User guide: first take at documenting IrSO

docs/user-guide/src/SUMMARY.md

@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@
    - [Install Ironic](ironic/ironic_installation.md)
    - [Ironic python agent](ironic/ironic-python-agent.md)
    - [Ironic container images](ironic/ironic-container-images.md)
+   - [Ironic Standalone Operator](irso/introduction.md)
+      - [Install Ironic with IrSO](irso/install-basics.md)
 - [Cluster-api-provider-metal3](capm3/introduction.md)
    - [Install Metal³ provider](capm3/installation_guide.md)
    - [Features](capm3/features.md)

docs/user-guide/src/irso/install-basics.md

@@ -0,0 +1,157 @@
+# Installing Ironic
+
+This document covers installing Ironic in different scenarios. You need to
+answer a few questions before you can pick the one that suits you:
+
+- Which physical network interface will be used for provisioning? Without any
+  configuration, Ironic will use the host cluster networking.
+
+- If you use a dedicated network interface, are you going to use the built-in
+  Keepalived service to manage the IP address on it? If not, you need to make
+  sure the interface has a usable address on each control plane node.
+
+- Do you want to use network boot (iPXE) during provisioning? DHCP adds more
+  requirements and requires explicit configuration. Without it, only virtual
+  media provisioning is possible (see [supported
+  hardware](../bmo/supported_hardware.md)).
+
+- Are you doing to use TLS for the Ironic API? It is not recommended to run
+  without TLS. To enable it, you need to manage the TLS secret. [Cert
+  Manager](https://cert-manager.io/) is the recommended service for it.
+
+## Using Ironic
+
+Regardless of the scenario you choose, you will need to create at least an
+`Ironic` object and wait for it to become ready:
+
+```bash
+NAMESPACE="scenario-N"  # change to match your deployment
+kubectl create -f ironic.yaml
+kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready --timeout="10m" -n "$NAMESPACE" ironic/ironic
+```
+
+If the resource does not become `Ready`, check its status and the status of the
+corresponding `Deployment`.
+
+Once it is ready, get the credentials from the associated secret, e.g. with
+
+```bash
+SECRET=$(kubectl get ironic/ironic -n "$NAMESPACE" --template={{.spec.apiCredentialsName}})
+USERNAME=$(kubectl get secrets/$SECRET -n "$NAMESPACE" --template={{.data.username}} | base64 -d)
+PASSWORD=$(kubectl get secrets/$SECRET -n "$NAMESPACE" --template={{.data.password}} | base64 -d)
+```
+
+Now you can point BMO at the Ironic's service at `ironic.scenario-N.svc`.
+
+## Scenario 1: no network boot, no dedicated networking
+
+In this scenario, Ironic will use whatever networking is used by the cluster.
+No DHCP will be available, bare-metal machines will be provisioned using
+virtual media. Since there is no dedicated network interface, Keepalived is
+also not needed.
+
+It is enough to create the following resource:
+
+```yaml
+apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
+kind: Ironic
+metadata:
+  name: ironic
+  namespace: scenario-1
+spec: {}
+```
+
+**HINT:** there is need to configure API credentials: IrSO will generate a
+random password for you.
+
+However, there is one option that you might want to set in all scenarios: the
+public SSH key for the ramdisk. Configuring it allows an easier debugging if
+anything goes wrong during provisioning.
+
+```yaml
+apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
+kind: Ironic
+metadata:
+  name: ironic
+  namespace: scenario-1
+spec:
+  deployRamdisk:
+    sshKey: "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3..."
+```
+
+**WARNING:** the provided SSH key will **not** be installed on the machines
+deployed by Ironic. See [instance
+customization](../bmo/instance_customization.md) instead.
+
+## Scenario 2: dedicated networking and TLS
+
+In this scenario, a separate network interface is used (`em2` in the example).
+The IP address on the interface will be managed by Keepalived, and the Ironic
+API will be secured by TLS.
+
+To make TLS work without resorting to insecure configuration, the certificate
+must contain the DNS name derived from the service (e.g.
+`ironic.scenario-2.svc`), as well as the provided IP address (`192.0.2.1` in
+this example).
+
+For simplicity, lets use the openssl CLI to generate a self-signed certificate
+(use something like Cert Manager in production):
+
+```console
+openssl req -x509 -new -subj "/CN=ironic.scenario-2.svc" \
+    -addext "subjectAltName = DNS:ironic.scenario-2.svc,IP:192.0.2.1" \
+    -newkey ec -pkeyopt ec_paramgen_curve:prime256v1 -nodes \
+    -keyout ironic-tls.key -out ironic-tls.crt
+kubectl create secret tls ironic-tls -n scenario-2 --key=ironic-tls.key --cert=ironic-tls.crt
+```
+
+**NOTE:** without a dedicated interface we would have to add all cluster IP
+addresses to the certificate, which is often not desired.
+
+Now you can create your Ironic deployment:
+
+```yaml
+apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
+kind: Ironic
+metadata:
+  name: ironic
+  namespace: scenario-2
+spec:
+  deployRamdisk:
+    sshKey: "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3..."
+  networking:
+    interface: "em2"
+    ipAddress: "192.0.2.1"
+    ipAddressManager: keepalived
+  tls:
+    certificateName: ironic-tls
+```
+
+Now you can access Ironic either via the service or at `192.0.2.1:6385`.
+
+## Scenario 3: dedicated networking with DHCP and Keepalived
+
+In this scenario, network booting will be available on the dedicated network
+interface. Assuming the network CIDR is `192.0.2.0/24`:
+
+```yaml
+apiVersion: metal3.io/v1alpha1
+kind: Ironic
+metadata:
+  name: ironic
+  namespace: scenario-3
+spec:
+  deployRamdisk:
+    sshKey: "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3..."
+  networking:
+    dhcp:
+      networkCIDR: "192.0.2.0/24"
+    interface: "em2"
+    ipAddress: "192.0.2.1"
+    ipAddressManager: keepalived
+  tls:
+    certificateName: ironic-tls
+```
+
+**NOTE:** when the DHCP range is not provided, IrSO will pick one for you. In
+this example, it will be `192.0.2.10 - 192.0.2.253`.

