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Chapter 6. Creating and modifying bare metal assets

Bare metal assets are virtual or physical servers that you configure to run your OpenShift Container Platform clusters. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes connects to a bare metal asset that your administrator creates. Then you can deploy the bare metal asset in a managed cluster.

The hub cluster inventory controller defines a custom resource definition (CRD) called BareMetalAsset, that holds the bare metal asset inventory record. When provisioning a managed cluster, the inventory controller reconciles BareMetalAsset inventory records with corresponding BareMetalHost resources in the managed cluster.

Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management uses BareMetalAsset CRs to provision cluster hardware based on records entered in a configuration management database (CMDB), or similar system. An external tool or automation polls the CMDB and uses the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management API to create corresponding BareMetalAsset and corresponding Secret resources in a hub cluster for subsequent deployment in a managed cluster.

Use the following procedures to create and manage bare metal assets for clusters managed by Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management.

6.1. Prerequisites

You need the following prerequisites before creating a bare metal asset:

  • A deployed Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management hub cluster on OpenShift Container Platform version 4.6, or later.
  • Access for your Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management hub cluster to connect to the bare metal asset.

  • A configured bare metal asset, and log in credentials with the required permissions to log in and manage it.

    Note: Credentials for your bare metal asset include the following items for the asset that are provided by your administrator: user name password Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) Address boot NIC MAC address

6.2. Creating a bare metal asset with the console

To create a bare metal asset using the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console, complete the following steps:

  1. From the navigation menu, navigate to Infrastructure > Bare metal assets.
  2. On the Bare metal assets page, click Create bare metal asset.
  3. Enter a name for your asset that identifies it when you create a cluster.

  4. Enter the namespace where you want to create the bare metal asset.

    Note: The bare metal asset, managed bare metal cluster, and its related secret must be in the same namespace.

    Users who have access to this namespace can associate this asset to the cluster when creating a cluster.

  5. Enter the BMC address. This is the controller that enables communication with the host. The following protocols are supported:

  6. Enter the username and password for the bare metal asset.
  7. Add the boot NIC MAC address for the bare metal asset. This is the MAC address of the host’s network-connected NIC that is used to provision the host on the bare metal asset.

You can continue with Creating a cluster on bare metal.

6.3. Creating a bare metal asset using the CLI

Use a BareMetalAsset CR to create a bare metal asset for a particular namespace in the cluster. Each BareMetalAsset also has a corresponding Secret that contains the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) credentials and the secret name in the same namespace.

6.3.1. Prerequisites

  • Install Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes on a hub cluster.
  • Install the Red Hat OpenShift CLI (oc).
  • Log in as a user with cluster-admin privileges.

6.3.2. Create the bare metal asset

  1. Install and provision a bare metal asset in your environment.
  2. Power on the BMC, and note the IPMI or Redfish BMC address and MAC address for the hardware.

  3. Create the following BareMetalAsset and Secret CR, and save the file as baremetalasset-cr.yaml: 

    apiVersion: inventory.open-cluster-management.io/v1alpha1
kind: BareMetalAsset
metadata:
  name: <baremetalasset-machine>
  namespace: <baremetalasset-namespace>
spec:
  bmc:
    address: ipmi://<out_of_band_ip>:<port>
    credentialsName: baremetalasset-machine-secret
  bootMACAddress: "00:1B:44:11:3A:B7"
  hardwareProfile: "hardwareProfile"
  role: "<role>"
  clusterName: "<cluster name>"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: baremetalasset-machine-secret
type: Opaque
data:
  username: <username>
  password: <password>
    • Replace baremetalasset-machine with the name of the machine where the bare metal asset is located. When created, the BareMetalHost on the managed cluster gets the same name as the corresponding BareMetalAsset on the hub cluster. The BareMetalHost name should always match the corresponding BareMetalAsset name.
    • Replace baremetalasset-namespace with the cluster namespace where the bare metal asset is created.
    • Replace out_of_band_ip and port with the address and port for your bare metal asset. For Redfish addressing, use the following address format: redfish://<out-of-band-ip>/redfish/v1/Systems/1.
    • Replace role with worker, master, or leave it empty, depending on the machine role type. The role setting is used to match a bare metal asset to specific machine role types in the cluster. BareMetalAsset resources with a specified machine role type should not be used to fill another role. The role value is used as the value for a label with key inventory.open-cluster-management.io/role. This enables a cluster management application or user to query for inventory that is intended for a particular role.
    • Replace cluster_name with the name of your cluster, which is used by the cluster management application or user to query for inventory that is associated with a particular cluster. Leave this value empty to create the bare metal asset without adding it to a cluster deployment.
    • Replace username with the username for your secret.
    • Replace password with the password for your secret.

