metal-stack v0.7.0 🏃
Tue Jun 15 2021
We are continuing our bare-metal journey with the minor release v0.7.0. Along with bug fixes in many places, this release also adds some great new capabilities to metal-stack, which we’d like to introduce to you in this blog post.
- Configurable Filesystem Layouts (MEP-8)
- Machine Firmware Management
- Globally Define BMC Passwords
- Caching Kernels and Boot Images in a Partition
- Extended Hardware Support
- More Information
Check out the direct link to the release here.
Configurable Filesystem Layouts (MEP-8)
Buying hardware is expensive and it is crucial for you to make the best of it. With this feature we tackle your server disks. File system layouts are now dynamically configurable, which allows users to define their own layouts that can be used for machine provisioning.
Before this feature, the metal-hammer came with a limited set of default layouts that were applied to predefined machine sizes. This static mapping was removed completely and every configuration is now fully accessible through the metal-api.
New with this approach is the capability to create LVM volume groups and logical volumes. RAID configurations are possible, too.
To use this feature, there is a completely new set of commands available in metalctl. You can find them beneath the filesystemlayouts subcommand. Your most common layouts should be provided through the metal-stack deployment. You can find example layouts for your deployment automation in the mini-lab here and here.
After that you can list your layouts through metalctl fsl ls:
$ metalctl fsl ls
ID DESCRIPTION FILESYSTEMS SIZES IMAGES
medium-firewall n1 firewall / /dev/sda2 n1-medium-x86 firewall *
/var /dev/sda3 firewall-ubuntu *
/tmp tmpfs
/boot/efi /dev/sda1
default default layout / /dev/sda2 c1-xlarge-x86 centos >= 7.0.20210801
/tmp tmpfs debian >= 10.0.20210801
/boot/efi /dev/sda1 ubuntu >= 20.04.20210801
/var/lib /dev/csi-lvm/varlib
default-legacy old default layout / /dev/sda2 c1-xlarge-x86 centos < 7.0.20210801
/tmp tmpfs debian < 10.0.20210801
/boot/efi /dev/sda1 ubuntu < 20.04.20210801
/var/lib /dev/sda3
default-firewall for firewalls not on n1 / /dev/sda2 c1-xlarge-x86 firewall >= 2.0.20210606
/var /dev/nvme0n1p1 firewall-ubuntu >= 2.0.20210606When allocating a machine, an algorithm automatically determines the layout suitable for the machine allocation, depending on the requested machine size and OS image variant. It’s also possible for a user to explicitly specify the layout by providing the --filesystemlayout flag to the machine create command. For every allocation, the metal-api validates that the inventorized hardware specification is compatible with the chosen layout such that you can be sure that your machine allocation will be successful.
As this feature was specified as a Metal Enhancement Proposal (MEP), the entire documentation for this feature can be found in the docs.
Kudos to @majst01 for contributing the feature.
Machine Firmware Management
metal-stack strives for full data center automation, even in the deepest layers of your infrastructure. As a metal-stack operator, you can now manage firmware through the metal-stack API and roll out latest firmware updates for BIOS and BMCs through metalctl.
To enable this feature, the metal-api needs to be configured with an S3 bucket configuration. Please check out the deployment parametrization here.
After this, you are able to upload firmware images through the firmware upload command and list it via firmware ls:
$ metalctl firmware ls
FIRMWARE VENDOR BOARD REVISION
bios supermicro X11DPT-B 3.4
bios supermicro X11SDV-8C-TP8F 1.4Triggering the firmware update is now as easy as issuing the command metalctl machine update bios. The update will be executed through the metal-core, making use of our hardware-abstraction layer go-hal.
Thanks @kolsa01 for this contribution. 😍
Globally Define BMC Passwords
Accessing the machine’s BMC through the management network is crucial for the metal-stack to function properly. Vendors have different approaches to ship passwords for accessing the BMCs. Managing passwords of these components can become a mess.
This feature tries simplify the metal-stack access to your infrastructure by providing an option to configure a common password for an admin IPMI user that gets deployed in-band through the metal-hammer during the machine discovery phase. With this approach, you make sure that the metal-stack can properly manage your machines even when they come with non-uniform passwords from the hardware vendor.
To enable this feature, you have to set metal_api_bmc_superuser_enabled in your deployment parameters. Please look up the role documentation here.
Caching Kernels and Boot Images in a Partition
The image-cache is an optional component in the metal-stack, but you should for sure deploy it into your partitions. The cache significantly speeds up machine provisioning times by providing a quick line for downloading OS images for your machines.
In addition to OS images, the cache now also supports storing boot kernels and boot initrds (i.e. the metal-hammer) configured for your partitions, decoupling your infrastructure from Github releases assets.
The cache has even some intelligence and you can configure it to only occupy a certain amount of disk space. Latest images can then be downloaded from the cache, outdated images are still possible to be used but they are downloaded from the internet. The cache in action looks like this:
$ journalctl -lu metal-image-cache-sync
...
