# Deploying operating system on bare-metal nodes

Figure 14. High Level Flow diagram of the OS Deployment Process

PREREQUISITES

Centos 7 Installer machine with the following configurations is essential to initiate the OS deployment process.
1. At least 200 GB disk space (especially in the "/" partition), 4 CPU cores and 8GB RAM.
2. 1 network interface with static IP address configured on same network as the management plane of the bare-metal servers and has access to internet.
3. Python 3.6 or above is present and latest version associated pip is present.
4. Ansible 2.9 should be installed
5. OS ISO image is present in the HTTP file path within the installer machine.
6. Ensure that SELinux status is disabled.
SUSE hosts
- 2 network interfaces for the production network
- 1 local drive to be used as the boot device
- Boot mode is set to UEFI
- Boot order - Hard disk
- Secure Boot - disabled

# Installation

Enable Python3 and Ansible Environment as mentioned in "Installer machine" section of deployment guide.
Setup the installer machine.

> sh setup.sh

Execute setup.sh script to install requirements for os deployment. Script expects the installer machine OS type, Please enter "rhel7" if the installer machine OS type is RHEL or "centos7" if the installer machine OS type is Cent OS.

NOTE

Run the below command to fix any unwanted space, tabs error.

> sed -i 's/r$//' <path>/setup.sh

There are 2 input files config.json and server_details.json, both of which needs to be updated with values for all the variables present within them.

Open config.json file with the following command and add the details of web server and operating system to be installed.
Default password for Ansible Vault file "config.json" is changeme.
Command to edit config.json

> ansible-vault edit config.json

Example values for the input configuration is as follows

{

"HTTP_server_base_url" : "http://10.0.x.x/",

"HTTP_file_path" : "/usr/share/nginx/html/",

"OS_type" : "sles15",

"OS_image_name" : "<os_iso_image_name_with_extension>"

}

NOTE

Acceptable values for "OS_type" variable is "sles15" for SUSE 15 SP2.

Open server_details.json with the following command and add the details of servers on which operating system is to be installed.
Command to edit server_details.json
Default password for Ansible Vault files "server_details.json" is changeme.

> ansible-vault edit server_details.json

Example values for the input configuration for deploying SLES 15 SP2 is as follows.

NOTE

It is recommended to provide a complex password for the "Host_Password" variable.

[{

"Server_serial_number" : "MXxxxxxDP",

"ILO_Address" : "10.0.x.x",

"ILO_Username" : "username",

"ILO_Password" : "password",

"Hostname" : "sles01.twentynet.local",

"Bonding_Interface1" : "eth*",

"Bonding_Interface2" : "eth*",

"Host_IP" : "20.x.x.x",

"Host_Username" : "root",

"Host_Password" : "Password",

"Host_Netmask" : "255.x.x.x",

"Host_Gateway" : "20.x.x.x",

"Host_DNS" : "20.x.x.x",

"Host_Search" : "twentynet.local",

"GPU_Host" : "yes"

},

{

"Server_serial_number" : "MXxxxxxDQ",

"ILO_Address" : "10.0.x.x",

"ILO_Username" : "username",

"ILO_Password" : "password",

"Hostname" : "sles02.twentynet.local",

"Bonding_Interface1" : "eth*",

"Bonding_Interface2" : "eth*",

"Host_IP" : "20.0.x.x",

"Host_Username" : "root",

"Host_Password" : "Password",

"Host_Netmask" : "255.x.x.x",

"Host_Gateway" : "20.x.x.x",

"Host_DNS" : "20.x.x.x",

"Host_Search" : "twentynet.local",

"GPU_Host" : "No"

}]

NOTE

For synergy servers the bonding interface will be eth0 and eth1 respectively.

NOTE

NOTE: Acceptable values for "GPU_Host" variable is "yes" for host which has GPU cards and "No" for hosts which do not have GPU cards.

Executing the script to deploy operating system.

> python3 deploy_os.py

NOTE

Generic settings done as part of kickstart file for SLES are as follows. It is recommended that the user reviews and modifies the kickstart files (autoinst.xml file) to suit their requirements.

Minimal Installation
Language - en_US
Keyboard & layout - US
Partition
/boot/efi ,fstype="vfat" ,size=500MiB
root, size = 150G
srv , size = 100G
swap, size = 62.96G
var, size = 100G
home, size = 25G

NOTE

Specified Partitions are inline with HPECP implementation and is advised not to make changes to this.
timezone - America/NewYork
NIC teaming is performed with devices as specified in Bonding_Interface field of input_files/server_details.json input file. It is further assigned with the Host_IP, Netmask,Domain as defined in the input_files/server_details.json input file.
Signature handling (accepting file without checksum, with non-trusted gpg key, unsigned file etc) is disabled by default to avoid any pop-ups and warnings and have an unattended installation. These properties can be modified according to the requirements in kickstart_files/autoinst.xml.

<accept_file_without_checksum
config:type="boolean">true</accept_file_without_checksum>

+ <accept_non_trusted_gpg_key
config:type="boolean">true</accept_non_trusted_gpg_key>

+ <accept_unknown_gpg_key
config:type="boolean">true</accept_unknown_gpg_key>

+ <accept_unsigned_file
config:type="boolean">true</accept_unsigned_file>

+ <accept_verification_failed
config:type="boolean">false</accept_verification_failed>

+ <import_gpg_key config:type="boolean">true</import_gpg_key>

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