iDRAC driver

Overview

The integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) is an out-of-band management platform on Dell EMC servers, and is supported directly by the idrac hardware type. This driver utilizes the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Redfish protocol to perform all of it’s functions. In older versions of Ironic, this driver leveraged Web Services for Management (WSMAN) protocol.

iDRAC hardware is also supported by the generic ipmi and redfish hardware types, though with smaller feature sets.

Key features of the Dell iDRAC driver include:

• Out-of-band node inspection

• Boot device management and firmware management

• Power management

• RAID controller management and RAID volume configuration

• BIOS settings configuration

Ironic Features

The idrac hardware type extends the redfish hardware type and supports the following Ironic interfaces:

• BIOS Interface: BIOS management

• Inspect Interface: Hardware inspection

• Management Interface: Boot device and firmware management

• Power Interface: Power management

• RAID Interface: RAID controller and disk management

• Vendor Interface: eject virtual media (Redfish)

Prerequisites

The idrac hardware type requires the sushy library and the vendor extensions to be installed on the ironic conductor node(s) if an Ironic node is configured to use an idrac-redfish interface implementation, for example:

sudo pip install 'sushy>=2.0.0' 'sushy-oem-idrac>=2.0.0'

Enabling

The iDRAC driver supports Redfish for the bios, inspect, management, power, and raid interfaces.

The idrac-redfish implementation must be enabled to use Redfish for an interface.

To enable the idrac hardware type, add the following to your /etc/ironic/ironic.conf:

[DEFAULT]
enabled_hardware_types=idrac
enabled_management_interfaces=idrac-redfish
enabled_power_interfaces=redfish

To enable all optional features (BIOS, inspection, RAID, and vendor passthru), use the following configuration:

[DEFAULT]
enabled_hardware_types=idrac
enabled_bios_interfaces=redfish
enabled_firmware_interfaces=redfish
enabled_inspect_interfaces=idrac-redfish
enabled_management_interfaces=idrac-redfish
enabled_power_interfaces=idrac-redfish
enabled_raid_interfaces=idrac-redfish
enabled_vendor_interfaces=idrac-redfish

Below is the list of supported interface implementations in priority order:

Interface	Supported Implementations
bios	idrac-redfish, no-bios
boot	ipxe, pxe, http-ipxe, http, redfish-https, idrac-redfish-virtual-media
console	no-console
deploy	direct, ansible, ramdisk
firmware	redfish, no-firmware
inspect	idrac-redfish, inspector, no-inspect
management	idrac-redfish
network	flat, neutron, noop
power	redfish, idrac-redfish
raid	idrac-redfish, no-raid
rescue	no-rescue, agent
storage	noop, cinder, external
vendor	redfish, idrac-redfish, no-vendor

Protocol-specific Properties

The Redfish protocols require different properties to be specified in the Ironic node’s driver_info field to communicate with the bare metal system’s iDRAC.

The Redfish protocol requires the following properties:

• redfish_username: The Redfish user name to use when communicating with the iDRAC. Usually root.

• redfish_password: The password for the Redfish user to use when communicating with the iDRAC.

• redfish_address: The URL address of the iDRAC. It must include the authority portion of the URL, and can optionally include the scheme. If the scheme is missing, https is assumed.

• redfish_system_id: The Redfish ID of the server to be managed. This should always be: /redfish/v1/Systems/System.Embedded.1.

For other Redfish protocol parameters see Redfish driver.

Enrolling

The following command enrolls a bare metal node with the idrac hardware type using Redfish for all interfaces:

baremetal node create --driver idrac \
    --driver-info redfish_username=user \
    --driver-info redfish_password=pa$$w0rd \
    --driver-info redfish_address=drac.host \
    --driver-info redfish_system_id=/redfish/v1/Systems/System.Embedded.1 \
    --bios-interface redfish \
    --inspect-interface idrac-redfish \
    --management-interface idrac-redfish \
    --power-interface redfish \
    --raid-interface idrac-redfish \
    --vendor-interface redfish

BIOS Interface

The BIOS interface implementations supported by the idrac hardware type allows BIOS to be configured with the standard clean/deploy step approach.

