Configure BIOS on a bare metal host

Before adding new BareMetalHost objects, configure hardware hosts to correctly load them over the PXE network.

Important

Consider the following common requirements for hardware hosts configuration:

  • Update firmware for BIOS and Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) to the latest available version, especially if you are going to apply the UEFI configuration.

    Container Cloud uses the ipxe.efi binary loader that might be not compatible with old firmware and have vendor-related issues with UEFI booting. For example, the Supermicro issue. In this case, we recommend using the legacy booting format.

  • Configure all or at least the PXE NIC on switches.

    If the hardware host has more than one PXE NIC to boot, we strongly recommend setting up only one in the boot order. It speeds up the provisioning phase significantly.

    Some hardware vendors require a host to be rebooted during BIOS configuration changes from legacy to UEFI or vice versa for the extra option with NIC settings to appear in the menu.

  • Connect only one Ethernet port on a host to the PXE network at any given time. Collect the physical address (MAC) of this interface and use it to configure the BareMetalHost object describing the host.

To configure BIOS on a bare metal host:

  1. Enable the global BIOS mode using BIOS > Boot > boot mode select > legacy. Reboot the host if required.

  2. Enable the LAN-PXE-OPROM support using the following menus:

    • BIOS > Advanced > PCI/PCIe Configuration > LAB OPROM TYPE > legacy

    • BIOS > Advanced > PCI/PCIe Configuration > Network Stack > enabled

    • BIOS > Advanced > PCI/PCIe Configuration > IPv4 PXE Support > enabled

  3. Set up the configured boot order:

    1. BIOS > Boot > Legacy-Boot-Order#1 > Hard Disk

    2. BIOS > Boot > Legacy-Boot-Order#2 > NIC

  4. Save changes and power off the host.

  1. Enable the global BIOS mode using BIOS > Boot > boot mode select > UEFI. Reboot the host if required.

  2. Enable the LAN-PXE-OPROM support using the following menus:

    • BIOS > Advanced > PCI/PCIe Configuration > LAB OPROM TYPE > uefi

    • BIOS > Advanced > PCI/PCIe Configuration > Network Stack > enabled

    • BIOS > Advanced > PCI/PCIe Configuration > IPv4 PXE Support > enabled

    Note

    UEFI support might not apply to all NICs. But at least built-in network interfaces should support it.

  3. Set up the configured boot order:

    1. BIOS > Boot > UEFI-Boot-Order#1 > UEFI Hard Disk

    2. BIOS > Boot > UEFI-Boot-Order#1 > UEFI Network

  4. Save changes and power off the host.