Inspect annotation

The inspect annotation can be used to request the baremetal operator to (re-)inspect a Ready BareMetalHost. This is useful in case there were hardware changes for example. Note that it is only possible to do this when BareMetalHost is in Ready state. If an inspection request is made while BareMetalHost is any other state than Ready, the request will be ignored.

To request a new inspection, simply annotating the host with inspect.metal3.io is enough. Once inspection is requested, you should see the BMH in inspecting state until inspection is completed, and by the end of inspection the inspect.metal3.io annotation will be removed automatically.

Here is an example:

apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
kind: BareMetalHost
metadata:
  name: example
  annotations:
    # The inspect annotation with no value
    inspect.metal3.io: ""
spec:
  online: true
  bootMACAddress: 00:8a:b6:8e:ac:b8
  bootMode: legacy
  bmc:
    address: ipmi://192.168.111.1:6230
    credentialsName: example-bmc-secret
...

Why is this needed?

• For re-inspecting BareMetalHosts after hardware changes.

Caveats:

• It is only possible to inspect a BareMetalHost when it is in Ready state.

Note: For other use cases, like disabling inspection or providing externally gathered inspection data, see external inspection.