Example

A clean step to enable Virtualization and SRIOV in BIOS of an iDRAC BMC would be as follows:

{
  "target":"clean",
  "clean_steps": [
    {
      "interface": "bios",
      "step": "apply_configuration",
      "args": {
        "settings": [
          {
            "name": "ProcVirtualization",
            "value": "Enabled"
          },
          {
            "name": "SriovGlobalEnable",
            "value": "Enabled"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

See the Known Issues for a known issue with factory_reset clean step. For additional details of BIOS configuration, see BIOS Configuration.

Inspect Interface

The Dell iDRAC out-of-band inspection process catalogs all the same attributes of the server as the IPMI driver. Unlike IPMI, it does this without requiring the system to be rebooted, or even to be powered on. Inspection is performed using the Redfish protocol directly without affecting the operation of the system being inspected.

The inspection discovers the following properties:

• cpu_arch: cpu architecture

• local_gb: disk size in gigabytes

• memory_mb: memory size in megabytes

Extra capabilities:

• boot_mode: UEFI or BIOS boot mode.

• pci_gpu_devices: number of GPU devices connected to the bare metal.

It also creates baremetal ports for each NIC port detected in the system. The idrac-redfish inspect interface does not currently set pxe_enabled on the ports. The user should ensure that pxe_enabled is set correctly on the ports following inspection with the idrac-redfish inspect interface.

Management Interface

The management interface for idrac-redfish supports:

• updating firmware on nodes using a manual cleaning step. See Redfish driver for more information on firmware update support.

• updating system and getting its inventory using configuration molds. For more information see Import and export configuration.

Import and export configuration

Warning

This feature has been deprecated and is anticipated to be removed once Ironic has a generalized interface for doing step template articulation for aspects beyond just “deployment” of baremetal nodes.

The clean and deploy steps provided in this section allow to configure the system and collect the system inventory using configuration mold files.

The introduction of this feature in the Wallaby release is experimental.

These steps are:

• export_configuration with the export_configuration_location input parameter to export the configuration from the existing system.

• import_configuration with the import_configuration_location input parameter to import the existing configuration mold into the system.

• import_export_configuration with the export_configuration_location and import_configuration_location input parameters. This step combines the previous two steps into one step that first imports existing configuration mold into system, then exports the resulting configuration.

The input parameters provided include the URL where the configuration mold is to be stored after the export, or the reference location for an import. For more information on setting up storage and available options see Storage setup.

Configuration molds are JSON files that contain three top-level sections: bios, raid and oem. The following is an example of a configuration mold:

{
  "bios": {
    "reset": false,
    "settings": [
      {
        "name": "ProcVirtualization",
        "value": "Enabled"
      },
      {
        "name": "MemTest",
        "value": "Disabled"
      }
    ]
  }
  "raid": {
    "create_nonroot_volumes": true,
    "create_root_volume": true,
    "delete_existing": false,
    "target_raid_config": {
      "logical_disks": [
        {
          "size_gb": 50,
          "raid_level": "1+0",
          "controller": "RAID.Integrated.1-1",
          "volume_name": "root_volume",
          "is_root_volume": true,
          "physical_disks": [
            "Disk.Bay.0:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
            "Disk.Bay.1:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1"
          ]
        },
        {
          "size_gb": 100,
          "raid_level": "5",
          "controller": "RAID.Integrated.1-1",
          "volume_name": "data_volume",
          "physical_disks": [
            "Disk.Bay.2:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
            "Disk.Bay.3:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
            "Disk.Bay.4:Encl.Int.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
  "oem": {
    "interface": "idrac-redfish",
    "data": {
      "SystemConfiguration": {
        "Model": "PowerEdge R640",
        "ServiceTag": "8CY9Z99",
        "TimeStamp": "Fri Jun 26 08:43:15 2020",
        "Components": [
          {
            [...]
            "FQDD": "NIC.Slot.1-1-1",
            "Attributes": [
              {
              "Name": "BlnkLeds",
              "Value": "15",
              "Set On Import": "True",
              "Comment": "Read and Write"
              },
              {
              "Name": "VirtMacAddr",
              "Value": "00:00:00:00:00:00",
              "Set On Import": "False",
              "Comment": "Read and Write"
              },
              {
              "Name": "VirtualizationMode",
              "Value": "NONE",
              "Set On Import": "True",
              "Comment": "Read and Write"
              },
            [...]
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
  }
}

Currently, the OEM section is the only section that is supported. The OEM section uses the iDRAC Server Configuration Profile (SCP) and can be edited as necessary if it complies with the SCP. For more information about SCP and its capabilities, see SCP_Reference_Guide.

