11.3. Using the bios plugin

The bios plugin is used to configure a server to a specific set of BIOS values. To use the BIOS plugin, you must be running a supported hardware platform by Digital Rebar. Supported platforms will have a Catalog content pack named (generally) for the hardware manufacturer. For example dell-support, hpe-support, or lenovo-support.

11.3.1. Installation

You must install (from the Catalog), the following items:

  • bios plugin

  • hardware-tooling content

  • one of the Vendor support content packs (eg dell-support)

The above items can be installed from the Catalog in the Portal, or via the following command line installation:

# change 'vendors' variable to supported vendor(s) name (all lowercase, space separated)
vendors="dell hpe lenovo"
drpcli catalog item install bios
drpcli catalog item install hardware-tooling
for vendor in $vendors; do drpcli catalog item install ${vendor}-support; done

11.3.2. General Process

The BIOS configuration subsystem of Digital Rebar Platform is designed (and only tested) to run in the Sledgehammer environment. RackN does not support use of the tooling outside of this environment.

Warning

Ensure you boot your machines in to Sledgehammer to perform the following process.

The general process for using the BIOS plugin utilizes three separate Stages, in the following usage flow:

  1. use bios-inventory - collects detailed information on supported values on the system that the Stage runs on; populates the Param bios-current-configuration

  2. use bios-baseline - populates the bios-target-configuration compatible Param of the current system’s BIOS configuration

  3. Modify the bios-target-configuration to support any desired BIOS configuration changes

  4. use bios-configure - applies the values found in the Param bios-target-configuration to the system

The bios-target-configuration Param is the settings that will be applied to a system. Use the output of the bios-baseline Stage to create a “copy” of the current systems configuration values. This can be used after an operator has manually set a number of values through the vendors BMC configuration settings, or by using it as a starting point, and modifying the values of the results of the bios-baseline Stage.

11.3.3. The bios-current-configuration

The bios-current-configuration records both the current settings of the various bios values that may be set on a given platform, and it also provides “type definition” information on the potential data that a given setting may potentially require to for use. If you have questions on what values should be placed in the fields, refer to the bios-current-configuration for clues, or the Vendors documentation.

Ultimately, however, it is the bios-target-configuration which is used to apply updated settings to the systems BIOS.

11.3.4. The bios-target-configuration

Note that the bios-target-configuration structure is slightly different than what the bios-inventory stage produces in the bios-current-configuration. The bios-baseline stage produces a validly formatted bios-target-configuration for actually making changes to the system BIOS.

Once you have produced a version of the bios-target-configuration settings values, it may safely be used ONLY with those Vendor specific Model/Version, and Firmware level systems. Vendors regularly change the BIOS supported configuration values and details between model/platform versions, and potentially from older to newer versions of Firmware that is flashed on the system.

11.3.5. Legacy -vs- UEFI

If you have the same vendor model and version of hardware, there are often substantial differences in the BIOS configuration values, dependent on the system being in either Legacy or UEFI BIOS boot modes. You are advised to ensure you re-run bios-baseline for each of Legacy and UEFI BIOS boot modes to verify values for the boot mode are correct.

In particular - the Boot Order semantics are often very different between Legacy and UEFI BIOS boot modes.

11.3.6. The bios-skip-config

The bios-skip-config Param allows for all BIOS related tasks to “skip” running, if this Params value is set to true. This is often used in Discovery type default workflows to turn off the BIOS sub-system, without using customized Workflows for different use cases. Verify that this value is not set to true on the machine if you see the BIOS tasks just skipping, and exiting with zero (success) value.

11.3.7. Video Example

The following is an example of using the BIOS subsystem in video form. This video example shows the above outlined process on a fleet of Dell R730xd server platforms. Only a very minimal BIOS setting value has been changed via use of editing the Param value.

Generally speaking, you should extract the bios-target-configuration produced in this example, and incorporate it in to a Content Pack. See the Color Demo training content pack and video references for more details: