nestorwheelock / boots

The DHCP and iPXE server for Tinkerbell.

Boots

This service handles DHCP, PXE, tftp, and iPXE for provisions in the Tinkerbell project. For more information about the Tinkerbell project, see: tinkerbell.org.

This repository is Experimental meaning that it's based on untested ideas or techniques and not yet established or finalized or involves a radically new and innovative style! This means that support is best effort (at best!) and we strongly encourage you to NOT use this in production.

Running Boots

As boots runs a DHCP server, it's often asked if it is safe to run without any network isolation; the answer is yes. While boots does run a DHCP server, it only allocates an IP address when it recognizes the mac address of the requesting device.

Local Setup

First, you need to make sure you have git-lfs installed:

# install "git-lfs" package for your OS. On Ubuntu, for instance:
# curl https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/github/git-lfs/script.deb.sh | sudo bash
# apt install git-lfs

# then run these two commands:
git lfs install
git lfs pull

Running the Tests

# make the files
make all
# run the tests
go test

Build/Run Boots

# run boots
./boots

You can use NixOS shell, which will have the Git-LFS, Go and others

nix-shell

Developing with Standalone Mode

The quickest way to get started is docker-compose up. This will start boots in standalone mode using the example JSON in the test/ directory. It also starts a client container that runs some tests.

docker-compose build # build containers
docker-compose up    # start the network & services
# it's fine to hit control-C twice for fast shutdown
docker-compose down  # stop the network & clean up Docker processes

Alternatively you can run boots standalone manually. It requires a few environment variables for configuration.

test/standalone-hardware.json should be safe enough for most developers to use on the command line locally without getting a call from your network administrator. That said, you might want to contact them before running a DHCP server on their network. Best to isolate it in Docker or a VM if you're not sure.

export DATA_MODEL_VERSION=standalone
export API_CONSUMER_TOKEN=none
export API_AUTH_TOKEN=none
export BOOTS_STANDALONE_JSON=./test/standalone-hardware.json

# to run on your laptop as a regular user
# DHCP won't work but useful for smoke testing and iterating on http/tftp/syslog
./cmd/boots/boots \
	-http-addr 127.0.0.1:9000 \
	-syslog-addr 127.0.0.1:9001 \
	-tftp-addr 127.0.0.01:9002 \
	-dhcp-addr 127.0.0.1:9003

# or run it in a container
# NOTE: not sure the NET_ADMIN cap is necessary
docker run -ti --cap-add=NET_ADMIN --volume $(pwd):/boots alpine:3.14
/boots/cmd/boots -dhcp-addr 0.0.0.0:67