Cisco IMC PXE Driver¶
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ironic/+spec/cisco-imc-pxe-driver
This spec proposes adding a new driver which provides out-of-band non-ipmi based control of UCS C-Series servers through CIMC.
Problem description¶
Current drivers only allow for control of UCS servers via either IPMI or UCSM, the Cisco UCS C-Series operating in standalone mode can also be controlled via CIMC using its http/s XML API. This provides finer control over the server than IPMI can, and doesn’t require the extra infrastructure that UCSM needs.
Proposed change¶
Power and Management interfaces will be created that understand how to talk to CIMC, and these will be used in conjunction with the PXE boot interface, ISCSI deploy interface and Agent deploy interface to create pxe_cimc and agent_cimc drivers.
The CIMC Power interface will inherit the base PowerInterface and implement:
get_power_state
set_power_state
reboot
get_properties
validate
The CIMC Management interface will inherit the base ManagementInterface and implement:
get_properties
validate
get_supported_boot_devices
get_boot_device
set_boot_device
get_sensors_data - This will raise NotImplemented
Alternatives¶
The alternatives are to use the pxe_ipmi or agent_ipmi driver to control the UCS C-Series via IPMI, or install the infrastructure to manage these servers with UCSM and use the pxe_ucs or agent_ucs driver.
Data model impact¶
None
State Machine Impact¶
None
REST API impact¶
None
Client (CLI) impact¶
None
RPC API 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¶
- When enrolling a node into ironic a user must provide:
cimc_address - CIMC IP Address
cimc_username - CIMC Username
cimc_password - CIMC Password
Additional properties added to ironic.conf in a [cimc] section are:
max_retry: maximum times to retry any power operation, default: 6
action_interval: the time to wait in-between power operation retries
Developer impact¶
None
Implementation¶
Assignee(s)¶
- Primary assignee:
sambetts
- Other contributors:
None
Work Items¶
Write CIMC Power Interface and respective unit tests
Write CIMC Management Interface and respective unit tests
Create drivers from new and existing interfaces
Create configuration documentation for pxe_cimc and agent_cimc
Dependencies¶
This driver requires this installation of the ImcSDK on the node where the ironic conductor will be running.
Testing¶
Unit tests for the Power and Management interfaces will be provided. Functional testing will be added in the future.
Upgrades and Backwards Compatibility¶
There should be no compatibility issues introduced by this change.
Documentation Impact¶
Writing configuration documentation.
Updating Ironic documentation section Enabling Drivers: http://docs.openstack.org/developer/ironic/deploy/drivers.html with pxe_cimc and agent_cimc driver related instructions.
References¶
Cisco Imc Python SDK v0.7.1: https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-37174
