Configuring Cisco UCS Director Bare Metal Agent

This chapter contains the following sections:

Adding a Bare Metal Agent Account

Before you begin


Important

From the Bare Metal Agent release 6.9(2.0), the root user is disabled and 'bmaadmin' is enabled by default.

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, login to Bare Metal Agent VM Console to view the Management IP address.

  • Log in to Bare Metal Agent through VM Console or SSH client to access the CLI and change the default bmaadmin password using the BMA Shell option Manage bmaadmin Access.

  • 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 the PXE interface of the Bare Metal Agent is connected to PXE VLAN network and configure DHCP service with an appropriate IP address range.

  • Ensure to use the same Samba password of the legacy BMA (version 6.7.4.2 / 6.8.x.x) in the Samba Password and Confirm Samba Password fields in the migrated BMA (version 6.9.x.x), if the Samba Service for Windows PXE check box is enabled.

  • Log into Bare Metal Agent VM using SSH client and update WinPE.wim with eth1 IP address details of the migrated BMA (version 6.9.x.x), if the legacy BMA (version 6.7.4.2 / 6.8.x.x) and migrated BMA (version 6.9.x.x) are deployed with different PXE IP addresses.

  • Log into Cisco UCS Manager and update the service profile with PXE VLAN details of the migrated BMA (version 6.9.x.x), reset the server, and then resubmit the service request in Cisco UCS Director appliance, if the legacy BMA (version 6.7.4.2 / 6.8.x.x) and migrated BMA (version 6.9.X.X) are deployed with different PXEVLAN ID or a failed service request is available in the migrated Cisco UCS Director appliance (version 6.9.x.x).

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 3

On the Add Bare Metal Agent Appliance screen, 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 management and PXE traffic check box

Select this check 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 check box is selected.

Login ID field

Enter 'bmaadmin'. This account provides the administrative privileges for Bare Metal Agent.

As 'bmaadmin' is the default user from the Bare Metal Agent release 6.9(2.0), it is necessary to link Cisco UCS Director with Bare Metal Agent using 'bmaadmin' account.

Password field

Enter the password created for the 'bmaadmin' account.

Enable Samba service for Windows PXE check box

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

In Cisco UCS Director, Release 6.9, ensure to use the same Samba password of the legacy BMA (version 6.7.4.2 / 6.8.x.x) in the Samba Password and Confirm Samba Password fields in the migrated BMA (version 6.9.x.x), if this check box is enabled.

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 the Bare Metal Agent.

Database Address drop-down list

The Bare Metal Agent requires access to the Cisco UCS Director database. Choose the IP address of Cisco UCS Director which is on the same Management network as the Bare Metal Agent.

Note

 

If you are configuring the Bare Metal Agent for the Cisco UCS Director 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.

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to the Cisco UCS Director server with the following credentials:

  1. User—admin

  2. Password—admin

Step 2

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 3

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

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

On the Configure DHCP screen, 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.

Associating a Bare Metal Agent to Cisco UCS Director

To establish a connection between the Bare Metal Agent and Cisco UCS Director, you need to associate the Bare Metal Agent to Cisco UCS Director.

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to Cisco UCS Director deployed with the compatible version of the Bare Metal Agent.

Step 2

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 3

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 4

Add a Bare Metal Agent account. See Adding a Bare Metal Agent Account.

Step 5

Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account and click Start Services. It might take around two minutes for the services to start.

Step 6

After the services have started, verify that the status of the account in the Status column is Active. It might take two minutes for the status to reflect as Active. When status of the BMA service is active, the BMA is ready for use.

Note

 

Only when the BMA services are started from the Cisco UCS Director UI, the dbkeys and dbcreds files are copied to a specific location in the BMA appliance to establish successful connectivity to the Cisco UCS Director.

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.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

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

On the Configure PXE Interface screen, 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

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

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 NFS Mount Point.

Step 6

Click Add.

Step 7

On the Add NFS Mount Point screen, 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.

Uploading an OS Image File

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 3

Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account for which you want to upload the OS image.

Step 4

From the More Actions drop-down list, click View Details.

Step 5

Click Image Repository.

Step 6

Click Upload Image.

Step 7

On the Image Upload screen, complete the following fields:

Name Description

Image Name field

The name of the OS image.

OS Type drop-down list

Choose the OS image type that you want to install on the server. The drop-down list includes all OS types supported by the Bare Metal Agent.

Upload Type drop-down list

Choose one of the following:

  • Desktop File - To select the file from your local.

  • Web Server Path - To select the file from a remote server that is reachable by the Cisco UCS Director Bare Metal Agent.

Local File Path field

This field is displayed when you choose the Desktop File option in the Upload Type drop-down list.

To upload the file, you can either drag and drop the required file or click Select and click Submit.

Web URL field

This field is displayed when you choose the Web Server Path option in the Upload Type drop-down list.

Enter the web server path where the ISO images are stored and click Submit.

MD5 Checksum field

This field is displayed when you choose the Web Server Path option in the Upload Type drop-down list.

(Optional) Enter the MD5 checksum value of the downloaded ISO file which is used to verify the data integrity.

Step 8

Click Submit. The details of the uploaded image is displayed.

Step 9

Under Image Repository menu, select the row for the OS image for which you want to view the upload status and log details.

The Upload Status is updated to Upload Succeeded, and the corresponding log message is displayed under the Upload Log column.

Generating Custom ESXi ISO Image

From the Cisco UCS Director Bare Metal Agent, release 6.9(3.0), you can have the system generate the required ISO image for the ESXi OS by uploading the ESXi Depot file and the Driver zip file.

