [ilo] section of ironic configuration file is set to either ‘bios’ or ‘uefi’, then iLO drivers use that boot mode for provisioning the baremetal ProLiant servers.
    • If the pending boot mode is set on the node then iLO drivers use that boot mode for provisioning the baremetal ProLiant servers.
    • If the pending boot mode is not set on the node then iLO drivers use ‘uefi’ boot mode for UEFI capable servers and “bios” when UEFI is not supported.

  • When boot mode capability is configured, the driver sets the pending boot mode to the configured value.

  • Only one boot mode (either uefi or bios) can be configured for the node.

  • If the operator wants a node to boot always in uefi mode or bios mode, then they may use capabilities parameter within properties field of an ironic node.

    To configure a node in uefi mode, then set capabilities as below:

    ironic node-update <node-uuid> add properties/capabilities='boot_mode:uefi'

    Nodes having boot_mode set to uefi may be requested by adding an extra_spec to the nova flavor:

    nova flavor-key ironic-test-3 set capabilities:boot_mode="uefi"
nova boot --flavor ironic-test-3 --image test-image instance-1

    If capabilities is used in extra_spec as above, nova scheduler (ComputeCapabilitiesFilter) will match only ironic nodes which have the boot_mode set appropriately in properties/capabilities. It will filter out rest of the nodes.

    The above facility for matching in nova can be used in heterogeneous environments where there is a mix of uefi and bios machines, and operator wants to provide a choice to the user regarding boot modes. If the flavor doesn’t contain boot_mode then nova scheduler will not consider boot mode as a placement criteria, hence user may get either a BIOS or UEFI machine that matches with user specified flavors.

The automatic boot ISO creation for UEFI boot mode has been enabled in Kilo. The manual creation of boot ISO for UEFI boot mode is also supported. For the latter, the boot ISO for the deploy image needs to be built separately and the deploy image’s boot_iso property in glance should contain the glance UUID of the boot ISO. For building boot ISO, add iso element to the diskimage-builder command to build the image. For example:

disk-image-create ubuntu baremetal iso

UEFI Secure Boot Support

The following drivers support UEFI secure boot deploy:

  • pxe_ilo
  • iscsi_ilo
  • agent_ilo

The UEFI secure boot can be configured in ironic by adding secure_boot parameter in the capabilities parameter within properties field of an ironic node.

secure_boot is a boolean parameter and takes value as true or false.

To enable secure_boot on a node add it to capabilities as below:

ironic node-update <node-uuid> add properties/capabilities='secure_boot:true'

Alternatively see Hardware Inspection Support to know how to automatically populate the secure boot capability.

Nodes having secure_boot set to true may be requested by adding an extra_spec to the nova flavor:

nova flavor-key ironic-test-3 set capabilities:secure_boot="true"
nova boot --flavor ironic-test-3 --image test-image instance-1

If capabilities is used in extra_spec as above, nova scheduler (ComputeCapabilitiesFilter) will match only ironic nodes which have the secure_boot set appropriately in properties/capabilities. It will filter out rest of the nodes.

The above facility for matching in nova can be used in heterogeneous environments where there is a mix of machines supporting and not supporting UEFI secure boot, and operator wants to provide a choice to the user regarding secure boot. If the flavor doesn’t contain secure_boot then nova scheduler will not consider secure boot mode as a placement criteria, hence user may get a secure boot capable machine that matches with user specified flavors but deployment would not use its secure boot capability. Secure boot deploy would happen only when it is explicitly specified through flavor.

Use element ubuntu-signed or fedora to build signed deploy iso and user images from diskimage-builder. Refer Building or downloading a deploy ramdisk image for more information on building deploy ramdisk.

