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Hardware Repo Cloning

Hardware repositories in DRP provide the vendor-specific tools and firmware packages that hardware content packs (Dell, HPE, Lenovo, Supermicro) use during provisioning to update BIOS, RAID controllers, network card firmware, and other hardware components. DRP serves these tools from its own file store so that machines in restricted or air-gapped environments do not need direct internet access to the vendor's repositories.

What Hardware Repos Contain

A hardware repo is a directory tree served from the DRP provisioner at files/hw_repo/. The tree contains:

  • Vendor CLI tools — Executables for querying and configuring hardware (Dell DSU, HPE SUM, Lenovo OneCLI, Supermicro SAA/SUM)
  • RPM/package repositories — YUM/DNF repositories containing vendor-specific OS packages required by the vendor tools
  • Firmware bundles — Firmware images referenced by the flash content pack for BIOS, NIC, HBA, and RAID controller updates

The hardware-tooling content pack provides the global-hw-repo profile that defines the expected layout and the default URL patterns for each vendor's tools.

Configuring Hardware Repos

Hardware repos are delivered to DRP as a compressed tarball (hw_repo.tgz) that is extracted into the DRP provisioner's file store. See Hardware Repository Tarball Info for detailed instructions on building a hardware repo tarball for your environment, including per-vendor file locations and directory layout requirements.

Once the tarball is in place, the hardware content packs reference the files through provisioner URLs:

YAML
# Example: override the Lenovo OneCLI location on the global profile
lenovo-onecli-airgap-url: "{{.ProvisionerURL}}/files/hw_repo/lnvgy_utl_lxce_onecli02c-4.5.0_linux_x86-64.tgz"
YAML
# Example: override the Supermicro SUM version
supermicro-manager-archive: "sum_2.5.2_Linux_x86_64_20210112.tar.gz"

Supported Vendor Toolchains

Vendor Tool Repo Type
Dell DSU (Dell System Update) os_independent + os_dependent YUM repos
HPE SUM (Smart Update Manager) os_independent + os_dependent YUM repos
Lenovo OneCLI Single compressed tarball
Supermicro SAA / SUM Single compressed tarball (licensed)

Air-Gapped Environments

In air-gapped environments where DRP machines cannot reach vendor repositories directly, the hardware repo tarball must be pre-built on an internet-connected system and copied to the DRP endpoint. The hw_repo.tgz is then uploaded to the DRP file store:

Bash
# Upload the hardware repo tarball to DRP
drpcli files upload hw_repo.tgz as files/hw_repo.tgz

# Extract on the DRP server (run as root on the DRP host)
cd /var/lib/dr-provision/tftpboot
tar xzf /path/to/hw_repo.tgz

After extraction, the files are available to machines at {{.ProvisionerURL}}/files/hw_repo/ and the hardware content packs can use them without internet access. Refer to Hardware Repository Tarball Info for the full tarball construction process for each vendor.