Configuring Cisco UCS Director Bare Metal Agent

This chapter contains the following sections:

Adding a Bare Metal Agent Account

Before You Begin

Before you add a Bare Metal Agent account, do the following:

  • Make sure that the Bare Metal Agent is installed.

  • Make sure that the Bare Metal Agent VM is completely booted up, and that the VM Console is closed. You must have the IP address of the Bare Metal Agent VM.

  • Set up the environment required to support a single or separate PXE and Management network configuration, with the appropriate VLANs.

  • To provide required DHCP services, ensure that at least one DHCP server is located in the same PXE VLAN as Bare Metal Agent and configure that DHCP server with an appropriate IP address range.

    Step 1   On the menu bar, choose Administration > Physical Accounts.
    Step 2   Click the Bare Metal Agents tab.
    Step 3   In the Add Bare Metal Agent Appliance dialog box, complete the following fields:
    Name Description

    Account Name field

    The name you assign to this Bare Metal Agent account.

    Description field

    (Optional) A description of this Bare Metal Agent.

    Bare Metal Agent uses different interfaces for mgmt and PXE traffic box

    Check this box if your configuration uses separate networks for the PXE server and the management network that hosts the traffic manager.

    Management/PXE Address field

    The IP address assigned to the Management network for Bare Metal Agent. If your configuration uses a single network for the Management and PXE networks, this IP address is automatically assigned as the PXE address.

    Note   

    This address must be reachable from Cisco UCS Director.

    PXE Interface Address field

    The IP address for the Bare Metal Agent PXE network, if your configuration uses separate networks.

    Note   

    This field appears only if the Bare Metal Agent uses Different Interfaces for Management and PXE Traffic box has been checked.

    Login ID field

    An account with administrative privileges that you can use to log in to Bare Metal Agent.

    Password field

    The password for the account.

    Enable Samba service for Windows PXE box

    Samba is used for Bare Metal Agent to install Windows Operating Systems. Check this box if you want to install Windows Operating Systems.

    Samba Password field

    Enter the password for the Samba service.

    Confirm Samba Password field

    Confirm the password for the Samba service.

    Location field

    (Optional) The location of this Bare Metal Agent, such as a physical location.

    Database Address drop-down list

    Choose the IP address that is associated with the Cisco UCS Director database that this Bare Metal Agent will use.

    Note   

    If you are configuring Bare Metal Agent for multi-node deployment, choose the IP address of the Inventory Database node.

    Step 4   Click Submit.
    What to Do Next

    Configure the DHCP Server for Bare Metal Agent.

    Configuring the DHCP Server for a Bare Metal Agent Account


    Note

    For a multi-home DHCP configuration, use this procedure to configure the first subnet for the DHCP server. For the remaining subnets, you must manually edit the DHCP configuration file (/etc/dhcpd.conf).

    Before You Begin

    To provide required DHCP services, ensure that at least one DHCP server is located in the same PXE VLAN as Bare Metal Agent. Configure the DHCP server with an appropriate IP address range. The DHCP server, together with the TFTP server, is used to communicate with a PXE server.

      Step 1   Log in to the Cisco UCS Director server with the following credentials:
      1. User—admin
      2. Password—admin
      Step 2   On the menu bar, choose Administration > Physical Accounts.
      Step 3   Click the Bare Metal Agents tab.
      Step 4   Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account for which you want to configure the DHCP server.
      Step 5   Click Service Status to verify that services for the Bare Metal Agent account are stopped.
      Step 6   Click Configure DHCP.
      Step 7   In the Configure DHCP dialog box, complete the following fields and click Submit.

      • DHCP Subnet

      • DHCP Netmask

      • DHCP Start IP

      • DHCP End IP

      • Router IP Address

      The DHCP IP address assignments are updated, and the DHCP service is restarted.

      Step 8   Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account and click Start Services.
      Step 9   After the services have started, do the following:

      • Verify that the status of the account in the Status column is Active.

      • Verify that the Enabled Services column shows that all services are running. If this status indicates that one or more services are stopped, verify the configuration of your DHCP server and try again.

      • Click Service Status to verify that the status of all expected services is up:

        • Network Services status in the Bare Metal Agent appliance

        • Database connectivity status from the Bare Metal Agent appliance

      What to Do Next

      Set up PXE boot requests.

      Configuring the Interface for the PXE Network

      You can use this to change or add an IP address for the PXE network used by Bare Metal Agent.

        Step 1   On the menu bar, choose Administration > Physical Accounts.
        Step 2   Click the Bare Metal Agents tab.
        Step 3   Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account for which you want to configure the interface for the PXE network.
        Step 4   Click Configure Interface.
        Step 5   In the Configure PXE Interface dialog box, complete the following fields:
        1. From the Interface Name drop-down list, choose the interface that you want to use for the PXE network.
        2. Enter the IP address and subnet mask for the PXE network.
        3. Click Submit.

        Adding an NFS Mount Point

          Step 1   On the menu bar, choose Administration > Physical Accounts.
          Step 2   Click the Bare Metal Agents tab.
          Step 3   Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account for which you want to view PXE service requests.
          Step 4   Click View Details.
          Step 5   Click the NFS Mount Point tab.
          Step 6   Click Add.
          Step 7   In the Add NFS Mount Point dialog box, do the following:
          1. In the NFS Server IP Address field, enter the IP address of the NFS server where you plan to store the OS images for Bare Metal Agent to use.
          2. In the NFS Server Path field, enter the location on the NFS server where the OS images are stored.
          3. Click Submit.

          After you add the NFS mount point, all content in the imageRepository folder in the NFS server is available under the /mnt/external folder. You include this path in the isoExtractor.sh file when you create a non-Windows image template.