The below command creates files named cloud-image-boot.iso, cloud-image.initrd, cloud-image.vmlinuz and cloud-image.qcow2 in the current working directory:

cd <path-to-diskimage-builder>
./bin/disk-image-create -o cloud-image ubuntu-signed baremetal iso

Note

In UEFI secure boot, digitally signed bootloader should be able to validate digital signatures of kernel during boot process. This requires that the bootloader contains the digital signatures of the kernel. For iscsi_ilo driver, it is recommended that boot_iso property for user image contains the glance UUID of the boot ISO. If boot_iso property is not updated in glance for the user image, it would create the boot_iso using bootloader from the deploy iso. This boot_iso will be able to boot the user image in UEFI secure boot environment only if the bootloader is signed and can validate digital signatures of user image kernel.

Ensure the public key of the signed image is loaded into bare metal to deploy signed images. For HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers, one can enroll public key using iLO System Utilities UI. Please refer to section Accessing Secure Boot options in HP UEFI System Utilities User Guide. One can also refer to white paper on Secure Boot for Linux on HP ProLiant servers for additional details.

For more up-to-date information, refer iLO driver wiki page

Node Cleaning Support

The following iLO drivers support node cleaning -

  • pxe_ilo
  • iscsi_ilo
  • agent_ilo

For more information on node cleaning, see Node cleaning

Supported Automated Cleaning Operations

  • The automated cleaning operations supported are:

    reset_bios_to_default:

    Resets system ROM settings to default. By default, enabled with priority 10. This clean step is supported only on Gen9 and above servers.

    reset_secure_boot_keys_to_default:

    Resets secure boot keys to manufacturer’s defaults. This step is supported only on Gen9 and above servers. By default, enabled with priority 20 .

    reset_ilo_credential:

    Resets the iLO password, if ilo_change_password is specified as part of node’s driver_info. By default, enabled with priority 30.

    clear_secure_boot_keys:

    Clears all secure boot keys. This step is supported only on Gen9 and above servers. By default, this step is disabled.

    reset_ilo:

    Resets the iLO. By default, this step is disabled.

  • For in-band cleaning operations supported by agent_ilo driver, see In-band vs out-of-band.

  • All the automated cleaning steps have an explicit configuration option for priority. In order to disable or change the priority of the automated clean steps, respective configuration option for priority should be updated in ironic.conf.

  • Updating clean step priority to 0, will disable that particular clean step and will not run during automated cleaning.

  • Configuration Options for the automated clean steps are listed under [ilo] section in ironic.conf

    - clean_priority_reset_ilo=0
- clean_priority_reset_bios_to_default=10
- clean_priority_reset_secure_boot_keys_to_default=20
- clean_priority_clear_secure_boot_keys=0
- clean_priority_reset_ilo_credential=30

For more information on node automated cleaning, see Automated cleaning

Supported Manual Cleaning Operations

  • The manual cleaning operations supported are:

    activate_license:

    Activates the iLO Advanced license. This is an out-of-band manual cleaning step associated with the management interface. See Activating iLO Advanced license as manual clean step for user guidance on usage. Please note that this operation cannot be performed using virtual media based drivers like iscsi_ilo and agent_ilo as they need this type of advanced license already active to use virtual media to boot into to start cleaning operation. Virtual media is an advanced feature. If an advanced license is already active and the user wants to overwrite the current license key, for example in case of a multi-server activation key delivered with a flexible-quantity kit or after completing an Activation Key Agreement (AKA), then these drivers can still be used for executing this cleaning step.

    update_firmware:

    Updates the firmware of the devices. Also an out-of-band step associated with the management interface. See Initiating firmware update as manual clean step for user guidance on usage. The supported devices for firmware update are: ilo, cpld, power_pic, bios and chassis. Refer to below table for their commonly used descriptions.

    Device Description
    ilo BMC for HPE ProLiant servers
    cpld System programmable logic device
    power_pic Power management controller
    bios HPE ProLiant System ROM
    chassis System chassis device

    Some devices firmware cannot be updated via this method, such as: storage controllers, host bus adapters, disk drive firmware, network interfaces and Onboard Administrator (OA).

  • iLO with firmware version 1.5 is minimally required to support all the operations.

