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In this tutorial, we will set up a Bare-Metal Infrastructure Provider service for our Omni instance to be able to provision bare metal machines.

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Requirements

  • An Omni instance (either on the Sidero Labs SaaS or self-hosted) with Admin access
  • Access to the Image Factory (either the public one hosted by Sidero Labs, or self-hosted)
  • Some bare-metal machines with:
    • BMC (baseboard management controller) power management capabilities via one of the following:
      • IPMI
      • Redfish
    • Outbound access to the Omni instance and the Image Factory
  • A machine/container/cluster etc. in the same subnet as the bare-metal machines, in order to run the infrastructure provider service
In this tutorial, we will assume:
  • Our managed Omni instance is running at my-instance.omni.siderolabs.io
  • We will use the public Image Factory at factory.talos.dev
  • Bare-Metal machines with IPMI support
  • An additional server with Docker installed to run the infrastructure provider service, with the IP address 172.16.0.42 within the subnet 172.16.0.0/24, reachable by the bare-metal machines
  • Two bare-metal servers within the subnet 172.16.0.0/24 with access to the infrastructure provider, our Omni instance, and to the Image Factory

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1. Creating an Omni service account

We start by setting up access for the infrastructure provider to Omni.
Here, we need to create the service account with the same ID as the ID of the provider service we are going to run. It defaults to bare-metal, hence we use it as the name, but if you plan to use a different ID (passed via --id) or run multiple provider instances, set the name accordingly for the service account.
  • From Omni Web UI
  • Using omnictl
Navigate to the Settings - Infra Providers tab on the Omni web UI, and setup a new infra provider with ID bare-metal Store the displayed service account key securely for later use.

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2. Starting the provider

We will run the provider in a Docker container in our server with IP 172.16.0.42.
The provider requires its following ports to be accessible:
  • 50042: HTTP and GRPC API port, customizable via --api-port)
  • 69: TFTP port used to provide iPXE binaries to PXE-booted machines
Start by getting the image reference of the latest version of the provider package. At the time of writing, it is ghcr.io/siderolabs/omni-infra-provider-bare-metal:v0.1.0, and this is what we shall use in this tutorial. Set the required environment variables, using the service account key from the previous step: 
export OMNI_ENDPOINT=https://my-instance.omni.siderolabs.io
export OMNI_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY=eyJu...LS0ifQ==
Run the following command to start the provider service: 
docker run -d --name=omni-bare-metal-infra-provider \
--restart=always \
--network host \
-e OMNI_ENDPOINT \
-e OMNI_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_KEY \
ghcr.io/siderolabs/omni-infra-provider-bare-metal:v0.1.0 \
--api-advertise-address=172.16.0.42
Make sure it is running by checking its status: 
docker ps | grep omni-bare-metal-infra-provider
Sample output: 
7190a326decf   ghcr.io/siderolabs/omni-infra-provider-bare-metal:v0.1.0   "/provider --api-adv…"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute    omni-bare-metal-infra-provider
Start tailing its logs in a separate shell: 
docker logs -f omni-bare-metal-infra-Provider
Sample output: 
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.1502001,"caller":"provider/provider.go:80","msg":"starting provider","options":{"Name":"Bare Metal","Description":"Bare metal infrastructure provider","OmniAPIEndpoint":"..."}
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.1973493,"caller":"ipxe/handler.go:310","msg":"patch iPXE binaries","component":"ipxe_handler"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.2833045,"caller":"ipxe/handler.go:316","msg":"successfully patched iPXE binaries","component":"ipxe_handler"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.2870164,"caller":"provider/provider.go:221","msg":"start component","component":"COSI runtime"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.28702,"caller":"provider/provider.go:221","msg":"start component","component":"TFTP server"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.287044,"caller":"provider/provider.go:221","msg":"start component","component":"DHCP proxy"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.2870617,"caller":"provider/provider.go:221","msg":"start component","component":"machine status poller"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734439242.2870378,"caller":"provider/provider.go:221","msg":"start component","component":"server"}
At this point, the provider has started and established a connection to our Omni instance.
The provider can manage the power state of machines using either IPMI or Redfish.By default, it probes the BMC IP for the Redfish API availability. If Redfish is available, it will be preferred over IPMI.This behavior can be customized using the following flags:
  • To always use Redfish, set --redfish-use-always.
  • To always use IPMI (not probe Redfish), set --redfish-use-when-available=false.
See all Redfish related flags via the --help flag.
The provider will start a DHCP proxy server, responding to DHCP requests from the interface that the --api-advertise-addressresides in. This DHCP proxy server is only responsible for generating PXE-boot responses for the machines configured to PXE boot. It does not affect the existing DHCP infrastructure otherwise.If you need to run this DHCP proxy on a different interface (so the responses are broadcast to the correct network), you can pass the --dhcp-proxy-iface-or-ip flag to the provider, specifying either the name of the network interface or an IP on that machine which belongs to the desired interface.