Note

iDRAC BMC connection settings are not exported to avoid overwriting these in another system when using unmodified exported configuration mold in import step. If need to replicate iDRAC BMC connection settings, then add these settings manually to configuration mold for import step.

To replicate the system configuration to that of a similar system, perform the following steps:

1. Configure a golden, or one to many, system.

2. Use the export_configuration step to export the configuration to the wanted location.

3. Adjust the exported configuration mold for other systems to replicate. For example, remove sections that do not need to be replicated such as iDRAC connection settings. The configuration mold can be accessed directly from the storage location.

4. Import the selected configuration mold into the other systems using the import_configuration step.

It is not mandatory to use export_configuration step to create a configuration mold. Upload the file to a designated storage location without using Ironic if it has been created manually or by other means.

Storage setup

To start using these steps, configure the storage location. The settings can be found in the [molds] section. Configure the storage type from the molds.storage setting. Currently, swift, which is enabled by default, and http are supported.

In the setup input parameters, the complete HTTP URL is used. This requires that the containers (for swift) and the directories (for http) are created beforehand, and that read/write access is configured accordingly.

Note

Use of TLS is strongly advised.

This setup configuration allows a user to access these locations outside of Ironic to list, create, update, and delete the configuration molds.

For more information see Swift configuration and HTTP configuration.

Swift configuration

To use Swift with configuration molds,

1. Create the containers to be used for configuration mold storage.

2. For Ironic Swift user that is configured in the [swift] section add read/write access to these containers.

HTTP configuration

To use HTTP server with configuration molds,

1. Enable HTTP PUT support.

2. Create the directory to be used for the configuration mold storage.

3. Configure read/write access for HTTP Basic access authentication and provide user credentials in molds.user and molds.password fields.

The HTTP web server does not support multitenancy and is intended to be used in a stand-alone Ironic, or single-tenant OpenStack environment.

RAID Interface

See RAID Configuration for more information on Ironic RAID support.

RAID interface of redfish hardware type can be used on iDRAC systems. Compared to redfish RAID interface, using idrac-redfish adds:

• Waiting for real-time operations to be available on RAID controllers. When using redfish this is not guaranteed and reboots might be intermittently required to complete,

• Converting non-RAID disks to RAID mode if there are any,

• Clearing foreign configuration, if any, after deleting virtual disks.

The following properties are supported by the Redfish RAID interface implementation:

Note

When using idrac-redfish for RAID interface iDRAC firmware greater than 4.40.00.00 is required.

Mandatory properties

• size_gb: Size in gigabytes (integer) for the logical disk. Use MAX as size_gb if this logical disk is supposed to use the rest of the space available.

• raid_level: RAID level for the logical disk. Valid values are 0, 1, 5, 6, 1+0, 5+0 and 6+0.

Note

JBOD and 2 are not supported, and will fail with reason: ‘Cannot calculate spans for RAID level.’

Optional properties

• is_root_volume: Optional. Specifies whether this disk is a root volume. By default, this is False.

• volume_name: Optional. Name of the volume to be created. If this is not specified, it will be auto-generated.

Backing physical disk hints

See RAID Configuration for more information on backing disk hints.

These are machine-independent information. The hints are specified for each logical disk to help Ironic find the desired disks for RAID configuration.

• disk_type

• interface_type

• share_physical_disks

• number_of_physical_disks

Backing physical disks

These are Dell RAID controller-specific values and must match the names provided by the iDRAC.

• controller: Mandatory. The name of the controller to use.

• physical_disks: Optional. The names of the physical disks to use.

Note

physical_disks is a mandatory parameter if the property size_gb is set to MAX.

Examples

Creation of RAID 1+0 logical disk with six disks on one controller:

{ "logical_disks":
  [ { "controller": "RAID.Integrated.1-1",
      "is_root_volume": "True",
      "physical_disks": [
        "Disk.Bay.0:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
        "Disk.Bay.1:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
        "Disk.Bay.2:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
        "Disk.Bay.3:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
        "Disk.Bay.4:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
        "Disk.Bay.5:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1"],
      "raid_level": "1+0",
      "size_gb": "MAX"}]}

Manual RAID Invocation

The following command can be used to delete any existing RAID configuration. It deletes all virtual disks/RAID volumes, unassigns all global and dedicated hot spare physical disks, and clears foreign configuration:

baremetal node clean --clean-steps \
  '[{"interface": "raid", "step": "delete_configuration"}]' ${node_uuid}