docs/user-guide/src/irso/introduction.md

@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+# Ironic Standalone Operator
+
+Ironic Standalone Operator (IrSO) is a Kubernetes controller that installs and
+manages Ironic in a configuration suitable for Metal3. IrSO has the following
+features:
+
+- Flexible networking configuration, support for Keepalived.
+- Using SQLite or MariaDB as the database backend.
+- Optional support for a DHCP service (dnsmasq).
+- Optional support for automatically downloading an
+  [IPA](../ironic/ironic-python-agent.md) image.
+
+IrSO uses [ironic-image](../ironic/ironic-container-images.md) under the hood.
+
+## Installing Ironic Standalone Operator
+
+On every source code change, a new IrSO image is built and published at
+`quay.io/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator`. To install it in your cluster,
+you can use the Kustomize templates provided in the source repository:
+
+```console
+git clone https://github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator
+cd ironic-standalone-operator
+git checkout -b <DESIRED BRANCH OR main>
+
+make install deploy
+kubectl wait --for=condition=Available --timeout=60s \
+  -n ironic-standalone-operator-system deployment/ironic-standalone-operator-controller-manager
+```
+
+## API resources
+
+IrSO uses two Custom Resources to manage an Ironic installation:
+
+[Ironic](https://github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator/blob/main/config/crd/bases/ironic.metal3.io_ironics.yaml)
+manages Ironic itself and all of its auxiliary services.
+
+[IronicDatabase](https://github.com/metal3-io/ironic-standalone-operator/blob/main/config/crd/bases/ironic.metal3.io_ironicdatabases.yaml)
+manages a MariaDB instance for Ironic (if required).
+
+See [installing Ironic with IrSO](./install-basics.md) for information on how
+to use these resources.
+
+## How is Ironic installed?
+
+By default, IrSO installs Ironic as a single pod on a **control plane** node.
+This is because Ironic currently requires *host networking*, and thus it's not
+advisable to let it co-exist with tenant workload.
+
+### Installed services
+
+An Ironic deployment always contains these three services:
+
+- `ironic` is the main API service, as well as the conductor process that
+  handles actions on bare-metal machines.
+- `httpd` is the web server that serves images and configuration for iPXE and
+  virtual media boot, as well as works as the HTTPS frontend for Ironic.
+- `ramdisk-logs` is a script that unpacks any ramdisk logs and outputs them
+  for consumption via `kubectl logs` or similar tools.
+
+There is also a standard init container:
+
+- `ramdisk-downloader` downloads images of the deployment/inspection ramdisk
+  and stores them locally for easy access.
+
+When network boot (iPXE) is enabled, another service is deployed:
+
+- `dnsmasq` serves DHCP and functions as a PXE server for bootstrapping iPXE.
+
+With Keepalived support enabled:
+
+- `keepalived` manages the IP address on the provisioning interface.