Override PXE options via Glance property

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic/+bug/1526409

The proposal presents the work required to allow PXE boot an image using a specific kernel command line for that image.

Problem description

Some images requires having specific kernel command line to boot correctly. Currently, Ironic tries to determine things like the root filesystem the image is on (“root=” kernel command line) by getting the UUID of the image filesystem and setting as the root= parameter. This is not correct for all images because some may need to boot from a different root filesystem, e.g:

  • The device path of its LVM volume [root=/dev/mapper/vg-lv_root]

  • From one squashfs filesystem [root=live:<path>]

  • A btrfs subvolume [root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/<UUID of btrfs-root>]

As a real example, the Fedora Atomic uses lvm and ostree. It requires a kernel command line as the example below to boot properly:

nofb nomodeset vga=normal console=tty1 no_timer_check
rd.lvm.lv=atomicos/root root=/dev/mapper/atomicos-root
ostree=/ostree/boot.0/fedora-atomic/a002a2c2e44240db614e09e82c/0

Proposed change

In the same way Ironic look at the Glance image properties to find out the Glance UUID for the image’s kernel and ramdisk (kernel_id and ramdisk_id) and populate the node’s instance_info field with the kernel and ramdisk keys.

This spec propose having a new image’s property field called kernel_cmdline that Ironic will look at, and if present, it will populate the node’s instance_info field with a kernel_cmdline key.

If the instance_info.kernel_cmdline is populate Ironic will skip getting the root partition filesystem UUID and will use the command line from the instance_info field instead of the default one in the template. It’s important to note that the values present at the pxe_append_params configuration option will still be appended at the end of the image’s custom kernel command line by Ironic.

Setting the keys in the instance_info field is important because it also allows Ironic to operate in standalone mode without Glance.

Alternatives

Always use whole disk images when deploying images that requires a specific kernel command line

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

Ramdisk impact

N/A

Security impact

None

Other end user impact

None

Scalability impact

None

Performance Impact

None

Other deployer impact

Deployers that wants to deploy an image with a specific kernel command line should know and set it in Glance image’s property prior to trying to boot the image.

Developer impact

None

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee:

lucasagomes <lucasagomes@gmail.com>

Other contributors:

None

Work Items

  • Make Ironic look at the kernel_cmdline image property in Glance and if present set it to the node’s instance_info field

  • When preparing to boot the user’s image, make Ironic check if the node’s instance_info field contains a key called kernel_cmdline (along with kernel_id and ramdisk_id) and if so, use that kernel command line to boot the image.

Dependencies

None

Testing

  • Unit Tests

Upgrades and Backwards Compatibility

None

Documentation Impact

The Ironic deploy documentation will be updated to reflect the changes made by this spec.

References