Baremetal as a Service¶

This feature deploys Ironic, the bare metal provisioning service for OpenStack. It allows OpenStack users to provision bare metal machines, as opposed to virtual machines.

Enabling Baremetal¶

This feature requires the storage role. To enable this feature, run the following command:

sunbeam enable baremetal

The openstack CLI can now be used to manage bare metal machines. See the upstream Ironic CLI documentation for details.

The feature will be configured based on the cluster’s manifest file. Alternatively, a different manifest file can be specified during the feature enablement:

sunbeam enable --manifest baremetal-manifest.yaml baremetal

Sample baremetal-manifest.yaml file:

features:
  baremetal:
    software:
      charms:
        ironic-conductor-k8s:
          channel: 2025.1/edge
        ironic-k8s:
          channel: 2025.1/edge
        nova-ironic-k8s:
          channel: 2025.1/edge
        neutron-baremetal-switch-config-k8s:
          channel: 2025.1/edge
        neutron-generic-switch-config-k8s:
          channel: 2025.1/edge
    config:
      shards: ["shard0", "shard1"]
      conductor-groups: ["shard0", "shard1"]
      switchconfigs:
        netconf:
          nexus:
            configfile: |
              ["nexus.example.net"]
              driver = "netconf-openconfig"
              device_params = "name:nexus"
              switch_info = "nexus"
              switch_id = "00:53:00:0a:0a:0a"
              host = "nexus.example.net"
              username = "user"
              key_filename = "/etc/neutron/sshkeys/nexus-sshkey"
            additional-files:
              nexus-sshkey: |
                some key here.
        generic:
          arista:
            configfile: |
              ["genericswitch:arista-hostname"]
              device_type = "netmiko_arista_eos"
              ngs_mac_address = "00:53:00:0a:0a:0a"
              ip = "10.20.30.40"
              username = "admin"
              key_file = "/etc/neutron/sshkeys/arista-key"
            additional-files:
              arista-key: |
                some key here.

Note

Rerunning the sunbeam enable baremetal command with a different manifest file will replace the previously deployed feature configuration (e.g.: deployed nova-ironic shards, Ironic Conductor groups, Neutron switch configurations).

For the switch configurations, the following restrictions apply:

The key_filename and key_file config options base file paths must be /etc/neutron/sshkeys.
The files referenced in key_filename or key_file as seen above will require those files to be defined as additional files as well.
Unknown fields in the switch configurations are not allowed. See netconf configuration options and generic switch configuration.
For generic switch configurations, the device_type field is mandatory.

After the feature is enabled, you can use the sunbeam baremetal sub-command to manage the deployed nova-ironic shards, Ironic Conductor groups, and Neutron switch configurations.

Managing nova-ironic shards¶

nova-ironic shards will be deployed while enabling the baremetal feature, as mentioned above. Additional shards can be added through the following command:

sunbeam baremetal shard add SHARD

nova-ironic shards can be removed by running the following command:

sunbeam baremetal shard delete SHARD

The following command can be used to list the currently deployed shards:

sunbeam baremetal shard list

Managing Ironic Conductor groups¶

By default, sunbeam deploys an ironic-conductor-k8s charm with an empty conductor-group configuration option. Additional Ironic Conductor groups will be deployed while enabling the baremetal feature, based on the conductor-groups configuration mentioned above.

Additional Ironic Conductor groups can be added through the following command:

sunbeam baremetal conductor-groups add GROUP-NAME

Ironic Conductor Groups can be removed by running the following command:

sunbeam baremetal conductor-groups delete GROUP-NAME

The following command can be used to list the currently Ironic Conductor Groups:

sunbeam baremetal conductor-groups list

Managing Neutron Switch Configurations¶

netconf and generic Neutron switch configurations will be added while enabling the baremetal feature, as mentioned above. Additional configurations can be added through the following command:

sunbeam baremetal switch-config add netconf|generic NAME --config CONFIGFILE  [--additional-file <NAME FILEPATH>]

An existing switch configuration can be updated with the command:

sunbeam baremetal switch-config update netconf|generic NAME --config CONFIGFILE  [--additional-file <NAME FILEPATH>]

Note

For the add / update sub-commands, multiple additional files can be specified.

Note that the same restrictions for the switch configurations mentioned above still apply when adding new ones or updating existing ones.

A switch configuration can be deleted with the following command:

sunbeam baremetal switch-config delete NAME

The following command can be used to list the current Neutron switch configurations and their protocol:

sunbeam baremetal switch-config list

Disabling Baremetal¶

To disable this feature, run the following command:

sunbeam disable baremetal

For information on how to access and use Ironic, check the Baremetal feature nodes page.