{"level":"info","ts":1623753025.251867,"logger":"syncer","caller":"sync/syncer.go:308","msg":"sync plan","amount":21,"cache-size-after-sync":"10.73GiB"}
+------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| ID | PATH | SIZE | ACTION |
+------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| centos-7.0.20210415 | metal-os/master/centos/7/20210415/img.tar.lz4 | 657.9MB | keep |
| centos-7.0.20210606 | metal-os/master/centos/7/20210606/img.tar.lz4 | 659.7MB | keep |
| debian-10.0.20200701 | metal-os/master/debian/10/20200806/img.tar.lz4 | 461.7MB | keep |
| debian-10.0.20210131 | metal-os/master/debian/10/20210131/img.tar.lz4 | 467MB | keep |
| debian-10.0.20210207 | metal-os/master/debian/10/20210207/img.tar.lz4 | 479.2MB | keep |
| debian-10.0.20210316 | metal-os/master/debian/10/20210316/img.tar.lz4 | 479.7MB | keep |
| debian-10.0.20210517 | metal-os/master/debian/10/20210517/img.tar.lz4 | 485.9MB | keep |
| firewall-2.0.20201214 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0/20201214/img.tar.lz4 | 443.3MB | keep |
| firewall-2.0.20210131 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0/20210131/img.tar.lz4 | 445.5MB | keep |
| firewall-2.0.20210207 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0/20210207/img.tar.lz4 | 434.2MB | keep |
| firewall-ubuntu-2.0.20201214 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0-ubuntu/20201214/img.tar.lz4 | 542.2MB | keep |
| firewall-ubuntu-2.0.20210131 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0-ubuntu/20210131/img.tar.lz4 | 547.2MB | keep |
| firewall-ubuntu-2.0.20210207 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0-ubuntu/20210207/img.tar.lz4 | 547.2MB | keep |
| firewall-ubuntu-2.0.20210304 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0-ubuntu/20210304/img.tar.lz4 | 547.8MB | keep |
| firewall-ubuntu-2.0.20210316 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0-ubuntu/20210316/img.tar.lz4 | 578.8MB | keep |
| firewall-ubuntu-2.0.20210517 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0-ubuntu/20210517/img.tar.lz4 | 587.6MB | keep |
| firewall-ubuntu-2.0.20210606 | metal-os/master/firewall/2.0-ubuntu/20210606/img.tar.lz4 | 593.6MB | keep |
| ubuntu-20.04.20210131 | metal-os/master/ubuntu/20.04/20210131/img.tar.lz4 | 624.2MB | keep |
| ubuntu-20.04.20210207 | metal-os/master/ubuntu/20.04/20210207/img.tar.lz4 | 624.2MB | keep |
| ubuntu-20.04.20210316 | metal-os/master/ubuntu/20.04/20210316/img.tar.lz4 | 655.6MB | keep |
| ubuntu-20.04.20210517 | metal-os/master/ubuntu/20.04/20210517/img.tar.lz4 | 663.7MB | keep |
+------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
{"level":"info","ts":1623753025.4695091,"logger":"syncer","caller":"sync/syncer.go:308","msg":"sync plan","amount":1,"cache-size-after-sync":"5.782MiB"}
+------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| ID | PATH | SIZE | ACTION |
+------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| 5.10.42-62 | metal-stack/kernel/releases/download/5.10.42-62/metal-kernel | 6.063MB | keep |
+------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
+-------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| ID | PATH | SIZE | ACTION |
+-------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| 0.9.0 | metal-stack/metal-hammer/releases/download/v0.9.0/metal-hammer-initrd.img.lz4 | 45.01MB | keep |
+-------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
{"level":"info","ts":1623753025.7449687,"logger":"syncer","caller":"sync/syncer.go:308","msg":"sync plan","amount":1,"cache-size-after-sync":"42.93MiB"}
{"level":"info","ts":1623753025.745329,"caller":"cmd/main.go:222","msg":"scheduling next sync","at":"2021-06-15 10:40:00 +0000 UTC"}
{"level":"info","ts":1623753076.737936,"caller":"cmd/main.go:311","msg":"serving cache download request","url":"/metal-stack/kernel/releases/download/5.10.42-62/metal-kernel","from":...
{"level":"info","ts":1623753076.8996398,"caller":"cmd/main.go:311","msg":"serving cache download request","url":"/metal-stack/metal-hammer/releases/download/v0.9.0/metal-hammer-initrd.img...If you want to deploy the image-cache to your partitions as well, please check out the role documentation.
Extended Hardware Support
We are trying hard to extend supported hardware for metal-stack. We have two new server types in the family that can be used with metal-stack right out of the box:
- Supermicro SuperServer 2029UZ-TN20R25M
- Supermicro Microcloud 5039MD8-H8TNR
You can checkout the list of supported hardware on this documentation site.
More Information
This is only a small extract of what went into our v0.7.0 release.
Please check out the release notes to find a full overview over every change that went part of this release.
As always, feel free to visit our Slack channel and ask if there are any questions. 😄