24 KiB
Configuring Network Boot
Ironic's primary means of booting hardware to perform actions or work
on a baremetal node is to perform network booting. Traditionally, this
has meant the use of Preboot Execution Environment, or PXE. This support
and and functionality has evolve as time has gone on to include support
for not just the pxe
boot_interface
in concert
with hardware vendor specific variations, but also a distinct
ipxe
setting for boot_interface
with default
values to enable use of iPXE.
As time passed, http
and http-ipxe
values
were also added as valid boot_interface
options which may
be used, which are functionally identical in behavior to
pxe
and ipxe
, except HTTP is used as the
transport mechanism. Not all hardware supports HTTPBoot, as it is often
referred.
Note
Support for HTTPBoot interfaces was added during the 2024.1
development cycle. Prior versions of Ironic does not contain the
http
and http-ipxe
boot interfaces.
DHCP server setup
A DHCP server is required for network boot clients. You need to follow steps below.
Set the
[dhcp]/dhcp_provider
toneutron
in the Bare Metal Service's configuration file (/etc/ironic/ironic.conf
):Note
Refer
/install/configure-tenant-networks
for details. Thedhcp_provider
configuration is already set by the configuration defaults, and when you create subnet, DHCP is also enabled if you do not add any dhcp options at "openstack subnet create" command.Enable DHCP in the subnet of provisioning network to be used for network boot (PXE, iPXE, HTTPBoot) operations.
Set the ip address range in the subnet for DHCP.
Note
Refer
/install/configure-networking
for details about the two precedent steps.Connect the openstack DHCP agent to the external network through the OVS bridges and the interface
eth2
.Note
Refer
/install/configure-networking
for details. You do not require this part if br-int, br-eth2 and eth2 are already connected.Configure the host ip at
br-eth2
. If it locates ateth2
, do below:ip addr del 192.168.2.10/24 dev eth2 ip addr add 192.168.2.10/24 dev br-eth2
Note
Replace eth2 with the interface on the network node which you are using to connect to the Bare Metal service.
TFTP server setup
In order to deploy instances via PXE, a TFTP server needs to be set
up on the Bare Metal service nodes which run the
ironic-conductor
.
Make sure the tftp root directory exist and can be written to by the user the
ironic-conductor
is running as. For example:sudo mkdir -p /tftpboot sudo chown -R ironic /tftpboot
Install tftp server:
Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install xinetd tftpd-hpa
RHEL8/CentOS8/Fedora:
sudo dnf install tftp-server xinetd
SUSE:
sudo zypper install tftp xinetd
Using xinetd to provide a tftp server setup to serve
/tftpboot
. Create or edit/etc/xinetd.d/tftp
as below:service tftp { protocol = udp port = 69 socket_type = dgram wait = yes user = root server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd server_args = -v -v -v -v -v --map-file /tftpboot/map-file /tftpboot disable = no # This is a workaround for Fedora, where TFTP will listen only on # IPv6 endpoint, if IPv4 flag is not used. flags = IPv4 }
and restart the
xinetd
service:Ubuntu:
sudo service xinetd restart
Fedora/RHEL8/CentOS8/SUSE:
sudo systemctl restart xinetd
Note
In certain environments the network's MTU may cause TFTP UDP packets to get fragmented. Certain PXE firmwares struggle to reconstruct the fragmented packets which can cause significant slow down or even prevent the server from PXE booting. In order to avoid this, TFTPd provides an option to limit the packet size so that it they do not get fragmented. To set this additional option in the server_args above:
--blocksize <MAX MTU minus 32>
Create a map file in the tftp boot directory (
/tftpboot
):echo 're ^(/tftpboot/) /tftpboot/\2' > /tftpboot/map-file echo 're ^/tftpboot/ /tftpboot/' >> /tftpboot/map-file echo 're ^(^/) /tftpboot/\1' >> /tftpboot/map-file echo 're ^([^/]) /tftpboot/\1' >> /tftpboot/map-file
UEFI PXE - Grub setup
In order to deploy instances with PXE on bare metal nodes which support UEFI, perform these additional steps on the ironic conductor node to configure the PXE UEFI environment.
