Cisco UCS PXE driver

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ironic/+spec/cisco-ucs-pxe-driver

This blueprint proposes adding new driver that supports deployment of Cisco UCS Manager (UCSM) managed B/C/M-series servers.

In this blueprint servers, nodes are used interchangeably that denotes Cisco UCS B/C/M-series servers.

Problem description

Current Ironic drivers require IPMI protocol to be enabled on all Cisco UCS B/C/M-series servers in order to manage power operations. For security reasons from UCS Manager version 2.2.2 IPMI protocol is disabled by default on all servers.

Instead of using IPMI protocol, this blueprint proposes new driver to manage Cisco UCS B/C/M-series servers using Cisco UCS PySDK.

Proposed change

New power and management interfaces will be added as part of pxe_ucs driver. This driver uses the Cisco UCS PySDK for communicating with UCSM.

This driver uses

  • pxe.PXEDeploy for PXE deployment operations

  • ucs.power.Power for power operations

  • ucs.management.UcsManagement for management interface operations

UCS Manager provides python SDK with which user can perform various operations, like controlling the power of nodes, enabling the ports, associating the servers etc. Physical and Logical entities in UCSM are represented as ManagedObject.

  • Power management:

    Controlling the power is similar to modifying the property of the corresponding ManagedObject. LsPower is the ManagedObject that represents the Power of service-profile. As part of managing the power, this provider modifies ‘state’ property of LsPower ManagedObject. UCSM takes care of the rest.

  • Management Interface:

    This interface allows the user to get and set the boot-order on UCS B/C/M servers. LsbootDef is the ManagedObject that represents the boot-order of service-profile. This interface reads and updates LsbootDef ManagedObject appropriately for get and set boot-device operations. get_sensor_data() implementation is not in scope of this spec. A separate spec will be submitted.

Alternatives

The IPMI Pxe driver could be used with Cisco UCS B/C/M-series servers, if IPMI protocol is explicitly enabled overriding the default settings in UCS Manager.

Data model impact

None

RPC API impact

None

State Machine Impact

None

REST API impact

None

Client (CLI) impact

None

Driver API impact

None

Nova driver impact

None

Security impact

None

Other end user impact

None

Scalability impact

None

Performance Impact

None

Other deployer impact

The following driver_info fields are required while enrolling node into ironic:

  • ucs_address: UCS Manager hostname/ip-address

  • ucs_username: User account with admin/server-profile access privilege

  • ucs_password: User account password

  • ucs_service_profile: service_profile DN (DistinguishedName) being used for this node.

The following parameters are added in to the newly created [ucs] section in the ironic configuration file which is typically located at /etc/ironic/ironic.conf.

  • max_retry: maximum number of retries, default value is set to 5.

  • action_timeout: seconds to wait for power action to be completed default value is 30 seconds, there is no explicit maximum limit.

Developer impact

None

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee: saripurigopi

Other contributors: vinbs

Work Items

  • Add new pxe_ucs driver, extending power and management interface APIs.

  • Writing and unit-test cases for pxe_ucs driver.

  • Writing configuration documents.

Dependencies

This driver requires Cisco UCS Python SDK installed on the conductor node.

Testing

Unit-tests will be implemented for new pxe_ucs driver. tempest test suite will be updated to cover the pxe_ucs driver. Continuous integration (CI) support will be added for Cisco UCS B/C/M series servers.

Upgrades and Backwards Compatibility

This driver will not break any compatibility with either on REST API or RPC APIs.

Documentation Impact

References

Cisco UCS PySdk:https://github.com/CiscoUcs/UcsPythonSDK