The following command shows an example of how to set the target RAID configuration:

baremetal node set --target-raid-config '{ "logical_disks":
  [ { "controller": "RAID.Integrated.1-1",
      "is_root_volume": true,
      "physical_disks": [
        "Disk.Bay.0:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1",
        "Disk.Bay.1:Enclosure.Internal.0-1:RAID.Integrated.1-1"],
      "raid_level": "0",
      "size_gb": "MAX"}]}' ${node_uuid}

The following command can be used to create a RAID configuration:

baremetal node clean --clean-steps \
  '[{"interface": "raid", "step": "create_configuration"}]' <node>

When the physical disk names or controller names are not known, the following Python code example shows how the python-dracclient can be used to fetch the information directly from the Dell bare metal:

import dracclient.client


client = dracclient.client.DRACClient(
    host="192.168.1.1",
    username="root",
    password="calvin")
controllers = client.list_raid_controllers()
print(controllers)

physical_disks = client.list_physical_disks()
print(physical_disks)

Or using sushy with Redfish:

import sushy


client = sushy.Sushy('https://192.168.1.1', username='root', password='calvin', verify=False)
for s in client.get_system_collection().get_members():
  print("System: %(id)s" % {'id': s.identity})
  for c in system1.storage.get_members():
      print("\tController: %(id)s" % {'id': c.identity})
      for d in c.drives:
        print("\t\tDrive: %(id)s" % {'id': d.identity})

Vendor Interface

idrac-redfish

Through the idrac-redfish vendor passthru interface these methods are available:

Method Name	HTTP Method	Description
eject_media	POST	Eject a virtual media device. If no device is provided then all attached devices will be ejected. Optional argument: boot_device - the boot device to eject, either, cd, dvd, usb or floppy.

Known Issues

Nodes go into maintenance mode

After some period of time, nodes managed by the idrac hardware type may go into maintenance mode in Ironic. This issue can be worked around by changing the Ironic power state poll interval to 70 seconds. See conductor.sync_power_state_interval in /etc/ironic/ironic.conf.

PXE reset with “factory_reset” BIOS clean step

When using the UEFI boot mode with non-default PXE interface, the factory reset can cause the PXE interface to be reset to default, which doesn’t allow the server to PXE boot for any further operations. This can cause a clean_failed state on the node or deploy_failed if you attempt to deploy a node after this step. For now, the only solution is for the operator to manually restore the PXE settings of the server for it to PXE boot again, properly. The problem is caused by the fact that with the UEFI boot mode, the idrac uses BIOS settings to manage PXE configuration. This is not the case with the BIOS boot mode where the PXE configuration is handled as a configuration job on the integrated NIC itself, independently of the BIOS settings.

Timeout when powering off

Some servers might be slow when soft powering off and time out. The default retry count is 6, resulting in 30 seconds timeout (the default retry interval set by post_deploy_get_power_state_retry_interval is 5 seconds). To resolve this issue, increase the timeout to 90 seconds by setting the retry count to 18 as follows:

[agent]
post_deploy_get_power_state_retries = 18

Unable to mount remote share with iDRAC firmware before 4.40.40.00

When using iDRAC firmware 4.40.00.00 and consecutive versions before 4.40.40.00 with virtual media boot and new Virtual Console plug-in type eHTML5, there is an error: “Unable to mount remote share”. This is a known issue that is fixed in 4.40.40.00 iDRAC firmware release. If cannot upgrade, then adjust settings in iDRAC to use plug-in type HTML5. In iDRAC web UI go to Configuration -> Virtual Console and select Plug-in Type to HTML5.

During upgrade to 4.40.00.00 or newer iDRAC firmware eHTML5 is automatically selected if default plug-in type has been used and never changed. Systems that have plug-in type changed will keep selected plug-in type after iDRAC firmware upgrade.

Firmware update from Swift fails before 6.00.00.00

With iDRAC firmware prior to 6.00.00.00 and when using Swift to stage firmware update files in Management interface firmware_update clean step of redfish or idrac hardware type, the cleaning fails with error “An internal error occurred. Unable to complete the specified operation.” in iDRAC job. This is fixed in iDRAC firmware 6.00.00.00. If cannot upgrade, then use HTTP service to stage firmware files for iDRAC.