Install Grub2 and shim packages:
Ubuntu (18.04LTS and later):
sudo apt-get install grub-efi-amd64-signed shim-signed
RHEL8/CentOS8/Fedora:
sudo dnf install grub2-efi shim
SUSE:
sudo zypper install grub2-x86_64-efi shim
Copy grub and shim boot loader images to
/tftpboot
directory:Ubuntu (18.04LTS and later):
sudo cp /usr/lib/shim/shimx64.efi.signed /tftpboot/bootx64.efi sudo cp /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi-signed/grubnetx64.efi.signed /tftpboot/grubx64.efi
Fedora:
sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/shim.efi /tftpboot/bootx64.efi sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubx64.efi /tftpboot/grubx64.efi
RHEL8/CentOS8:
sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/centos/shim.efi /tftpboot/bootx64.efi sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/centos/grubx64.efi /tftpboot/grubx64.efi
SUSE:
sudo cp /usr/lib64/efi/shim.efi /tftpboot/bootx64.efi sudo cp /usr/lib/grub2/x86_64-efi/grub.efi /tftpboot/grubx64.efi
Update the bare metal node with
boot_mode:uefi
capability in node's properties field. Seeboot_mode_support
for details.Make sure that bare metal node is configured to boot in UEFI boot mode and boot device is set to network/pxe.
Note
Some drivers, e.g.
ilo
,irmc
andredfish
, support automatic setting of the boot mode during deployment. This step is not required for them. Please check../admin/drivers
for information on whether your driver requires manual UEFI configuration.
iPXE setup
If you will be using iPXE to boot instead of PXE, iPXE needs to be
set up on the Bare Metal service node(s) where
ironic-conductor
is running.
Make sure these directories exist and can be written to by the user the
ironic-conductor
is running as. For example:sudo mkdir -p /tftpboot sudo mkdir -p /httpboot sudo chown -R ironic /tftpboot sudo chown -R ironic /httpboot
Create a map file in the tftp boot directory (
/tftpboot
):echo 'r ^([^/]) /tftpboot/\1' > /tftpboot/map-file echo 'r ^(/tftpboot/) /tftpboot/\2' >> /tftpboot/map-file
Set up TFTP and HTTP servers.
These servers should be running and configured to use the local /tftpboot and /httpboot directories respectively, as their root directories. (Setting up these servers is outside the scope of this install guide.)
These root directories need to be mounted locally to the
ironic-conductor
services, so that the services can access them.The Bare Metal service's configuration file (/etc/ironic/ironic.conf) should be edited accordingly to specify the TFTP and HTTP root directories and server addresses. For example:
[pxe] # Ironic compute node's tftp root path. (string value) tftp_root=/tftpboot # IP address of Ironic compute node's tftp server. (string # value) tftp_server=192.168.0.2 [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
See also:
l3-external-ip
.Install the iPXE package with the boot images:
Ubuntu:
apt-get install ipxe
RHEL8/CentOS8/Fedora:
dnf install ipxe-bootimgs
Note
SUSE does not provide a package containing iPXE boot images. If you are using SUSE or if the packaged version of the iPXE boot image doesn't work, you can download a prebuilt one from http://boot.ipxe.org or build one image from source, see http://ipxe.org/download for more information.
Copy the iPXE boot image (
undionly.kpxe
for BIOS andipxe.efi
for UEFI) to/tftpboot
. The binary might be found at:Ubuntu:
cp /usr/lib/ipxe/{undionly.kpxe,ipxe.efi,snponly.efi} /tftpboot
Fedora/RHEL8/CentOS8:
cp /usr/share/ipxe/{undionly.kpxe,ipxe-x86_64.efi,ipxe-snponly-x86_64.efi} /tftpboot
Note
snponly
variants may not be available for all distributions.Enable/Configure iPXE overrides in the Bare Metal Service's configuration file if required (/etc/ironic/ironic.conf):
[pxe] # Neutron bootfile DHCP parameter. (string value) ipxe_bootfile_name=undionly.kpxe # Bootfile DHCP parameter for UEFI boot mode. (string value) uefi_ipxe_bootfile_name=ipxe.efi # Template file for PXE configuration. (string value) ipxe_config_template=$pybasedir/drivers/modules/ipxe_config.template
Note
Most UEFI systems have integrated networking which means the
[pxe]uefi_ipxe_bootfile_name
setting should be set tosnponly.efi
oripxe-snponly-x86_64.efi
if it's available for your distribution.Note
Setting the iPXE parameters noted in the code block above to no value, in other words setting a line to something like
ipxe_bootfile_name=
will result in ironic falling back to the default values of the non-iPXE PXE settings. This is for backwards compatibility.Ensure iPXE is the default PXE, if applicable.
