Separate PXE and management networks¶

This section describes how to configure a dedicated PXE network for a management bare metal cluster. A separate PXE network allows isolating sensitive bare metal provisioning process from the end users. The users still have access to Container Cloud services, such as Keycloak, to authenticate workloads in managed clusters, such as Horizon in a Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes cluster.

Note

This additional configuration procedure must be completed as part of the Deploy a management cluster using CLI steps. It substitutes or appends some configuration parameters and templates that are used in Deploy a management cluster using CLI for the management cluster to use two networks, PXE and management, instead of one PXE/management network. We recommend considering the Deploy a management cluster using CLI procedure first.

The following table describes the overall network mapping scheme with all L2/L3 parameters, for example, for two networks, PXE (CIDR 10.0.0.0/24) and management (CIDR 10.0.11.0/24):

Network mapping overview¶
Deployment file name	Network	Parameters and values
`cluster.yaml`	Management	`SET_LB_HOST=10.0.11.90` `SET_METALLB_ADDR_POOL=10.0.11.61-10.0.11.80`
`ipam-objects.yaml`	PXE	`SET_IPAM_CIDR=10.0.0.0/24` `SET_PXE_NW_GW=10.0.0.1` `SET_PXE_NW_DNS=8.8.8.8` `SET_IPAM_POOL_RANGE=10.0.0.100-10.0.0.109` `SET_METALLB_PXE_ADDR_POOL=10.0.0.61-10.0.0.70`
`ipam-objects.yaml`	Management	`SET_LCM_CIDR=10.0.11.0/24` `SET_LCM_RANGE=10.0.11.100-10.0.11.199` `SET_LB_HOST=10.0.11.90` `SET_METALLB_ADDR_POOL=10.0.11.61-10.0.11.80`
`bootstrap.sh`	PXE	`KAAS_BM_PXE_IP=10.0.0.20` `KAAS_BM_PXE_MASK=24` `KAAS_BM_PXE_BRIDGE=br0` `KAAS_BM_BM_DHCP_RANGE=10.0.0.30,10.0.0.59,255.255.255.0` `BOOTSTRAP_METALLB_ADDRESS_POOL=10.0.0.61-10.0.0.80`

When using separate PXE and management networks, the management cluster services are exposed in different networks using two separate MetalLB address pools:

Services exposed through the PXE network are as follows:
- Ironic API as a bare metal provisioning server
- HTTP server that provides images for network boot and server provisioning
- Caching server for accessing the Container Cloud artifacts deployed on hosts
Services exposed through the management network are all other Container Cloud services, such as Keycloak, web UI, and so on.

To configure separate PXE and management networks:

Inspect guidelines to follow during configuration of the Subnet object as a MetalLB address pool as described MetalLB configuration guidelines for subnets.
To ensure successful bootstrap, enable asymmetric routing on the interfaces of the management cluster nodes. This is required because the seed node relies on one network by default, which can potentially cause traffic asymmetry.

In the kernelParameters section of bm/baremetalhostprofiles.yaml.template, set rp_filter to 2. This enables loose mode as defined in RFC3704.
Example configuration of asymmetric routing
... kernelParameters: ... sysctl: # Enables the "Loose mode" for the "k8s-lcm" interface (management network) net.ipv4.conf.k8s-lcm.rp_filter: "2" # Enables the "Loose mode" for the "bond0" interface (PXE network) net.ipv4.conf.bond0.rp_filter: "2" ...
Note

More complicated solutions that are not described in this manual include getting rid of traffic asymmetry, for example:
- Configure source routing on management cluster nodes.
- Plug the seed node into the same networks as the management cluster nodes, which requires custom configuration of the seed node.

In kaas-bootstrap/templates/bm/ipam-objects.yaml.template:

Substitute all the Subnet object templates with the new ones as described in the example template below
Update the L2 template spec.l3Layout and spec.npTemplate fields as described in the example template below

The last Subnet template named mgmt-pxe-lb in the example above will be used to configure the MetalLB address pool in the PXE network. The bare metal provider will automatically configure MetalLB with address pools using the Subnet objects identified by specific labels.

Warning

The bm-pxe address must have a separate interface with only one address on this interface.

