openstack-ansible-os_ironic/doc/source/configure-ironic-debugging.rst

Debugging the Bare Metal (ironic) inspector service

Ironic Python Agent debug logs

If IPA fails, a log file will be written to /var/log/ironic on the conductor node responsible for the Ironic node being deployed.

A lot of useful information is collected including a copy of the journal log from the host.

Pausing during a deployment

To pause the deployment, possibly to log into an Ironic node running the IPA to do diagnostic work, the node can have maintainance switched on either through the OpenStack CLI or Horizon web interface.

The ironic state machine will not change state again until maintainance mode is switched off, triggered by a heartbeat from IPA. Note that you will have to wait for up to one heartbeat period for the deployment to resume after switching off maintainance mode.

Logging into IPA

To perform diagnostic steps on an ironic node during deployment or cleaning it might be helpful to be able to log into the node from the controller after the deploy image has booted.

To build a version of the deploy image which has the dynamic-login element enabled, in this case building on a Rocky Linux host:

dnf install python3-virtualenv git qemu-img

virtualenv venv
source ./venv/bin/activate
pip install ironic-python-agent-builder

export DIB_REPOREF_ironic_python_agent=origin/stable/zed
export DIB_REPOREF_requirements=origin/stable/zed
ironic-python-agent-builder -e dynamic-login -o my-login-ipa --extra-args=--no-tmpfs --release 8-stream centos

Once the IPA kernel and initramfs are built, upload them to glance and set them as the deploy kernel/initramfs for the Ironic node to log into during deployment.

Create a password to log into the Ironic node:

openssl passwd -1 -stdin <<< YOUR_PASSWORD | sed 's/\$/\$\$/g'

Set debugging options on the IPA kernel parameters in /etc/openstack_deploy/user_variables.yml, substituing the encrypted password just generated into the rootpwd field. Ensure that the encrypted password is enclosed in double quotation marks.

ironic_ironic_conf_overrides:
  # Set a password on the root user in IPA for debug purposes
  pxe:
    kernel_append_params: 'ipa-debug=1 systemd.journald.forward_to_console=yes rootpwd="<password-string>"'

Note

You must combine this override with any existing definition of ironic_ironic_conf_overrides.

Deploy the configuration file changes to the Ironic control plane.

The node can now be cleaned or provisioned, possibly pausing the deployment by enabling maintainance on the node and then logging into the node with SSH as the root user with the password previously encrypted.