In earlier versions of ironic, a
[pxe]ipxe_enabled
setting allowing operators to declare the behavior of the conductor to exclusively operate as if only iPXE was to be used. As time moved on, iPXE functionality was moved to it's ownipxe
boot interface.If you want to emulate that same hehavior, set the following in the configuration file (/etc/ironic/ironic.conf):
[DEFAULT] default_boot_interface=ipxe enabled_boot_interfaces=ipxe,pxe
Note
The
[DEFAULT]enabled_boot_interfaces
setting may be exclusively set toipxe
, however ironic has multiple interfaces available depending on the hardware types available for use.It is possible to configure the Bare Metal service in such a way that nodes will boot into the deploy image directly from Object Storage. Doing this avoids having to cache the images on the ironic-conductor host and serving them via the ironic-conductor's HTTP server. This can be done if:
- the Image Service is used for image storage;
- the images in the Image Service are internally stored in Object Storage;
- the Object Storage supports generating temporary URLs for accessing
objects stored in it. Both the OpenStack Swift and RADOS Gateway provide
support for this.
- See
/admin/radosgw
on how to configure the Bare Metal Service with RADOS Gateway as the Object Storage.
- See
Configure this by setting the
[pxe]/ipxe_use_swift
configuration option toTrue
as follows:[pxe] # Download deploy images directly from swift using temporary # URLs. If set to false (default), images are downloaded to # the ironic-conductor node and served over its local HTTP # server. Applicable only when 'ipxe_enabled' option is set to # true. (boolean value) ipxe_use_swift=True
Although the HTTP server still has to be deployed and configured (as it will serve iPXE boot script and boot configuration files for nodes), such configuration will shift some load from ironic-conductor hosts to the Object Storage service which can be scaled horizontally.
Note that when SSL is enabled on the Object Storage service you have to ensure that iPXE firmware on the nodes can indeed boot from generated temporary URLs that use HTTPS protocol.
Restart the
ironic-conductor
process:Fedora/RHEL8/CentOS8/SUSE:
sudo systemctl restart openstack-ironic-conductor
Ubuntu:
sudo service ironic-conductor restart
PXE multi-architecture setup
It is possible to deploy servers of different architecture by one
conductor. To use this feature, architecture-specific boot and template
files must be configured using the configuration options
[pxe]pxe_bootfile_name_by_arch
and
[pxe]pxe_config_template_by_arch
respectively, in the Bare
Metal service's configuration file (/etc/ironic/ironic.conf).
These two options are dictionary values; the key is the architecture
and the value is the boot (or config template) file. A node's
cpu_arch
property is used as the key to get the appropriate
boot file and template file. If the node's cpu_arch
is not
in the dictionary, the configuration options (in [pxe] group)
pxe_bootfile_name
, pxe_config_template
,
uefi_pxe_bootfile_name
and
uefi_pxe_config_template
will be used instead.
In the following example, since 'x86' and 'x86_64' keys are not in
the pxe_bootfile_name_by_arch
or
pxe_config_template_by_arch
options, x86 and x86_64 nodes
will be deployed by 'undionly.kpxe' or 'bootx64.efi', depending on the
node's boot_mode
capability ('bios' or 'uefi'). However,
aarch64 nodes will be deployed by 'grubaa64.efi', and ppc64 nodes by
'bootppc64':
[pxe]
# Bootfile DHCP parameter. (string value)
pxe_bootfile_name=undionly.kpxe
# On ironic-conductor node, template file for PXE
# configuration. (string value)
pxe_config_template = $pybasedir/drivers/modules/ipxe_config.template
# Bootfile DHCP parameter for UEFI boot mode. (string value)
uefi_pxe_bootfile_name=bootx64.efi
# On ironic-conductor node, template file for PXE
# configuration for UEFI boot loader. (string value)
uefi_pxe_config_template=$pybasedir/drivers/modules/pxe_grub_config.template
# Bootfile DHCP parameter per node architecture. (dict value)
pxe_bootfile_name_by_arch=aarch64:grubaa64.efi,ppc64:bootppc64
# On ironic-conductor node, template file for PXE
# configuration per node architecture. For example:
# aarch64:/opt/share/grubaa64_pxe_config.template (dict value)
pxe_config_template_by_arch=aarch64:pxe_grubaa64_config.template,ppc64:pxe_ppc64_config.template
Note
The grub implementation may vary on different architecture, you may
need to tweak the pxe config template for a specific arch. For example,
grubaa64.efi shipped with CentoOS7 does not support
linuxefi
and initrdefi
commands, you'll need
to switch to use linux
and initrd
command
instead.