For more information on node manual cleaning, see Manual cleaning

Hardware Inspection Support

The following iLO drivers support hardware inspection:

  • pxe_ilo
  • iscsi_ilo
  • agent_ilo

Note

  • The disk size is returned by RIBCL/RIS only when RAID is preconfigured on the storage. If the storage is Direct Attached Storage, then RIBCL/RIS fails to get the disk size.

  • The SNMPv3 inspection gets disk size for all types of storages. If RIBCL/RIS is unable to get disk size and SNMPv3 inspection is requested, the proliantutils does SNMPv3 inspection to get the disk size. If proliantutils is unable to get the disk size, it raises an error. This feature is available in proliantutils release version >= 2.2.0.

  • The iLO must be updated with SNMPv3 authentication details. Refer to the section SNMPv3 Authentication in HPE iLO4 User Guide for setting up authentication details on iLO. The following parameters are mandatory to be given in driver_info for SNMPv3 inspection:

    • snmp_auth_user : The SNMPv3 user.
    • snmp_auth_prot_password : The auth protocol pass phrase.
    • snmp_auth_priv_password : The privacy protocol pass phrase.

    The following parameters are optional for SNMPv3 inspection:

    • snmp_auth_protocol : The Auth Protocol. The valid values are “MD5” and “SHA”. The iLO default value is “MD5”.
    • snmp_auth_priv_protocol : The Privacy protocol. The valid values are “AES” and “DES”. The iLO default value is “DES”.

The inspection process will discover the following essential properties (properties required for scheduling deployment):

  • memory_mb: memory size
  • cpus: number of cpus
  • cpu_arch: cpu architecture
  • local_gb: disk size

Inspection can also discover the following extra capabilities for iLO drivers:

  • ilo_firmware_version: iLO firmware version

  • rom_firmware_version: ROM firmware version

  • secure_boot: secure boot is supported or not. The possible values are ‘true’ or ‘false’. The value is returned as ‘true’ if secure boot is supported by the server.

  • server_model: server model

  • pci_gpu_devices: number of gpu devices connected to the bare metal.

  • nic_capacity: the max speed of the embedded NIC adapter.

    Note

    • The capability nic_capacity can only be discovered if ipmitool version >= 1.8.15 is used on the conductor. The latest version can be downloaded from here.
    • The iLO firmware version needs to be 2.10 or above for nic_capacity to be discovered.

The operator can specify these capabilities in nova flavor for node to be selected for scheduling:

nova flavor-key my-baremetal-flavor set capabilities:server_model="<in> Gen8"

nova flavor-key my-baremetal-flavor set capabilities:nic_capacity="10Gb"

nova flavor-key my-baremetal-flavor set capabilities:ilo_firmware_version="<in> 2.10"

See Capabilities discovery for more details and examples.

Swiftless deploy for intermediate images

The iscsi_ilo and agent_ilo drivers can deploy and boot the server with and without swift being used for hosting the intermediate temporary floppy image (holding metadata for deploy kernel and ramdisk) and the boot ISO (which is required for iscsi_ilo only). A local HTTP(S) web server on each conductor node needs to be configured. Refer Web server configuration on conductor for more information. The HTTPS web server needs to be enabled (instead of HTTP web server) in order to send management information and images in encrypted channel over HTTPS.

Note

This feature assumes that the user inputs are on Glance which uses swift as backend. If swift dependency has to be eliminated, please refer to HTTP(S) Based Deploy Support also.

Deploy Process

Refer to Netboot in swiftless deploy for intermediate images for partition image support and refer to Localboot in swiftless deploy for intermediate images for whole disk image support.

HTTP(S) Based Deploy Support

The user input for the images given in driver_info like ilo_deploy_iso, deploy_kernel and deploy_ramdisk and in instance_info like image_source, kernel, ramdisk and ilo_boot_iso may also be given as HTTP(S) URLs.

The HTTP(S) web server can be configured in many ways. For the Apache web server on Ubuntu, refer here. The web server may reside on a different system than the conductor nodes, but its URL must be reachable by the conductor and the bare metal nodes.

