Firmware Settings

Metal3 supports modifying firmware settings of the hosts before provisioning them. This feature can be used, for example, to enable or disable CPU virtualization extensions, huge pages or SRIOV support. The corresponding functionality in Ironic is called BIOS settings.

Reading and modifying firmware settings is only supported for drivers based on Redfish, iRMC or iLO (see supported hardware). The commonly used IPMI driver does not support this feature.

HostFirmwareSettings Resources

A HostFirmwareSettings resource is automatically created for each host that supports firmware settings with the same name and in the same namespace as host. BareMetal Operator puts the current settings in the status.settings field:

apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
kind: HostFirmwareSettings
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2024-05-28T16:31:06Z"
  generation: 1
  name: worker-0
  namespace: my-cluster
  ownerReferences:
  - apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
    blockOwnerDeletion: true
    controller: true
    kind: BareMetalHost
    name: worker-0
    uid: 663a1453-d4d8-43a3-b459-64ea94d1435f
  resourceVersion: "20653"
  uid: 46fc9ccb-0717-4ced-93aa-babbe1a8cd5b
spec:
  settings: {}
status:
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-05-28T16:31:06Z"
    message: ""
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: Success
    status: "True"
    type: Valid
  - lastTransitionTime: "2024-05-28T16:31:06Z"
    message: ""
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: Success
    status: "False"
    type: ChangeDetected
  lastUpdated: "2024-05-28T16:31:06Z"
  schema:
    name: schema-f229959d
    namespace: my-cluster
  settings:
    BootMode: Uefi
    EmbeddedSata: Raid
    L2Cache: 10x256 KB
    NicBoot1: NetworkBoot
    NumCores: "10"
    ProcTurboMode: Enabled
    QuietBoot: "true"
    SecureBootStatus: Enabled
    SerialNumber: QPX12345

In this example (taken from a virtual testing environment):

• The spec.settings mapping is empty - no change is requested by the user.

• The status.settings mapping is populated with the current values detected by Ironic.

• The Valid condition is True, which means that spec.settings are valid according to the host’s FirmwareSchema. The condition will be set to False if any value in spec.settings fails validation.

• The ChangeDetected condition is False, which means that the desired settings and the real settings do not diverge. This condition will be set to True after you modify spec.settings until the change is reflected in status.settings.

• The schema field contains a link to the firmware schema (see below).

Warning: Ironic does not constantly update the current settings to avoid an unnecessary load on the host’s BMC. The current settings are updated on enrollment, provisioning and deprovisioning only.

FirmwareSchema resources

One or more FirmwareSchema resources are created for hosts that support firmware settings. Each schema object represents a list of possible settings and limits on their values.

apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
kind: FirmwareSchema
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2024-05-28T16:31:06Z"
  generation: 1
  name: schema-f229959d
  namespace: my-cluster
  ownerReferences:
  - apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
    kind: HostFirmwareSettings
    name: worker-1
    uid: bd97a81c-c736-4a6d-aee5-32dccb26e366
  - apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
    kind: HostFirmwareSettings
    name: worker-0
    uid: d8fb3c8a-395e-4c0a-9171-5928a68305b3
spec:
  hardwareModel: KVM (8.6.0)
  hardwareVendor: Red Hat
  schema:
    BootMode:
      allowable_values:
      - Bios
      - Uefi
      attribute_type: Enumeration
      read_only: false
    NumCores:
      attribute_type: Integer
      lower_bound: 10
      read_only: true
      unique: false
      upper_bound: 20
    QuietBoot:
      attribute_type: Boolean
      read_only: false
      unique: false

The following fields are included for each setting:

• attribute_type – The type of the setting (Enumeration, Integer, String, Boolean, or Password).
• read_only – The setting is read-only and cannot be modified.
• unique – The setting’s value is unique in this host (e.g. serial numbers).

For type Enumeration:

• allowable_values – A list of allowable values.

For type Integer:

• lower_bound – The lowest allowed integer value.
• upper_bound – The highest allowed integer value.

For type String:

• min_length – The minimum length that the string value can have.
• max_length – The maximum length that the string value can have.

Note: the FirmwareSchema has a unique identifier derived from its settings and limits. Multiple hosts may therefore have the same FirmwareSchema identifier so its likely that more than one HostFirmwareSettings reference the same FirmwareSchema when hardware of the same vendor and model are used.

How to change firmware settings

To change one or more settings for a host, update the corresponding HostFirmwareSettings resource, changing or adding the required settings to spec.settings. For example:

apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
kind: HostFirmwareSettings
metadata:
  name: worker-0
  namespace: my-cluster
  # ...
spec:
  settings:
     QuietBoot: true
status:
  # ...

Hint: you don’t need to copy over the settings you don’t want to change.

If the host is in the available state, it will be moved to the preparing state and the new settings will be applied. After some time, the host will move back to available, and the resulting changes will be reflected in the status of the HostFirmwareSettings object. Applying firmware settings requires 1-2 reboots of the machine and thus may take 5-20 minutes.

Warning: if the host is not in the available state, the settings will be pending until it gets to this state (e.g. as a result of deprovisioning).

Alternatively, you can create a HostFirmwareSettings object together with the BareMetalHost object. In this case, the settings will be applied after inspection is finished.