Note
A [pxe]ipxe_bootfile_name_by_arch
setting is available
for multi-arch iPXE based deployment, and defaults to the same behavior
as the comperable [pxe]pxe_bootfile_by_arch
setting for
standard PXE.
Note
When booting PowerPC based machines, the firmware loader directly boots a kernel and ramdisk. It explicitly reads a "pxelinux" style template, and then directly retrieves the files defined in the file without a "network boot program".
PXE timeouts tuning
Because of its reliance on UDP-based protocols (DHCP and TFTP), PXE
is particularly vulnerable to random failures during the booting stage.
If the deployment ramdisk never calls back to the bare metal conductor,
the build will be aborted, and the node will be moved to the
deploy failed
state, after the deploy callback timeout.
This timeout can be changed via the :oslo.configconductor.deploy_callback_timeout
configuration
option.
Starting with the Train release, the Bare Metal service can retry PXE
boot if it takes too long. The timeout is defined via :oslo.configpxe.boot_retry_timeout
and
must be smaller than the deploy_callback_timeout
, otherwise
it will have no effect.
For example, the following configuration sets the overall timeout to 60 minutes, allowing two retries after 20 minutes:
[conductor]
deploy_callback_timeout = 3600
[pxe]
boot_retry_timeout = 1200
PXE artifacts
Ironic features the capability to load PXE artifacts into the conductor startup, minimizing the need for external installation and configuration management tooling from having to do additional work to facilitate.
While this is an advanced feature, and destination file names must match existing bootloader configured filenames.
For example, if using iPXE and GRUB across interfaces, you may desire a configuration similar to this example.
[pxe]
loader_file_paths = ipxe.efi:/usr/share/ipxe/ipxe-snponly-x86_64.efi,undionly.kpxe:/usr/share/ipxe/undionly.kpxe,bootx64.efi,/boot/efi/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi,bootx64.efi:/boot/efi/EFI/boot/BOOTX64.EFI
If you choose to use relative paths as part of your destination,
those paths will be created using configuration parameter
[pxe]dir_permission
where as actual files copied are set
with the configuration parameter [pxe]file_permission
.
Absolute destination paths are not supported and will result in ironic
failing to start up as it is a misconfiguration of the deployment.
Configuring unmanaged in-band inspection
This section must be followed if you intend to use unmanaged-inspection
without
ironic-inspector. For ironic-inspector support, check its
installation guide.
With PXE
After you followed TFTP Server
Setup, you need to create the default PXE configuration. Populate
/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
with the following
contents:
default introspect
label introspect
kernel ironic-python-agent.kernel
append initrd=ironic-python-agent.initramfs ipa-inspection-callback-url=http://{IP}:6385/v1/continue_inspection systemd.journald.forward_to_console=yes
ipappend 3
Instead of http://{IP}:6385/v1/continue_inspection
,
insert the correct Bare Metal API endpoint, keeping the mandatory
/v1/continue_inspection
suffix. You may also populate other
IPA options (e.g. ipa-debug=1
for detailed logging,
ipa-inspection-collectors
to customize the inspection
process, or ipa-api-url
to enable /admin/fast-track
).
Second, you need to configure DHCP for unknown hosts since the
OpenStack Networking service won't be able to handle them. For instance,
you can install dnsmasq and use the following
/etc/dnsmasq.conf
:
port=0
interface={INTERFACE}
bind-interfaces
dhcp-range={DHCP IP RANGE, e.g. 192.168.0.50,192.168.0.150}
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/tftpboot
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.0
dhcp-sequential-ip
If you need this dnsmasq instance to co-exist with the OpenStack
Networking service, some measures must be taken to prevent them from
clashing over DHCP requests. One way to do it is to physically separate
the inspection network. Another - to configure the /admin/inspection/pxe_filter
.
Finally, build or download IPA images into
/tftpboot/ironic-python-agent.kernel
and
/tftpboot/ironic-python-agent.initramfs
. These can be the
same images that you use for deployment and cleaning.