Deploy Process

Refer to Netboot with HTTP(S) based deploy for partition image boot and refer to Localboot with HTTP(S) based deploy for whole disk image boot.

Support for iLO drivers with Standalone Ironic

It is possible to use ironic as standalone services without other OpenStack services. iLO drivers can be used in standalone ironic. This feature is referred to as iLO drivers with standalone ironic in this document and is supported by following drivers:

  • pxe_ilo
  • iscsi_ilo
  • agent_ilo

Configuration

The HTTP(S) web server needs to be configured as described in HTTP(S) Based Deploy Support and Web server configuration on conductor needs to be configured for hosting intermediate images on conductor as described in Swiftless deploy for intermediate images.

Deploy Process

iscsi_ilo and agent_ilo supports both netboot and localboot. Refer to Netboot in standalone ironic and Localboot in standalone ironic for details of deploy process for netboot and localboot respectively. For pxe_ilo, the deploy process is same as native pxe_ipmitool driver.

Deploy Process

Netboot with glance and swift

blockdiag Glance Conductor Baremetal Swift IPA iLO Powers off the node Download user image Get the metadata for deploy IS O Generates swift te mpURL for deploy I SO Creates the FAT32 image containing I ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Generates swift te mpURL for FAT32 im age Attaches the FAT32 image swift tempURL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO swift tempURL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Exposes the disk over iSCSI Connects to bare m etal's disk over i SCSI and writes im age Generates the boot ISO Uploads the boot ISO Generates swift te mpURL for boot ISO Attaches boot ISO swift tempURL as virtual media CDROM Sets boot device to CDROM Power off the node Power on the node Downloads boot ISO Boots the instance kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Instance kernel fi nds root partition and continues boo ting from disk

Localboot with glance and swift for partition images

blockdiag Glance Conductor Baremetal Swift IPA iLO Powers off the node Get the metadata for deploy IS O Returns the metadata for deplo y ISO Generates swift te mpURL for deploy I SO Creates the FAT32 image containing i ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Generates swift te mpURL for FAT32 im age Attaches the FAT32 image swift tempURL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO swift tempURL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Sends the user image HTTP(S) URL Retrieves the user image on ba re metal Writes user image to root partition Installs boot load er Heartbeat Sets boot device to disk Power off the node Power on the node Boot user image fr om disk

Localboot with glance and swift

blockdiag Glance Conductor Baremetal Swift IPA iLO Powers off the node Get the metadata for deploy IS O Returns the metadata for deplo y ISO Generates swift te mpURL for deploy I SO Creates the FAT32 image containing i ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Generates swift te mpURL for FAT32 im age Attaches the FAT32 image swift tempURL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO swift tempURL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Sends the user image HTTP(S) URL Retrieves the user image on ba re metal Writes user image to disk Heartbeat Sets boot device to disk Power off the node Power on the node Boot user image fr om disk

Netboot in swiftless deploy for intermediate images

blockdiag Glance Conductor Baremetal ConductorWebserv er IPA iLO Swift Powers off the node Download user image Get the metadata for deploy IS O Generates swift te mpURL for deploy I SO Creates the FAT32 image containing I ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Attaches the FAT32 image URL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO swift tempURL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Exposes the disk over iSCSI Connects to bare m etal's disk over i SCSI and writes im age Generates the boot ISO Uploads the boot ISO Attaches boot ISO URL as virtual media CDROM Sets boot device to CDROM Power off the node Power on the node Downloads boot ISO Boots the instance kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Instance kernel fi nds root partition and continues boo ting from disk

Localboot in swiftless deploy for intermediate images

blockdiag Glance Conductor Baremetal ConductorWebserv er IPA iLO Swift Powers off the node Get the metadata for deploy IS O Returns the metadata for deplo y ISO Generates swift te mpURL for deploy I SO Creates the FAT32 image containing I ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Attaches the FAT32 image URL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO swift tempURL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Sends the user image HTTP(S) URL Retrieves the user image on bare metal Writes user image to disk Heartbeat Sets boot device to disk Power off the node Power on the node Boot user image fr om disk