  4. Run the following command to create the BareMetalAsset CR: 

    $ oc create -f baremetalasset-cr.yaml

  5. Check that the BareMetalAsset is created successfully: 

    $ oc get baremetalassets -A

    Example output

    NAMESPACE   		    NAME                              AGE
ocp-example-bm      baremetalasset-machine   			    2m
ocp-example-bm      csv-f24-h27-000-r630-master-1-1   4d21h

6.4. Bulk importing bare metal assets with the console

You can import bare metal assets in bulk using the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console using a CSV formatted list.

6.4.1. Prerequisites

  • Install Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management on a hub cluster that manages one or more spoke clusters.
  • Install the OpenShift Container Platform CLI (oc).
  • Log in as a user with cluster-admin privileges.

6.4.2. Import the assets

To import a set of bare metal assets, complete the following steps:

  1. From the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management console, select Cluster management > Bare metal assets in the navigation menu.

  2. Select Import assets, and import the CSV file that contains the bare metal assets data. The CSV file must have the following header columns: 

    hostName, hostNamespace, bmcAddress, macAddress, role (optional), username, password

6.5. Modifying a bare metal asset

If you need to modify the settings for a bare metal asset, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console navigation, select: Infrastructure > Bare metal assets.
  2. Select the options menu for the asset that you want to modify in the table.
  3. Select Edit asset.

6.6. Removing a bare metal asset

When a bare metal asset is no longer used for any of the clusters, you can remove it from the list of available bare metal assets. Removing unused assets both simplifies your list of available assets, and prevents the accidental selection of that asset.

To remove a bare metal asset in the console, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console navigation, select: Infrastructure > Bare metal assets.
  2. Select the options menu for the asset that you want to remove in the table.
  3. Select Delete asset.

6.7. Using the REST API to create a bare metal asset

You can use the OpenShift Container Platform REST API to manage bare metal assets for use in your Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management cluster. This is useful when you have a separate CMDB application or database to manage the bare metal assets in your environment.

6.7.1. Prerequisites

  • Install Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes on a hub cluster.
  • Install the OpenShift Container Platform CLI (oc).
  • Log in as a user with cluster-admin privileges.

6.7.2. Create the bare metal asset

To use the REST API to create a bare metal asset, do the following:

  1. Obtain a login token for your hub cluster, and login to the cluster at the command line. For example: 

    $ oc login --token=<login_token> --server=https://<hub_cluster_api_url>:6443

  2. Modify the following curl command with the details of the bare metal asset that you want to add to the cluster, and run the command. 

    $ curl --location --request POST '<hub_cluster_api_url>:6443/apis/inventory.open-cluster-management.io/v1alpha1/namespaces/<bare_metal_asset_namespace>/baremetalassets?fieldManager=kubectl-create' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <login_token>' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "apiVersion": "inventory.open-cluster-management.io/v1alpha1",
    "kind": "BareMetalAsset",
    "metadata": {
        "name": "<baremetalasset_name>",
        "namespace": "<bare_metal_asset_namespace>"
    },
    "spec": {
        "bmc": {
            "address": "ipmi://<ipmi_address>",
            "credentialsName": "<credentials-secret>"
        },
        "bootMACAddress": "<boot_mac_address>",
        "clusterName": "<cluster_name>",
        "hardwareProfile": "hardwareProfile",
        "role": "worker"
    }
}'
    • Replace baremetalasset-name with the name of the bare metal asset. When created, the BareMetalHost on the managed cluster gets the same name as the corresponding BareMetalAsset on the hub cluster. The BareMetalHost name should always match the corresponding BareMetalAsset name.
    • Replace baremetalasset-namespace with the cluster namespace where the bare metal asset is created.
    • Replace out_of_band_ip and port with the address and port for your bare metal asset. For Redfish addressing, use the following address format: redfish://<out-of-band-ip>/redfish/v1/Systems/1.
    • Replace role with worker, master, or leave it empty, depending on the machine role type. The role setting is used to match a bare metal asset to specific machine role types in the cluster. BareMetalAsset resources with a specified machine role type should not be used to fill another role. The role value is used as the value for a label with key inventory.open-cluster-management.io/role. This enables a cluster management application or user to query for inventory that is intended for a particular role.

    • Replace cluster_name with the name of your cluster, which is used by the cluster management application or user to query for inventory that is associated with a particular cluster. Leave this value empty to create the bare metal asset without adding it to a cluster deployment.

      Note: For the previous curl command, it is assumed that the API server is served over HTTPS and is accessed securely. In a development or test environment, you can pass the --insecure parameter.

Tip: You can append --v=9 to an oc command to see the raw output of the resulting action. This can be useful for ascertaining the REST API route for an oc command.

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