Before you begin

  • Ensure that the Cisco UCS Director Bare Metal Agent is well connected to the internet so that the system can download the VMware PowerCLI software from the Broadcom website, as this software is essential for the successful generation of Custom ESXi ISO image.

  • ESXi Depot File—You must have downloaded the ESXi base image from the VMware website. For example, VMware-ESXi-9.0.0.0.24580437-depot.zip.

  • Driver File—You must have downloaded or created a driver ZIP file containing all the required async drivers to be integrated into the Custom ESXi ISO image. The required files can be downloaded from the Cisco website.

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 3

From the list of Bare Metal Agent accounts, select the required Bare Metal Agent account for which you want to upload the Custom ESXi ISO image.

Step 4

From the top menu, select Image Repository.

Step 5

Click the Upload Image icon.

Step 6

On the Image Upload screen, complete the following fields:

Name Description

Image Name field

The name of the Custom ESXi ISO image.

OS Type drop-down list

Select Custom-ESXi.

Upload Type drop-down list

Choose one of the following:

  • Desktop File—To select the files from your local.

  • Web Server Path—To select the files from a remote server.

Important

 

When you upload incompatible files or files with unsupported or invalid file formats, the upload will not succeed, and the OS image entry added under the Image Repository area will be removed after validation.

ESXi Depot File Path field

This field is displayed when you choose the Desktop File option in the Upload Type drop-down list.

To upload the file, you can either drag and drop the required file or click Select a File to browse and choose the file from your local system.

Driver File Path field

This field is displayed when you choose the Desktop File option in the Upload Type drop-down list.

To upload the file, you can either drag and drop the required file or click Select a File to browse and choose the file from your local system.

ESXi Depot File Web URL field

This field is displayed when you choose the Web Server Path option in the Upload Type drop-down list.

Enter the web server path where the ESXi Depot file is stored.

Driver File Web URL field

This field is displayed when you choose the Web Server Path option in the Upload Type drop-down list.

Enter the web server path where the Driver file is stored.

Step 7

Click Submit.

The system will take some time to prepare the Custom ESXi ISO image.

Step 8

Under the Image Repository menu, select the row for the OS image for which you want to view the upload status and log details.

The Upload Status is updated to Upload Succeeded upon successful completion of the Custom ESXi ISO image generation, and the corresponding log message is displayed under the Upload Log column.

What to do next

Deploy the Custom ESXi OS on the Cisco UCS Manager-based bare metal servers using the provisioning processes. For more information, refer Provisioning OS Images through Orchestration Workflow Tasks.

Note

The Custom ESXi OS deployment is not applicable for the third party servers.

Viewing and Editing the OS Configuration File Details

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 3

Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account.

Step 4

From the More Actions drop-down list, click View Details.

Step 5

Click OS Catalogs.

Step 6

Click the row for the OS catalog for which you want to view the configuration details.

Step 7

Click View Configuration Files.

Step 8

On the View Configuration Files screen, choose a file. The configuration details for the file are displayed.

Step 9

Click the row for the OS catalog for which you want to edit the configuration details and click Edit Configuration Files.

Step 10

On the Modify Configuration Files screen, choose the required file from the Select the file drop-down list and make the necessary changes.

Important

 
For provisioning of ESXi and RHEL OS to HP, Dell, and UCSM bare metal servers through vMedia, as a prerequisite, the following files must be edited:

OS

Configuration Files

ESXi

boot.cfg

boot-uefi.cfg

RHEL

ks.cfg

ks-uefi.cfg

Step 11

Click Submit.

You can delete the configuration details by clicking Delete Configuration Files.

Cloning an OS Configuration File

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 3

Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account.

Step 4

From the More Actions drop-down list, click View Details.

Step 5

Click OS Catalogs.

Step 6

Click the row for the OS catalog for which you want to clone the configuration details.

Step 7

Click Clone Configuration Files.

Step 8

On the Clone Configuration Files screen, do the following:

  1. Choose a file from the Select the file drop-down list.

  2. Enter a unique name for the file.

  3. Click Submit.

Swapping the OS Configuration File Details

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 3

Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account.

Step 4

From the More Actions drop-down list, click View Details.

Step 5

Click OS Catalogs.

Step 6

Click the row for the OS catalog for which you want to swap the configuration details.

Step 7

Click Swap Configuration Files.

Step 8

On the Swap Configuration Files screen, choose the files whose details need to be swapped.

Step 9

Click Submit.

Provisioning an OS Image

Procedure

Step 1

Choose Administration > Physical Accounts.

Step 2

On the Physical Accounts page, click Bare Metal Agents.

Step 3

Click the row for the Bare Metal Agent account for which you want to upload the OS image.

Step 4

From the More Actions drop-down list, click View Details.

Step 5

Click Image Repository.

Step 6

Click the row for the OS image that you want to provision.

Step 7

Click Provision Image.

Step 8

On the Provision Image Catalog screen, complete the following fields:

Name Description

OS Type drop-down list

Choose the OS image type that needs to be provisioned in the Bare Metal Agent. The drop-down list includes all the available OS types with details such as version and update number.

Catalog Name field

Enter the catalog name.

Important

 

While provisioning ESXi and RHEL OS to Dell, HP, and UCSM bare metal servers, make a note of the catalog name as it is used as an input for a workflow.

Step 9

Click Provision Image.

Note

 

For provisioning of ESXi and RHEL OS for HP, Dell, and UCSM bare metal servers, some prerequisites must be met. For more information, see Provisioning OS Images through Orchestration Workflow Tasks.