Netboot with HTTP(S) based deploy

blockdiag Webserver Conductor Baremetal Swift IPA iLO Powers off the node Download user image Creates the FAT32 image containing I ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Generates swift te mpURL for FAT32 im age Attaches the FAT32 image swift tempURL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO URL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Exposes the disk over iSCSI Connects to bare m etal's disk over i SCSI and writes im age Generates the boot ISO Uploads the boot ISO Generates swift te mpURL for boot ISO Attaches boot ISO swift tempURL as virtual media CDROM Sets boot device to CDROM Power off the node Power on the node Downloads boot ISO Boots the instance kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Instance kernel fi nds root partition and continues boo ting from disk

Localboot with HTTP(S) based deploy

blockdiag Webserver Conductor Baremetal Swift IPA iLO Powers off the node Creates the FAT32 image containing i ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Generates swift te mpURL for FAT32 im age Attaches the FAT32 image swift tempURL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO URL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Sends the user image HTTP(S) URL Retrieves the user image on bare metal Writes user image to disk Heartbeat Sets boot device to disk Power off the node Power on the node Boot user image fr om disk

Netboot in standalone ironic

blockdiag Webserver Conductor Baremetal ConductorWebserv er IPA iLO Powers off the node Download user image Creates the FAT32 image containing I ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Attaches the FAT32 image URL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO URL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Exposes the disk over iSCSI Connects to bare m etal's disk over i SCSI and writes im age Generates the boot ISO Uploads the boot ISO Attaches boot ISO URL as virtual media CDROM Sets boot device to CDROM Power off the node Power on the node Downloads boot ISO Boots the instance kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Instance kernel fi nds root partition and continues boo ting from disk

Localboot in standalone ironic

blockdiag Webserver Conductor Baremetal ConductorWebserv er IPA iLO Powers off the node Creates the FAT32 image containing I ronic API URL and driver name Uploads the FAT32 image Generates URL for FAT32 image Attaches the FAT32 image URL as virtual media floppy Attaches the deploy ISO URL as virtual media CDROM Sets one time boot to CDROM Reboot the node Downloads deploy ISO Boots deploy kernel/ramdisk from iLO virtual media CDROM Lookup node Provides node UUID Heartbeat Sends the user image HTTP(S) URL Retrieves the user image on bare metal Writes user image to disk Heartbeat Sets boot device to disk Power off the node Power on the node Boot user image fr om disk

Activating iLO Advanced license as manual clean step

iLO drivers can activate the iLO Advanced license key as a manual cleaning step. Any manual cleaning step can only be initiated when a node is in the manageable state. Once the manual cleaning is finished, the node will be put in the manageable state again. User can follow steps from Manual cleaning to initiate manual cleaning operation on a node.

An example of a manual clean step with activate_license as the only clean step could be:

"clean_steps": [{
    "interface": "management",
    "step": "activate_license",
    "args": {
        "ilo_license_key": "ABC12-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-YZ345"
    }
}]

The different attributes of activate_license clean step are as follows:

Attribute Description
interface Interface of clean step, here management
step Name of clean step, here activate_license
args Keyword-argument entry (<name>: <value>) being passed to clean step
args.ilo_license_key iLO Advanced license key to activate enterprise features. This is mandatory.

Initiating firmware update as manual clean step

iLO drivers can invoke secure firmware update as a manual cleaning step. Any manual cleaning step can only be initiated when a node is in the manageable state. Once the manual cleaning is finished, the node will be put in the manageable state again. A user can follow steps from Manual cleaning to initiate manual cleaning operation on a node.

