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Triton iPXE Installation

Some deployments, for example on to a Bare-Metal as a Service (BMaaS) provider, may use single-shot iPXE boots to install an operating system.

The Triton iPXE installer behaves much like the ISO installer in that it should boot once, and during the reboot mid-installation the on-disk portion should take over. It is important that the iPXE Triton boot happen only once for a head node installation.

Unlike the ISO installer, the iPXE installation requires that network reachability be enabled DURING the installation process. The installer script will post a reminder of this. Most of the time, the iPXE installer needed network reachability to start in the first place, so configuring the head node to reach the iPXE downloads should not be difficult. The network is required to be able to download images that are normally on the ISO DVD image for the ISO installer, but cannot fit into an iPXE ramdisk root. This network must be at least /30. If your provider allocates a /31, you should configure Triton with a shorter prefix length so that neither the headnode IP nor the gateway IP are the network or broadcast numbers. In general this should not cause a problem as long as the host and gatway IPs used are those specified by the provider's allocation. The minimum recommended external network size is /28.

Configuring an iPXE Server for a Triton Installation

An iPXE installation needs to pull necessary files via HTTP/HTTPS for installation. We provide a tar archive that can be installed on a web server that an iPXE client can reach.

The tar archive also includes a full tar archive of the ISO installer contents because an iPXE ramdisk image is not large enough to hold all of the Triton images required for an installation, and the iPXE installer must download the images after it has booted.

The included ipxe script defaults to ttyb (COM2) for the installer. This can be changed in the ipxe file if necessary.

Using the example server above, once it has been setup, an iPXE client should access https://ipxe.example.com/triton/triton-installer.ipxe to install the Triton head node.

Using Joyent's Netboot server

Joyent also provides a netboot server that you can use with iPXE to chain load the Triton installer and is kept up to date with the latest release. To install Triton using the iPXE installer, chain load the installer URL.

chain https://netboot.smartos.org/triton-installer/triton-installer.ipxe

After provisioning your headnode, connect to the serial console to configure the installation. Currently the installer is hard coded to use ttyb (COM2) for the installer.

Automating Triton setup on third-party bare metal hosting providers

Triton has support for fully-automated installation with third-party bare metal hosting providers. This works by loading the hosting provider's metadata object onto the filesystem as a boot module. Currently, only Equinix Metal is supported.

Equinix Metal

To install Triton on Equinix Metal use the triton-eqm-create.sh script in this repository. The Triton installer will use the Equinix Metal metadata object to derive most values (e.g., IP addresses and interface configuration) needed by the installer. Not all values needed by Triton are present in Equinix's metadata object so additional elements can be included by providing JSON file. The file format and keys are the same as answers.json file used by Triton.

The following keys are supported. For any keys that are not present, a suitable default will be used.

Key Default
company_name Empty string
datacenter_location Empty string
region_name Leading alpha characters of datacenter_name, which will be the Equnix Metal facility (e.g., iad)
dns_resolver1 8.8.8.8
dns_resolver2 8.8.4.4
dns_domain triton.local
mail_to root@localhost
mail_from support@<dns_domain>
ntp_host 0.smartos.pool.ntp.org
root_password Randomly generated (you will need to use your Equinix Metal SSH keys to log in)
admin_password Randomly generated. You can find this password in /usbkey/config
update_channel release

SSH keys present in your Equinix Metal account will be added to root's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file.

To use the triton-eqm-create.sh script you need the packet-cli installed and configured on your workstation. Once this is done, use the following steps to create a new Triton cloud.

  1. Create a project to contain the assets for your Triton Cloud. This will also create the necessary VLANs in the specified facility.

     triton-eqm-create.sh project -n My-Triton-Project

  2. After the project has been created, you can create the headnode. Passing an answers file is optional, other values are required. The hardware plan defaults to c3.small.x86 but can be changed with -P.

     triton-eqm-create.sh headnode -p <project_id> -f sv15 -a my-answers.json

  3. Connect to the Equinix Metal "sos" console to watch the progress (the correct ssh command will be printed for you). There are some issues that will occasionally prevent properly chain loading the iPXE URL. If this happens, delete the server and try again.

  4. After the installer finishes (which takes about 10 minutes) you will be able to ssh as root to the headnode's external IP.

  5. Refer to the Triton Operator Documentation for post-install operation and configuration of your new Triton Cloud.

  6. After post-install tasks are complete, create additional Compute Nodes.

     triton-eqm-create.sh computenode -p <project_id> -f iad1