BMC

For automatic provisioning of servers and discovery, the BMC method can be used.

Pre requisites

  • Set the IP address of the control plane. The control plane NIC connected to remote servers (through the switch) should be configured with two IPs (BMC IP and admin IP) in a shared LOM or hybrid set up. In the case dedicated network topology, a single IP (admin IP) is required.

../../../_images/ControlPlaneNic.png

  • To assign IPs on the BMC network while discovering servers using a BMC details, target servers should be in DHCP mode or switch details should be provided.

  • BMC credentials should be the same across all servers and provided as input to Omnia in the parameters explained below.

  • Target servers should be configured to boot in PXE mode with the appropriate NIC as the first boot device.

  • If the discovery_ranges provided are outside the bmc_subnet, ensure the target nodes can reach the control plane.

  • IPMI over LAN needs to be enabled for the BMC.

    racadm set iDRAC.IPMILan.Enable 1
racadm get iDRAC.IPMILan

Caution

If you are re-provisioning your cluster (that is, re-running the discovery_provision.yml playbook) after a clean-up, ensure to use a different static_range against bmc_network in input/network_spec.yml to avoid a conflict with newly assigned servers. Alternatively, disable any OS available in the Boot Option Enable/Disable section of your BIOS settings (BIOS Settings > Boot Settings > UEFI Boot Settings) on all target nodes.

  • All target servers should be reachable from the admin_network specified in input/network_spec.yml.

  • BMC network details should be provided in the input/network_spec.yml file.

When entering details in input/network_spec.yml:

  • Ensure that the netmask bits for the BMC network and the admin network are the same.

  • The static and dynamic ranges for the BMC network accepts multiple comma-separated ranges.

  • The network gateways on both admin and BMC networks are optional.

Note

If the value of enable_switch_based is set to true, nodes will not be discovered via BMC irrespective of the contents in input/network_spec.yml.

To continue to the next steps:

If you have any feedback about Omnia documentation, please reach out at omnia.readme@dell.com.