An example of a manual clean step with update_firmware as the only clean step could be:

"clean_steps": [{
    "interface": "management",
    "step": "update_firmware",
    "args": {
        "firmware_update_mode": "ilo",
        "firmware_images":[
            {
                "url": "file:///firmware_images/ilo/1.5/CP024444.scexe",
                "checksum": "a94e683ea16d9ae44768f0a65942234d",
                "component": "ilo"
            },
            {
                "url": "swift://firmware_container/cpld2.3.rpm",
                "checksum": "<md5-checksum-of-this-file>",
                "component": "cpld"
            },
            {
                "url": "http://my_address:port/firmwares/bios_vLatest.scexe",
                "checksum": "<md5-checksum-of-this-file>",
                "component": "bios"
            },
            {
                "url": "https://my_secure_address_url/firmwares/chassis_vLatest.scexe",
                "checksum": "<md5-checksum-of-this-file>",
                "component": "chassis"
            },
            {
                "url": "file:///home/ubuntu/firmware_images/power_pic/pmc_v3.0.bin",
                "checksum": "<md5-checksum-of-this-file>",
                "component": "power_pic"
            }
        ]
    }
}]

The different attributes of update_firmware clean step are as follows:

Attribute Description
interface Interface of clean step, here management
step Name of clean step, here update_firmware
args Keyword-argument entry (<name>: <value>) being passed to clean step
args.firmware_update_mode Mode (or mechanism) of out-of-band firmware update. Supported value is ilo. This is mandatory.
args.firmware_images Ordered list of dictionaries of images to be flashed. This is mandatory.

Each firmware image block is represented by a dictionary (JSON), in the form:

{
  "url": "<url of firmware image file>",
  "checksum": "<md5 checksum of firmware image file to verify the image>",
  "component": "<device on which firmware image will be flashed>"
}

All the fields in the firmware image block are mandatory.

  • The different types of firmware url schemes supported are: file, http, https and swift.

Note

This feature assumes that while using file url scheme the file path is on the conductor controlling the node.

Note

The swift url scheme assumes the swift account of the service project. The service project (tenant) is a special project created in the Keystone system designed for the use of the core OpenStack services. When Ironic makes use of Swift for storage purpose, the account is generally service and the container is generally ironic and ilo drivers use a container named ironic_ilo_container for their own purpose.

Note

While using firmware files with a .rpm extension, make sure the commands rpm2cpio and cpio are present on the conductor, as they are utilized to extract the firmware image from the package.

  • The firmware components that can be updated are: ilo, cpld, power_pic, bios and chassis.

  • The firmware images will be updated in the order given by the operator. If there is any error during processing of any of the given firmware images provided in the list, none of the firmware updates will occur. The processing error could happen during image download, image checksum verification or image extraction. The logic is to process each of the firmware files and update them on the devices only if all the files are processed successfully. If, during the update (uploading and flashing) process, an update fails, then the remaining updates, if any, in the list will be aborted. But it is recommended to triage and fix the failure and re-attempt the manual clean step update_firmware for the aborted firmware_images.

    The devices for which the firmwares have been updated successfully would start functioning using their newly updated firmware.

  • As a troubleshooting guidance on the complete process, check Ironic conductor logs carefully to see if there are any firmware processing or update related errors which may help in root causing or gain an understanding of where things were left off or where things failed. You can then fix or work around and then try again. A common cause of update failure is HPE Secure Digital Signature check failure for the firmware image file.

  • To compute md5 checksum for your image file, you can use the following command:

    $ md5sum image.rpm
66cdb090c80b71daa21a67f06ecd3f33  image.rpm

RAID Support

The inband RAID functionality is supported by iLO drivers. See RAID Configuration for more information. Bare Metal service update node with following information after successful configuration of RAID:

  • Node properties/local_gb is set to the size of root volume.

  • Node properties/root_device is filled with wwn details of root volume. It is used by iLO drivers as root device hint during provisioning.

  • The value of raid level of root volume is added as raid_level capability to the node’s capabilities parameter within properties field. The operator can specify the raid_level capability in nova flavor for node to be selected for scheduling:

    nova flavor-key ironic-test set capabilities:raid_level="1+0"
nova boot --flavor ironic-test --image test-image instance-1

DIB support for Proliant Hardware Manager

To create an agent ramdisk with Proliant Hardware Manager, use the proliant-tools element in DIB:

disk-image-create -o proliant-agent-ramdisk ironic-agent fedora proliant-tools