Goal:

As an administrator, I have networking configurations like static IPs and VLANs which must be applied at provisioning time in order for the machine to join the cluster. Additionally, I would like to use the same configuration mechanism for other elements such as bonds and bridges.

Problem: Telco and Enterprise customers like to limit the impact of of infra failure so that one system being unavailable doesn’t cascade into more general service outage:

• On an Edge environment there may not be a special node to provide DHCP (without increasing the footprint)
• On an Edge environment, the access to a central DHCP server via satellite link may be unfeasible or unreliable.
• On an Enterprise datacenter, having to manage the DHCP server for adding static entries for nodes that can be scaled up and down adds extra maintenance costs
• Needing DHCP server involvement and reservations increases our barrier of entry to PoCs in the datacenter. Especially if it needs to run forever and we don’t manage it ourselves. Extra burden on network administrators.

Problem: Customers want to use VLANs for network isolation. VLAN configuration must be applied before the machine will be able to join the cluster.

Why is this important:

• Lower network administration involvement and planning around setting new clusters
• Increased reliability in outages
• Easier UX at install time.
• Allow explicit address configuration
• Reduced footprint at the edge
• Enable configuration of common network topologies

Workarounds:

• Configure infinite DHCP leases, which the IPI deployment process will convert to static IP configuration. This does not completely eliminate the DHCP server requirement, but addresses some of the other use cases.
• Modify the deployment image to include VLAN network configuration.

Dependencies (internal and external):

• Metal Management - Hardware provisioning and Installer
  • A mechanism to inject per-machine network configuration at provisioning time.
• Reviews from Installer
  • An interface to provide explicit IP address assignment

Prioritized epics + deliverables (in scope / not in scope):

• The customer should be able to specify the control plane IP addresses for the baremetal nodes they are going to deploy
• The customer should be able to deploy without DHCP involvement
• The customer should be able to deploy in the above configurations regardless of which bond/vlan needs to be used.

More info:

While bonds and bridges can technically be configured on day 2, the user experience is much better if we have a unified network configuration mechanism that can handle all common networking layouts.

DONE CHECKLIST:

• DEV - Upstream code and tests merged:
• DEV - Upstream documentation merged:
• DEV - Downstream build attached to advisory:
• QE - Test plans in Polarion:
• QE - Automated tests merged:
• DOC - Downstream documentation merged: