Creating the Bare Metal service resources from file

It is possible to create a set of resources using their descriptions in JSON or YAML format. It can be done in one of three ways:

  1. Using ironic CLI’s ironic create command:

    $ ironic help create
    usage: ironic create <file> [<file> ...]
    
    Create baremetal resources (chassis, nodes, and ports). The resources may
    be described in one or more JSON or YAML files. If any file cannot be
    validated, no resources are created. An attempt is made to create all the
    resources; those that could not be created are skipped (with a
    corresponding error message).
    
    Positional arguments:
      <file>  File (.yaml or .json) containing descriptions of the resources
              to create. Can be specified multiple times.
    
  2. Using openstackclient plugin command openstack baremetal create:

    $ openstack -h baremetal create
    usage: openstack [-h] [-f {json,shell,table,value,yaml}] [-c COLUMN]
                     [--max-width <integer>] [--noindent] [--prefix PREFIX]
                     [--chassis-uuid <chassis>] [--driver-info <key=value>]
                     [--property <key=value>] [--extra <key=value>]
                     [--uuid <uuid>] [--name <name>]
                     [--network-interface <network_interface>]
                     [--resource-class <resource_class>] [--driver <driver>]
                     [<file> [<file> ...]]
    
    Create resources from files or Register a new node (DEPRECATED). Create
    resources from files (by only specifying the files) or register a new
    node by specifying one or more optional arguments (DEPRECATED, use
    'openstack baremetal node create' instead).
    
    positional arguments:
      <file>                File (.yaml or .json) containing descriptions of
                            the resources to create. Can be specified
                            multiple times. If you want to create resources,
                            only specify the files. Do not specify any of
                            the optional arguments.
    

    Note

    If the --driver argument is passed in, the behaviour of the command is the same as openstack baremetal node create, and positional arguments are ignored. If it is not provided, the command does resource creation from file(s), and only positional arguments will be taken into account.

  3. Programmatically using the Python API:

    ironicclient.v1.create_resources.create_resources(client, filenames)[source]

    Create resources using their JSON or YAML descriptions.

    Parameters:
    • client – an instance of ironic client;
    • filenames – a list of filenames containing JSON or YAML resources definitions.
    Raises:

    ClientException if any operation during files processing/resource creation fails.

File containing Resource Descriptions

The resources to be created can be described either in JSON or YAML. A file ending with .json is assumed to contain valid JSON, and a file ending with .yaml is assumed to contain valid YAML. Specifying a file with any other extension leads to an error.

The resources that can be created are chassis, nodes, and ports. Only chassis and nodes are accepted at the top level of the file structure, but chassis and nodes themselves can contain nodes or ports definitions nested under nodes (in case of chassis) or ports (in case of nodes) keys.

The schema used to validate the supplied data is the following:

{
    "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
    "description": "Schema for ironic resources file",
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "chassis": {
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
                "type": "object"
            }
        },
        "nodes": {
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
                "type": "object"
            }
        }
    },
    "additionalProperties": False
}

More detailed description of the creation process can be seen in the following sections.

Examples

Here is an example of the JSON file that can be passed to the create command:

{
    "chassis": [
        {
            "description": "chassis 3 in row 23",
            "nodes": [
                {
                    "name": "node-3",
                    "driver": "agent_ipmitool",
                    "ports": [
                        {
                            "address": "00:00:00:00:00:02"
                        },
                        {
                            "address": "00:00:00:00:00:03"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "name": "node-4",
                    "driver": "agent_ipmitool",
                    "ports": [
                        {
                            "address": "00:00:00:00:00:04"
                        },
                        {
                            "address": "00:00:00:00:00:01"
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "nodes": [
        {
            "name": "node-5",
            "driver": "pxe_ipmitool",
            "chassis_uuid": "74d93e6e-7384-4994-a614-fd7b399b0785",
            "ports": [
                {
                    "address": "00:00:00:00:00:00"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "node-6",
            "driver": "pxe_ipmitool"
        }
    ]
}

Creation Process

  1. The client deserializes the files’ contents and validates that the top-level dictionary in each of them contains only “chassis” and/or “nodes” keys, and their values are lists. The creation process is aborted if any failure is encountered in this stage. The rest of the validation is done by the ironic-api service.
  2. Each resource is created via issuing a POST request (with the resource’s dictionary representation in the body) to the ironic-api service. In the case of nested resources ("nodes" key inside chassis, or "ports" key inside nodes), the top-level resource is created first, followed by the sub-resources. For example, if a chassis contains a list of nodes, the chassis will be created first followed by the creation of each node. The same is true for ports described within nodes.
  3. If a resource could not be created, it does not stop the entire process. Any sub-resources of the failed resource will not be created, but otherwise, the rest of the resources will be created if possible. Any failed resources will be mentioned in the response.