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

References

Cisco Imc Python SDK v0.7.1: https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-37174