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3. Starting the Bare-Metal Machines

At this point, we can boot our bare-metal machines. Before we start, make sure that they are configured to boot over the network via PXE on the next boot, so that they can be booted by the provider.
We recommend using the boot order of first disk, then network.
Power cycle the machines, and when they attempt to boot via PXE, you can see in the provider logs that they have been PXE booted by the provider. Log messages should be similar to the lines below: 
{"level":"info","ts":1734440893.9489105,"caller":"dhcp/proxy.go:140","msg":"offering boot response","component":"dhcp_proxy","source":"da:65:8c:d7:c7:81","boot_filename":"tftp://172.16.0.42/undionly.kpxe"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734440898.0781841,"caller":"tftp/tftp_server.go:103","msg":"file requested","component":"tftp_server","filename":"undionly.kpxe"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734440898.1611557,"caller":"tftp/tftp_server.go:123","msg":"file sent","component":"tftp_server","filename":"/var/lib/tftp/undionly.kpxe","bytes":88919}
{"level":"info","ts":1734440900.2585638,"caller":"dhcp/proxy.go:140","msg":"offering boot response","component":"dhcp_proxy","source":"da:65:8c:d7:c7:81","boot_filename":"tftp://172.16.0.42/undionly.kpxe"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734440900.317854,"caller":"ipxe/handler.go:97","msg":"handle iPXE request","component":"ipxe_handler","uuid":"cef9a5ee-71b7-48f1-8ce3-daf45e7be0a0","mac":"da-65-8c-d7-c7-81","arch":"i386"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734440900.3258681,"caller":"ipxe/handler.go:260","msg":"boot agent mode using image factory","component":"ipxe_handler"}
{"level":"info","ts":1734440902.685483,"caller":"server/server.go:110","msg":"request","component":"server","method":"GET","path":"/ipxe","duration":2.367639908}
At this point, these machines are booted into a special mode of Talos Linux called “Agent Mode”. In this mode, Talos:
  • does not detect any existing Talos installation on the disk, nor attempt to boot from disk
  • does not allow a configuration to be applied to it
  • establishes a secure SideroLink connection to the Omni instance
  • runs the Metal Agent extension which establishes a connection to the provider
  • runs the only the required services to be able to further provisioned by the provider

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4. Configuring and Accepting the Machines in Omni

At this point, the machines should be booted into the Agent Mode, and have established a SideroLink connection to our Omni instance.

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4.1. Verifying the Machines

Let’s verify our machines:
  • From Omni Web UI
  • Using omnictl
Navigate to Machines - Pending tab on Omni web UI. You should see the machines pending acceptance:
Our machines have the following IDs:
  • 33313750-3538-5a43-4a44-315430304c46
  • 33313750-3538-5a43-4a44-315430304c47
For security reasons, the machines cannot be provisioned in Omni before they are “Accepted”. We will accept these machines using the Omni API.