With iPXE
iPXE configuration is pretty similar to PXE above, but differs in
details. Start with iPXE Setup, then create a
new file /httpboot/inspection.ipxe
with the following
contents:
#!ipxe
:retry_dhcp
dhcp || goto retry_dhcp
:retry_boot
imgfree
kernel --timeout 30000 http://{IP}:8080/ironic-python-agent.kernel ipa-inspection-callback-url=http://{IP}:6385/v1/continue_inspection systemd.journald.forward_to_console=yes BOOTIF=${mac} initrd=ironic-python-agent.initramfs || goto retry_boot
initrd --timeout 30000 http://{IP}:8080/ironic-python-agent.initramfs || goto retry_boot
boot
Just as with PXE, adjust
ipa-inspection-callback-url
to match your deployment and
add any required IPA options. You also need to fix
{IP}:8080
to match the iPXE server you configured
previously.
The DHCP configuration is much more complex. Since most hardware does not have an up-to-date iPXE firmware, you need to bootstrap it from TFTP. The dnsmasq configuration may look roughly like this:
port=0
interface={INTERFACE}
bind-interfaces
dhcp-range={DHCP IP RANGE, e.g. 192.168.0.50,192.168.0.150}
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/tftpboot
dhcp-sequential-ip
dhcp-match=ipxe,175
dhcp-match=set:efi,option:client-arch,7
dhcp-match=set:efi,option:client-arch,9
dhcp-match=set:efi,option:client-arch,11
# dhcpv6.option: Client System Architecture Type (61)
dhcp-match=set:efi6,option6:61,0007
dhcp-match=set:efi6,option6:61,0009
dhcp-match=set:efi6,option6:61,0011
dhcp-userclass=set:ipxe6,iPXE
# Client is already running iPXE; move to next stage of chainloading
dhcp-boot=tag:ipxe,http://{IP}:8080/inspection.ipxe
# Client is PXE booting over EFI without iPXE ROM,
# send EFI version of iPXE chainloader
dhcp-boot=tag:efi,tag:!ipxe,ipxe.efi
dhcp-option=tag:efi6,tag:!ipxe6,option6:bootfile-url,tftp://{IP}/ipxe.efi
# Client is running PXE over BIOS; send BIOS version of iPXE chainloader
dhcp-boot=undionly.kpxe,localhost.localdomain,{IP}
Note
It's not trivial to write such a configuration from scratch. In addition to this document, you may take some inspiration from Bifrost and Metal3.
Finally, put ironic-python-agent.kernel
and
ironic-python-agent.initramfs
to
/httpboot
.
HTTPBoot
HTTPBoot interfaces in Ironic are built upon the underlying network
boot substrate. This means much of the configuration in the
[pxe]
and [deploy]
impacts the use of
HTTPBoot, except when Ironic is setting DHCP parameters, it populates a
HTTP(S) URL to the DHCP server, which is then transmitted to the client
attempting to Network Boot. In large part, this is because HTTPBoot is
an evolution of PXE Boot technique and technology.
This means a TFTP server is not required, but the HTTP server is required as if you are utilizing iPXE. This is largely because iPXE has traditionally been leveraged by Operators to limit the TFTP packets being transmitted via UDP across a network.
One aspect to keep in mind, is HTTPBoot is relatively new when compared to PXE boot, and not all bootloaders may support HTTPBoot, as the underlying UEFI standard upon which it was largely based, UEFI v2.5, was published in 2015.
Ironic contains two distinct flavors of HTTPBoot, largely based upon what configuration defaults are used in terms of boot loader, templates, and overall mechanism style.
http
is the boot interface based upon thepxe
boot interface. This is the interface you would want to use if you had, for example, a signed GRUB2 bootloader chain to utilize. In this case it is up to the boot loader to understand how to extract and run with the URL, and then retrieves any additional configuration loader files and configuration templates created on disk.http-ipxe
is the boot interface based upon theipxe
boot interface. This interface signals to the client to utilize the configured iPXE loader binary over HTTP, and then the boot sequence proceeds with the pattern and capabilities of iPXE.
To enable the boot interfaces, you will need to add them to your
[DEFAULT]enabled_boot_interfaces
configuration entry.
[DEFAULT]
enabled_boot_interfaces=ipxe,http-ipxe,pxe,http