diskimage-builder images

Images built using diskimage-builder are recommended for production use on real hardware. The recommended distributions are:

  • CentOS Stream 9

  • Debian Bookworm (debian-minimal element)

The following should work but receive only limited testing and support:

  • Ubuntu 20.04 Focal

  • Debian Bullseye (debian-minimal element)

Building

… with the helper script

To build an image using ironic-python-agent-builder, run:

ironic-python-agent-builder <distribution, e.g. ubuntu>

You can add other diskimage-builder elements via the -e flag:

ironic-python-agent-builder -e <extra-element> --release 9-stream centos

You can specify the base name of the target images:

ironic-python-agent-builder -o my-ipa --release 9-stream centos

You can specify the arch of the target image by setting ARCH environment variable (default is amd64):

export ARCH=aarch64
ironic-python-agent-builder -o my-ipa --release 9-stream centos

… with diskimage-builder

You can also use diskimage-builder directly. First you need to set the ELEMENTS_PATH variable to the correct location:

  • If installed with pip install --user, use:

    export ELEMENTS_PATH=$HOME/.local/share/ironic-python-agent-builder/dib

  • On Fedora/CentOS/RHEL (installed via sudo pip install or from packages):

    export ELEMENTS_PATH=/usr/share/ironic-python-agent-builder/dib

  • On Debian and its derivatives, if installed with sudo pip install:

    export ELEMENTS_PATH=/usr/local/share/ironic-python-agent-builder/dib

Now you can build an image adding the ironic-python-agent-ramdisk element, for example:

export DIB_RELEASE=9-stream
disk-image-create -o ironic-python-agent \
    ironic-python-agent-ramdisk centos

To use a specific branch of ironic-python-agent, use:

export DIB_REPOREF_ironic_python_agent=origin/stable/queens
export DIB_REPOREF_requirements=origin/stable/queens

To build image for architectures other than amd64, you can either set the ARCH environment variable or use -a to specify the target architecture:

disk-image-create -a arm64 -o ironic-python-agent \
    ironic-python-agent-ramdisk fedora

ISO Images

Additionally, the IPA ramdisk can be packaged inside of an ISO for use with some virtual media drivers. Use the iso-image-create script in ironic-python-agent-builder repository, passing it the initrd and the kernel, for example:

./tools/iso-image-create -o /path/to/output.iso -i /path/to/ipa.initrd -k /path/to/ipa.kernel

This is a generic tool that can be used to combine any initrd and kernel into a suitable ISO for booting, and so should work against any IPA ramdisk.

Advanced options

Disabling rescue

By default rescue mode is enabled in the images. Since it allows to set root password on the ramdisk by anyone on the network, you may disable it if the rescue feature is not supported. Set the following before building the image:

export DIB_IPA_ENABLE_RESCUE=false

SSH access

SSH access can be added to DIB built IPA images with the dynamic-login or the devuser element.

The dynamic-login element allows the operator to inject an SSH key at boot time via the kernel command line parameters:

  • Add sshkey="ssh-rsa <your public key here>" to pxe_append_params setting in the ironic.conf file.

    Warning

    Quotation marks around the public key are important!

  • Restart the ironic-conductor.

Note

This element is added to the published images by default.

The devuser element allows creating a user at build time, for example:

export DIB_DEV_USER_USERNAME=username
export DIB_DEV_USER_PWDLESS_SUDO=yes
export DIB_DEV_USER_AUTHORIZED_KEYS=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
disk-image-create debian ironic-python-agent-ramdisk devuser

Consistent Network Interface Naming

Base cloud images normally disable consistent network interface naming by inserting an empty udev rule. Include stable-interface-names element if you want to have consistent network interface naming whenever it is required for instance image or deploy image.

ironic-python-agent-builder -e stable-interface-names --release 9-stream centos

Firmware Removal

By default the element removes some firmware blobs to reduce the image size. The list can be found below this paragraph. The majority of these firmware images are used by SoCs, WI-FI chips, some GPUs and Smartnics which are unlikely to be encountered. If you want to override this, change the IPA_REMOVE_FIRMWARE environment variable to a comma-separated list of directories or files under /usr/lib/firmware. Set it to an empty string to disable firmware removal.

