[TOC]

MAAS

GitHub mirror - https://github.com/maas/maas [reference for branches 'master' and '2.4']

MAAS Region Controller consists of:

REST API server (TCP port 5240)
PostgreSQL database
DNS
caching HTTP proxy
web UI

MAAS Rack Controller provides:

DHCP
TFTP
HTTP (for images)
power management

Installing MAAS

MAAS 2.4.2-7034-g2f5deb8b8-0ubuntu1 was installed above Ubuntu 18.04 LTS running on HP ElitDesk 800 in the lab. While MAAS is available in the normal Ubuntu archives, the available packages may be lagging behind non-archive, but still stable, versions.

Older versions running on Ubuntu 16.04 are defective.

In our case Region and Rack Controller are running on the same node.

Follow the official installation guide - link:

sudo apt-add-repository -yu ppa:maas/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install maas
sudo maas init

Generate SSH keys for the admin user (fides by default):

 ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "$(whoami)@$(hostname)"

Configuring MAAS

Settings

http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/#/settings/general/
- Region name: scada-maas-rc for example
- Commissioning: select the same OS as MAAS server (Ubuntu 18.04) and HWE kernel (hwe-18.04)
- Deploy: will be updated later on, after importing the custom Debian OS image
http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/#/settings/storage/
- Select 'Flat layout' in the dropd down menu
- Select 'Use quick erase by default when erasing disks.' only
http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/#/settings/network/
- Proxy: MAAS Built-in
- DNS: 10.6.2.19 10.0.0.19 10.0.0.25 8.8.8.8 Note: Use both c4internal and cyberbit domain controllers to be on the safe side, but always use some external DNS for backup.
http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/#/settings/repositories/
- Enable both default Ubuntu repositories

Networks

http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/#/networks/
- Enable DHCP in untagged VLAN in order to allow PXE boot via DHCP broadcast.

Basic images for PXE

http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/#/images/
- Ubuntu images (NOTE: 18.04 for amd64 and i386 are minimal prerequisites

API Key

http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/account/prefs/
- Generate MAAS API key for your admin user by clicking "Generate MAAS key" in
- SSH keys for currently logged in user (generated in the previous step)

Metrics

Enable Prometheus metrics following the official guide - link

Customizing MAAS

Some configuration values are not available via UI or config files. If you need to adjust timeouts, you will have to edit /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/maasserver/node_status.py - link
In order to enable Debian support for UEFI boot, the config template /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/provisioningserver/templates/uefi/config.local.amd64.template need to be adjusted - link

Debian image

MAAS is not supporting Debian images out of the box, hence some work is needed to add a custom image:

###########################################
# Downlead raw OS image
###########################################
DOWNLOAD_DIR=/tmp
cd $DOWNLOAD_DIR
wget https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/openstack/current-9/debian-9-openstack-amd64.raw

###########################################
# Mount OS image
###########################################
sudo mkdir /mnt/custom-os-loop
sudo mount -o ro,loop,offset=1048576,sync debian-9-openstack-amd64.raw

###########################################
# Implement grub and ufiboot workaround for Debian 9
###########################################
sudo chroot /mnt/custom-os-loop
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates efibootmgr xfsprogs
sudo apt-mark hold xfsprogs
echo "deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update
exit

###########################################
# Create image archive and unmount
###########################################
cd /mnt/custom-os-loop
IMAGE_ARCHIVE_NAME="debian-9-openstack-custom-amd64"
tar czvf $DOWNLOAD_DIR/$IMAGE_ARCHIVE_NAME.tgz .
sudo umount /mnt/custom-os-loop

###########################################
# Add new custoem image to MAAS
# NOTE: use 'name=custom/debian' only!!! 
#       MAAS parse the parameter in order to determine which EFI template to use.
###########################################
cd $DOWNLOAD_DIR
MAAS_USER="$(whoami)"
MAAS_API_KEY="enter-here-your-maas-api-key"
MAAS_API_SERVER="http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS"
maas login $MAAS_USER $MAAS_API_SERVER $MAAS_API_KEY
maas $MAAS_USER boot-resources create name=custom/debian title="$IMAGE_ARCHIVE_NAME" architecture=amd64/generic content@=$DOWNLOAD_DIR/$IMAGE_ARCHIVE_NAME.tgz

Curtin

Following the naming convention, in order to map curtin_userdata for Debian to the generic\debian OS, you need to have the following file: /etc/maas/preseeds/curtin_userdata_custom_amd64_generic_debian - link

NOTE: pay attention to /boot/efi partition !

Adding Servers to MAAS

...

REST API

Authentication

OSS MAAS uses OAUTH v1 tokens for authentication. Once you obtain a token it will be in in following format:

/(?<oauth_consumer_key>^[a-zA-Z0-9]{18}):{1}(?<oauth_token>[a-zA-Z0-9]{18}):{1}(?<oauth_signature>[a-zA-Z0-9]{32})$/s

In order to call MAAS API endpoint, proper authentication header need to be set:

TIMESTMAP=$(date +%s)
OAUTH_CONSUMER_KEY=$(echo $TOKEN | cut -f1 -d:)
OAUTH_TOKEN=$(echo $TOKEN | cut -f2 -d:)
OAUTH_SIGNATURE=$(echo $TOKEN | cut -f3 -d:)
OAUTH_NONCE=$(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 11 | head -n 1)

# NOTE: piggyback a URL encoded & character before OAUTH_SIGNATURE
curl -X GET \
  http://<your.maas.ip>:5240/MAAS/api/2.0/<endpoint>/ \
  -H 'Accept: */*' \
  -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate' \
  -H 'Authorization: OAuth oauth_consumer_key="$OAUTH_CONSUMER_KEY",oauth_token="$OAUTH_TOKEN",oauth_signature_method="PLAINTEXT",oauth_timestamp="1571129113",oauth_nonce="$OAUTH_NONCE",oauth_version="1.0",oauth_signature="%26$OAUTH_SIGNATURE"'

API Endpoints

See official documentation - link

Postman Collection is WIP and will be added to this repo later on

Known issues

Custom Debian 9 OS image is polluted with Debian 10 sources that were necessary for grub\uefi\boot workaround. Host provisioning must take care of it!
Since our HW varies a lot, Curtin cloud-init config is taking care only of a single disk /dev/sda .
Partition order need to be changed to allow root / partition resizing

danielvrog / maas