Verify the current MetalLB configuration that is stored in MetalLB objects:
```
kubectl -n metallb-system get ipaddresspools,l2advertisements
```
For the example configuration described above, the system outputs a similar content:
```
NAME                                    AGE
ipaddresspool.metallb.io/default        129m
ipaddresspool.metallb.io/services-pxe   129m

NAME                                      AGE
l2advertisement.metallb.io/default        129m
l2advertisement.metallb.io/services-pxe   129m
```
To verify the MetalLB objects:
```
kubectl -n metallb-system get <object> -o json | jq '.spec'
```
For the example configuration described above, the system outputs a similar content for ipaddresspool objects:
```
{
  "addresses": [
    "10.0.11.61-10.0.11.80"
  ],
  "autoAssign": true,
  "avoidBuggyIPs": false
}
$ kubectl -n metallb-system get ipaddresspool.metallb.io/services-pxe -o json | jq '.spec'
{
  "addresses": [
    "10.0.0.61-10.0.0.70"
  ],
  "autoAssign": false,
  "avoidBuggyIPs": false
}
```
The auto-assign parameter will be set to false for all address pools except the default one. So, a particular service will get an address from such an address pool only if the Service object has a special metallb.universe.tf/address-pool annotation that points to the specific address pool name.
Note

It is expected that every Container Cloud service on a management cluster will be assigned to one of the address pools. Current consideration is to have two MetalLB address pools:
- services-pxe is a reserved address pool name to use for the Container Cloud services in the PXE network (Ironic API, HTTP server, caching server).
  
  The bootstrap cluster also uses the services-pxe address pool for its provision services for management cluster nodes to be provisioned from the bootstrap cluster. After the management cluster is deployed, the bootstrap cluster is deleted and that address pool is solely used by the newly deployed cluster.
- default is an address pool to use for all other Container Cloud services in the management network. No annotation is required on the Service objects in this case.
Select from the following options for configuration of the dedicatedMetallbPools flag:

Since Container Cloud 2.25.0

Skip this step because the flag is hardcoded to true.

Since Container Cloud 2.24.0

Verify that the flag is set to the default true value.

The flag enables splitting of LB endpoints for the Container Cloud services. The metallb.universe.tf/address-pool annotations on the Service objects are configured by the bare metal provider automatically when the dedicatedMetallbPools flag is set to true.

Example Service object configured by the baremetal-operator Helm release:
```
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: ironic-api
  annotations:
    metallb.universe.tf/address-pool: services-pxe
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 443
    targetPort: 443
  type: LoadBalancer
```
The metallb.universe.tf/address-pool annotation on the Service object is set to services-pxe by the baremetal provider, so the ironic-api service will be assigned an LB address from the corresponding MetalLB address pool.

In addition to the network parameters defined in Deploy a management cluster using CLI, configure the following ones by replacing them in templates/bm/ipam-objects.yaml.template:

New subnet template parameters¶
Parameter	Description	Example value
`SET_LCM_CIDR`	Address of a management network for the management cluster in the CIDR notation. You can later share this network with managed clusters where it will act as the LCM network. If managed clusters have their separate LCM networks, those networks must be routable to the management network.	`10.0.11.0/24`
`SET_LCM_RANGE`	Address range that includes addresses to be allocated to bare metal hosts in the management network for the management cluster. When this network is shared with managed clusters, the size of this range limits the number of hosts that can be deployed in all clusters that share this network. When this network is solely used by a management cluster, the range should include at least 3 IP addresses for bare metal hosts of the management cluster.	`10.0.11.100-10.0.11.109`
`SET_METALLB_PXE_ADDR_POOL`	Address range to be used for LB endpoints of the Container Cloud services: Ironic-API, HTTP server, and caching server. This range must be within the PXE network. The minimum required range is 5 IP addresses.	`10.0.0.61-10.0.0.70`

The following parameters will now be tied to the management network while their meaning remains the same as described in Deploy a management cluster using CLI:

Subnet template parameters migrated to management network¶
Parameter	Description	Example value
`SET_LB_HOST`	IP address of the externally accessible API endpoint of the management cluster. This address must NOT be within the `SET_METALLB_ADDR_POOL` range but within the management network. External load balancers are not supported.	`10.0.11.90`
`SET_METALLB_ADDR_POOL`	The address range to be used for the externally accessible LB endpoints of the Container Cloud services, such as Keycloak, web UI, and so on. This range must be within the management network. The minimum required range is 19 IP addresses.	`10.0.11.61-10.0.11.80`

Proceed to further steps in Deploy a management cluster using CLI.