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Requirements

Provisioning bare metal servers without BCM is supported through PXE-based bootstrapping using Metal3/Ironic services. This approach requires a dedicated provisioning network and correct configuration of PXE and BMC interfaces.

Pre-Requisites

  • Rafay Requirements:
    • Baremetal Gateway and Baremetal Provisioner must be deployed by the partner-admin in the datacenter using the Rafay Console.
  • Provisioning Services:
    • Baremetal Provisioner must be deployed on the head-node.

Network Requirements

  • PXE Network Connectivity

    • All target baremetal servers must communicate with the provisioning (PXE) network interface on Head-node.
    • DHCP broadcast and TFTP traffic must flow between target servers and provisioning services without L2 restrictions.
    • No DHCP relay misconfigurations that interfere with PXE boot.

  • BMC (Out-of-Band) Network Access

    • The head-node (where Metal3/Ironic runs) must have IP connectivity to the BMC interfaces (IPMI/Redfish) of all target machines.
    • Required for remote power control and lifecycle management.

Machine Requirements

  • PXE Boot Capability

    • All servers must support PXE boot (BIOS or UEFI).
    • PXE boot order must be configured correctly in the BIOS.

  • MAC Address Management

    • NIC MAC addresses used for PXE boot must be known and configured in the inventory device interface with the label bootstrap.

  • Reachable BMC Interfaces

    • Each machine’s BMC IP, protocol (IPMI or Redfish), and credentials must be accurate and reachable from the management cluster.

  • No Conflicting DHCP/TFTP

    • Ensure no other DHCP/TFTP services exist in the same PXE network segment.

Port Requirements (Head-Node)

The following ports must be open on the head-node (Baremetal Gateway/Provisioner):

Port Protocol Purpose
6385 TCP Ironic API
6180 TCP HTTP server
69 UDP TFTP server (PXE boot)
67/68 UDP DHCP server

Infrastructure Components

  • Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches for compute and storage node connectivity
  • OOB switches for BMC/iDRAC/Redfish connectivity
  • Provisioning network services (DHCP, TFTP, HTTP) accessible to all target machines

Rafay Controller Accessibility

  • All provisioned nodes and management services must have outbound access to the Rafay Controller for cluster lifecycle management, telemetry, and observability