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4.2. Optional: Providing BMC (e.g., IPMI/Redfish) Configuration Manually

Normally, when we accept a machine in Omni, the provider will auto-configure the BMC configuration, such as the IPMI IP, username and password automatically by asking the agent service running on the Talos machine. Sometimes we do not want this behavior - instead, we already have this information at hand, and want to provide it manually, skipping this step. To do this, before accepting these machines, we need to create a resource with these credentials in Omni. Create a bmc-config.yaml file with the following contents: 
metadata:
  namespace: default
  type: InfraMachineBMCConfigs.omni.sidero.dev
  id: 33313750-3538-5a43-4a44-315430304c46
spec:
  ipmi:
    address: 172.16.0.84
    port: 623
    username: admin
    password: "MySuperSecretPw!_"
Fill it in with the information of your machine ID and IPMI configuration. As an Omni admin, create this resource using omnictl: 
omnictl apply -f bmc-config.yaml
We can create this resource at a later time as well and the provider would start it.However, if we want to bypass the automatic credential configuration on machine acceptance, we need to ensure that the InfraMachineBMCConfig resource is present before we accept the machine.

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4.3. Accepting the Machines

As the final step, we need to accept these machines in Omni.
The following step will wipe the disks of these machines, so proceed with caution!
  • From Omni Web UI
  • Using omnictl
Simply click the “Accept” button on each machine under the Machines - Pending tab on the Omni web UI, and confirm the action:
Accepting the machine will wipe ALL disks. This is to ensure that the machine is in a clear state, and will be fully managed by Omni from that moment on.
When you do this, the provider will do the following under the hood:
  • Ask the Talos Agent service on the machines to configure their IPMI credentials
  • Retrieve these credentials and store them
  • Wipes the disks of these machines
  • Power off these machines over IPMI
Additionally, Omni will create a Machine, and an InfraMachineStatus resource for each machine. You can verify this by: 
omnictl get machine;
omnictl get inframachinestatus;
Output will be similar to: 
NAMESPACE   TYPE      ID                                     VERSION   ADDRESS                                   CONNECTED   REBOOTS
default     Machine   cef9a5ee-71b7-48f1-8ce3-daf45e7be0a0   4         fdae:41e4:649b:9303:8379:d4b5:cacc:e0bb   true
default     Machine   d3796040-2a28-4e0f-ba1a-1944f3a41dde   4         fdae:41e4:649b:9303:8379:d4b5:cacc:e0bb   true

NAMESPACE        TYPE                 ID                                     VERSION   POWER STATE   READY TO USE
infra-provider   InfraMachineStatus   cef9a5ee-71b7-48f1-8ce3-daf45e7be0a0   3         1             true
infra-provider   InfraMachineStatus   d3796040-2a28-4e0f-ba1a-1944f3a41dde   3         1             true

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5. Adding Machines to a Cluster

We can now create a cluster using these machines. For this, simply follow the guide for creating a cluster. When you add these machines to a cluster, the following will happen under the hood. The provider will:
  • Power these machines on, marking their next boot to be a PXE boot
  • PXE boot them into Talos maintenance mode
Then Omni will proceed with the regular flow of:
  • Applying a configuration to the machine, causing Talos to be installed to the disk
  • Reboot (possibly using kexec)
The cluster will be provisioned as normal, and will get to the Ready status.

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6. Removing Machines from a Cluster

When you delete a cluster and/or remove some bare-metal machines from a cluster, the following will happen: Omni does the regular de-allocation flow:
  • Remove the nodes from the cluster (leave etcd membership for control planes)
  • Reset the machines
Afterwards, the provider will follow with these additional steps:
  • PXE boot the machine into Agent Mode (to be able to wipe its disks)
  • Wipe its disks
  • Power off the machine
At this point, these machines will again be ready to be allocated to a different cluster.
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