UCS Director Baremetal Agent Installation:
Before commencing the Installation of the Baremetal Agent appliance I would recommend that UCS Director has been fully installed and is available before proceeding. If you need to install UCS Director as an initial installation there’s some great documentation on the Cisco site but you can also check out the blog post by Jeremy Waldrop. It’s for an older version of UCS Director but the installation steps still count for the current version. If you are upgrading from a previous version of UCS Director then you can check out a previous post I did on upgrading UCS Director from 5.1 to 5.3.
Useful Documents:
Cisco UCS Director Baremetal Agent Installation and Configuration Guide, Release 5.2
Cisco UCS Director Baremetal Agent Installation and Configuration Guide, Release 5.3
Download Software:
Go to Cisco Download for UCS Director and select first UCS Director 5.3. Download the Cisco UCS Director Baremetal Agent Patch 5.3.0.0
Accept the license agreement
The download will begin
Next, go back to the main UCS Director download page and select UCS Director 5.2.
Accept the license agreement
The download will begin
Deploy OVF template
Before beginning this process you should have Cisco UCS Director already installed and accessible on the network. Go to vCenter and select File -> Deploy OVF template
Browse to the downloaded 5.2 ovf and click next
Click Next on the OVF summary
Accept the license agreement and click next
Enter a server name and select a location to place the appliance
Select a cluster and click Next. Then select a Resource Pool. Next select which datastore cluster to place the appliance on.
Select the disk format and click Next
For the networks select Network1 as your production network and Network2 for PXE boot connections. Click Next
Enter the credentials for the appliance. If you leave the password for the BMA as default it will be: pxeboot. Once you entered the credentials click Next
Review the settings and click Finish to begin the OVF deployment
Once the VM has been deployed you can power it on.
Configure BMA Network Devices:
As part of my configuration I have selected to go for separate management and PXE networks. This is a supported topology from Cisco
Before really getting into the configuration of the Baremetal Agent you’ll need to ensure that the Baremetal Agent appliance is accessible on the network and can be reached through a web-browser. This is a part of the setup of a new Baremetal Agent that is not always covered in the documentation. The ethernet connections, eth0 and eth1, may not come up successfully on the first configuration so make sure you check the settings of the network interface. The easiest way to do this is to login via SSH and run the command:
cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
[root@localhost network-scripts]# cat ifcfg-eth0 DEVICE=eth0 BOOTPROTO=static ONBOOT=yes IPADDR=xxx.xx.xx.xx GATEWAY=xxx.xx.xx.xxx NETMASK=xxx.xxx.xxx.0 TYPE=Ethernet PEERDNS=yes USERCTL=no IPV6INIT=no [root@localhost network-scripts]# cat ifcfg-eth1 DEVICE=eth1 BOOTPROTO=static ONBOOT=yes IPADDR=yyy.yy.yy.yy NETMASK=yyy.yyy.yyy.y TYPE=Ethernet PEERDNS=yes USERCTL=no IPV6INIT=no [root@localhost network-scripts]#
I ran a ping to the IP address of the Baremetal Agent server and it returned successfully. I checked that the web console was accessible via a web browser as well.
The next step is to go to UCS Director and add the Baremetal Agent server to the physical devices list. From the menu in UCS Director go to Administration -> Physical Account
Select the Bare Metal Agents tab and click Add
Enter the name of your BareMetal appliance as the account name, select the checkbox for Baremetal Agent Uses Different Interfaces for management and PXE Traffic and this will provide separate address boxes for the two IPs. Once all the details have been added click Submit.
You’ll get a pop-up to say Request saved successfully. Click ok. Next you’ll see that the Baremetal agent has been registered and ensure it is reachable from UCS Director. In my previous version 5.0 of the BMA I was unable to reach the appliance. After a lot of work trying to fix it I pull the plug and decided to install a new appliance instead.
Now that the BMA has been configured the next step is to configure DHCP. From the Bare Metal Agents tab in UCS Director select Service Status and check that the services are stopped.
Next, click on Configure DHCP. Enter the relevant IP addresses and click Submit. When prompted click OK on successful configuration
Next click on Start Services and click Start on the prompt.
Next click on Service status again and check that the services are up
Uploading Images:
The next step is to upload ISO images to the BMA appliance so that they can be used for PXEboot deployment. Make sure you have a copy of the required ISO already downloaded. You can then upload the file using WinSCP. Log in to WinSCP
Go to the folder where your ISOs for ESX are stored, select the files and upload them to /opt/image directory. If one does not already exist on the appliance run the command ‘mkdir image’ in the /opt/ directory via SSH connection.