Firmware removed:

  • amdgpu

  • netronome

  • qcom

  • ti-communication

  • ti-keystone

  • ueagle-atm

  • rsi

  • mrvl

  • brcm

  • mediatek

  • ath10k

  • rtlwifi

Available Elements

Ironic Python Agent (IPA) Extra Hardware

This element adds the hardware python package to the Ironic Python Agent (IPA) ramdisk. It also installs several package dependencies of the hardware module.

The hardware package provides improves hardware introspection capabilities and supports benchmarking. This functionality may be enabled by adding the extra-hardware collector in the [DEFAULT] inspection_collectors option or the ipa-inspection-collectors kernel command line argument.

The following environment variables may be set to configure the element when doing a source-based installation:

  • DIB_IPA_HARDWARE_PACKAGE the full hardware Python package descriptor to use. If unset, DIB_IPA_HARDWARE_VERSION will be used.

  • DIB_IPA_HARDWARE_VERSION the version of the hardware package to install when DIB_IPA_HARDWARE_PACKAGE is unset. If unset, the latest version will be installed.

ironic-python-agent-ramdisk

Builds a ramdisk with ironic-python-agent.

More information can be found at: https://docs.openstack.org/ironic-python-agent/latest/

Beyond installing the ironic-python-agent, this element does the following:

  • Installs the dhcp-all-interfaces so the node, upon booting, attempts to obtain an IP address on all available network interfaces.

  • Disables the iptables service on SysV and systemd based systems.

  • Disables the ufw service on Upstart based systems.

  • Installs packages required for the operation of the ironic-python-agent:: qemu-utils parted hdparm util-linux

  • When installing from source, python-dev and gcc are also installed in order to support source based installation of ironic-python-agent and its dependencies.

  • Install the certificate if any, which is set to the environment variable DIB_IPA_CERT for validating the authenticity by ironic-python-agent. The certificate can be self-signed certificate or CA certificate.

  • Compresses initramfs with command specified in environment variable DIB_IPA_COMPRESS_CMD, which is ‘gzip’ by default. This command should listen for raw data from stdin and write compressed data to stdout. Command can be with arguments.

  • Configures rescue mode if DIB_IPA_ENABLE_RESCUE is not set to false.

This element outputs two files:

  • $IMAGE-NAME.initramfs: The deploy ramdisk file containing the ironic-python-agent (IPA) service.

  • $IMAGE-NAME.kernel: The kernel binary file.

Note

The package based install currently only enables the service when using the systemd init system. This can easily be changed if there is an agent package which includes upstart or sysv packaging.

Note

Using the ramdisk will require at least 1.5GB of ram

ironic-python-agent-tls

Adds TLS support to ironic-python-agent-ramdisk.

By default this element will enable TLS API support in IPA with a self-signed certificate and key created at build time.

Optionally, you can provide your own SSL certificate and key, and optionally CA, via the following environment variables. They should be set to an accessible path on the build systems filesystem. If set, they will be copied into the built ramdisk, and IPA will be configured to use them.

The environment variables are:

  • DIB_IPA_CERT_FILE should point to the TLS certificate for ramdisk use.

  • DIB_IPA_KEY_FILE should point to the private key matching DIB_IPA_CERT_FILE.

You can configure the generated certificate with the following environment variables:

  • DIB_IPA_CERT_HOSTNAME the CN for the generated certificate. Defaults to “ipa-ramdisk.example.com”.

  • DIB_IPA_CERT_EXPIRATION expiration, in days, for the certificate. Defaults to 1095 (three years).

Note that the certificates generated by this element are self-signed, and any nodes using them will need to set agent_verify_ca=False in driver_info.

This element can also configure client certificate validation in IPA. If you wish to validate client certificates, set DIB_IPA_CA_FILE to a CA file you wish IPA client connections to be validated against. This CA file will be copied into the built ramdisk, and IPA will be configured to use it.