Digital Rebar¶

simple, fast and open-ecosystem infrastructure automation with strong Infrastructure as Code (IaC) design.

Digital Rebar (aka DRP) is a RackN licensed-core platform with an open ecosystem suite of both licensed and open APLv2 components. The fourth generation platform provides a simple yet complete API-driven DHCP/PXE/TFTP provisioning and workflow system.

Digital Rebar Platform and Ecosystem are designed together to be a complete data center provisioning, content scaffolding and infrastructure workflow platform with a cloud native architecture that completely replaces Cobbler, Foreman, MaaS, Ironic or similar technologies. DRP offers a single golang binary (less than 30MB) with no dependencies capable of installation on a laptop, RPi or switch supporting both bare metal and virtualized infrastructure.

Key Features:

Platform Capabilities:

API-driven infrastructure-as-code automation

Multi-boot workflows using composable and reusable building blocks

Event driven actions via Websockets API

Extensible Plug-in Model for public, vendor and internal enhancements

Dynamic Workflow Contexts (allows using APIs when agents cannot be run)

Distributed Multi-Site Management

Integrated Secure Boot, SSO and Highly Available options.

Supports ALL orchestration tools including Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack, Bosh, Terraform, etc

Open Ecosystem Plugins:

RAID, IPMI, Redfish, and BIOS Configuration

Cloud-like pooling capabilities

Classification engine for automated workflow

Community Resources from https://rebar.digital ¶

Chat/messaging via the Digital Rebar #community channel is our preferred communication method. If you do not have a Slack invite to our channel, you can Request a Slack Invite
Issues and Features
Full Documentation (Github /doc sources are updatable via pull request).
Videos on the DR Provision Playlist provide both specific and general background information.

Install & Quick Start¶

There are two quick start paths: Cloud & VM Install (Non-PXE environments) and Quick Start Guide (PXE, bare metal). Don’t worry, they are very simple and take 10 to 20 minutes. Consult the Production Install guide for more details on the install steps.

Current Release (aka “stable”) is the Digital Rebar version 4.11 [January 2023] and next release (aka “tip”) is planned to be Digital Rebar version 4.12 [in process]. See Release Summaries for a complete list.

Components & Extensions¶

Digital Rebar Provision is composable by design. Much of our advanced funtionality is exposed in Content Packages & Plugins that are added into the system as content and plugins which have documentation embedded in the extension.

Table of Contents¶

Reading on Github? Visit Generated Docs for a generated ToC.

Licenses¶

Digital Rebar Server is proprietary licensed software available in compiled binary format from RackN Rebar.

Code for Digital Rebar client and many catalog componets is available from multiple authors under the Apache 2 license.

Digital Rebar documentation is available from multiple authors under the Creative Commons license with Attribution.

Work licensed under a Creative Commons license is governed by applicable copyright law.
This allows Creative Commons licenses to be applied to all work falling under copyright,
including: books, plays, movies, music, articles, photographs, blogs, and websites.
Creative Commons does not recommend the use of Creative Commons licenses for software.

However, application of a Creative Commons license may not modify the rights allowed by
fair use or fair dealing or exert restrictions which violate copyright exceptions.
Furthermore, Creative Commons licenses are non-exclusive and non-revocable.
Any work or copies of the work obtained under a Creative Commons license may continue
to be used under that license.

In the case of works protected by multiple Creative Common licenses,
the user may choose either.