Once the images have been uploaded go to the /opt/infra directory and run the isoExtractor.sh script. This will extra the ISO to the local machine. If you have multiple ISOs uploaded you can extract them all before continuing. You will need to enter the image location and a catalog name for the extracted files
[root@localhost image]# cd /opt/infra/ [root@localhost infra]# ./isoExtractor.sh Please Select the OS Type 1) ESXi 4.1 2) ESXi 5.0 3) ESXi 5.1 4) ESXi 5.5 5) ESXi 5.5 VSAN 6) CentOS or RHEL 7) SUSE Linux 8) Other SELECT> 3 Image path : /opt/image/ESXi-5.1.0-1065491-custom-Cisco-5.1.1.1.iso OS catalog name : ESXi-5.1.0-Custom-Cisco-5.1.1.1 Input file being used: /opt/image/ESXi-5.1.0-1065491-custom-Cisco-5.1.1.1.iso OS catalog name being used: ESXi-5.1.0-Custom-Cisco-5.1.1.1 Mounting the image.... Preparing the image.... Creating catalog directory /opt/cnsaroot/templates/ESXi-5.1.0-Custom-Cisco-5.1.1.1 Creating configuration files for ESXi 5.1 ... Copied the image and created the configutation files... [root@localhost infra]# ./isoExtractor.sh Please Select the OS Type 1) ESXi 4.1 2) ESXi 5.0 3) ESXi 5.1 4) ESXi 5.5 5) ESXi 5.5 VSAN 6) CentOS or RHEL 7) SUSE Linux 8) Other SELECT> 4 Image path : /opt/image/ESXi-5.5.0-1331820-custom-Cisco-5.5.0.1.iso OS catalog name : ESXi-5.5.0-Custom-Cisco-5.5.0.1 Input file being used: /opt/image/ESXi-5.5.0-1331820-custom-Cisco-5.5.0.1.iso OS catalog name being used: ESXi-5.5.0-Custom-Cisco-5.5.0.1 Mounting the image.... Preparing the image.... Creating catalog directory /opt/cnsaroot/templates/ESXi-5.5.0-Custom-Cisco-5.5.0.1 Creating configuration files for ESXi 5.5 ... Copied the image and created the configutation files...
Next you can verify that the image is available in the catalog location.
[root@localhost infra]# cd /opt/cnsaroot/templates/ [root@localhost templates]# ls CentOS60 ESXi-5.1.0-Custom-Cisco-5.1.1.1 ESXi-5.5.0-Custom-Cisco-5.5.0.1 Win2k12R2x64 Win2k12x64 Win2k8R2x64 [root@localhost templates]#
To verify the image is provisioned go to UCS Director console -> Physical -> Compute. Select the POD that contains the BMA server. Select PXE Boot Requests
Click on Add PXE Request and ensure the image appears in the drop down list
And that’s it, your images are ready to be deployed.
UCS Director Baremetal Agent Upgrade:
Upload the 5.3 patches to the Baremetal Agent server
Before uploading the files I would recommend unzipping the file on your local machine. Then you can create a WinSCP connection to the Baremetal Agent appliance. Log in and if prompted accept the security alert. I selected Update in this instance
Next you’ll need to browse to the location on your C drive where the patch was extracted to and drag & drop the folder cuscd_path_5_3_0_0 to the appliance side
Once it has been uploaded log into the BMA appliance via SSH and change directory to the TMP folder (or folder you uploaded to). Run the command to apply the patch
[root@localhost /]# cd /tmp [root@localhost tmp]# ls appliance-manifest.xml cucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0 cucsd_patch_5_3_0_0.zip tmp.fXXryu2476 vmware-config0 vmware-root [root@localhost tmp]# cd cucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0/ [root@localhost cucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# ls ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0 [root@localhost cucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# cd ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0/ [root@localhost ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# ls ESXi5.5-VSAN applyPatch.sh isoExtractor.sh networkServices.jar storcliExtractor.sh ucsd-bma-prod-info.json [root@localhost ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# ./applyPatch.sh -bash: ./applyPatch.sh: Permission denied [root@localhost ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# ls -al total 60920 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 May 21 23:48 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 May 21 23:48 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 21 23:48 ESXi5.5-VSAN -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1414 May 21 01:47 applyPatch.sh -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6844 May 21 01:47 isoExtractor.sh -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 62281019 May 21 01:47 networkServices.jar -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1096 May 21 01:47 storcliExtractor.sh -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 348 May 21 01:47 ucsd-bma-prod-info.json [root@localhost ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# chmod 777 applyPatch.sh [root@localhost ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# ./applyPatch.sh Current BMA version is UCSD-BMA-5.2.0.0 Taking file backup before upgrade Taking Backup of Templates Taking Backup of isoExtractor script Copying NetworkServices jar..... Copying ESXi5.5-VSAN templates.... Copying latest isoExtractor script.... Copying storcliExtractor.sh script.... Copying Latest Version details..... Applied the patch successfully [root@localhost ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]#
Next you can navigate to /opt/infra and run the showBMAVersion script to verify you are now on the new version
[root@localhost ucsd_bma_patch_5_3_0_0]# cd /opt/infra [root@localhost infra]# ./showBMAVersion.sh UCSD-BMA-5.3.0.0 [root@localhost infra]#
Now go to UCS Director and go to Administration -> Physical Accounts -> Bare Metal Agents. Confirm the BMA is reachable and then stop and start the services. And that’s the BMA upgraded.