Skip to content

Install Fabric

Under construction.

Prerequisites

  • Have a machine with access to internet to use Fabricator and build installer
  • Have a machine to install Fabric Control Node on with enough NICs to connect to at least one switch using Front Panel ports and enough CPU and RAM (System Requirements) as well as IPMI access to it to install OS
  • Have enough Supported Switches for your Fabric

Main steps

This chapter is dedicated to the Hedgehog Fabric installation on the bare-metal control node(s) and switches, their preparation and configuration.

Please, get hhfab installed following instructions from the Download section.

Main steps to install Fabric are:

  1. Install hhfab on the machines with access to internet
    1. Prepare Wiring Diagram
    2. Build Control Node configuration and installer
  2. Install Control Node
    1. Install Flatcar Linux on the Control Node
    2. Upload and run Control Node installer on the Control Node
  3. Prepare supported switches
    1. Install Hedgehog ONiE (HONiE) on them
    2. Reboot them into ONiE Install Mode and they will be automatically provisioned

Build Control Node configuration and installer

It's the only step that requires internet access to download artifacts and build installer.

Once you've prepated Wiring Diagram, you can initialize Fabricator by running hhfab init command and passwing optional configuration into it as well as wiring diagram file(s) as flags. Additionally, there are a lot of customizations availble as flags, e.g. to setup default credentials, keys and etc, please, refer to hhfab init --help for more.

The --dev options allows to enable development mode which will enable default credentials and keys for the Control Node and switches:

  • Default user with passwordless sudo for the control node and test servers is core with password HHFab.Admin!.
  • Admin user with full access and passwordless sudo for the switches is admin with password HHFab.Admin!.
  • Read-only, non-sudo user with access only to the switch CLI for the switches is op with password HHFab.Op!.

Alternatively, you can pass your own credentials and keys using --authorized-key and --control-password-hash flags. Password hash can be generated using openssl passwd -5 command. Further customizations are available in the config file that could be passed using --config flag.

hhfab init --preset lab --dev --wiring file1.yaml --wiring file2.yaml
hhfab build

As a result, you will get the following files in the .hhfab directory or the one you've passed using --basedir flag:

  • control-os/ignition.json - ignition config for the control node to get OS installed
  • control-install.tgz - installer for the control node, it will be uploaded to the control node and run there

Install Control Node

It's fully air-gapped installation and doesn't require internet access.

Please, download latest stable Flatcar Container Linux ISO from the link and boot into it (using IPMI attaching media, USB stick or any other way).

Once you've booted into the Flatcar installer, you need to download ignition.json built in the prvious step to it and run Flatcar installation:

sudo flatcar-install -d /dev/sda -i ignition.json

Where /dev/sda is a disk you want to install Control Node to and ignition.json is the control-os/ignition.json file from previous step downloaded to the Flatcar installer.

Once the installation is finished, reboot the machine and wait for it to boot into the installed Flatcar Linux.

At that point, you should get into the installed Flatcar Linux using the dev or provided credentials with user core and you can now install Hedgehog Open Network Fabric on it. Download control-install.tgz to the just installed Control Node (e.g. by using scp) and run it.

tar xzf control-install.tgz && cd control-install && sudo ./hhfab-recipe run

It'll output log of installing the Fabric (including Kubernetes cluster, OCI registry misc components and etc), you should see following output in the end:

...
01:34:45 INF Running name=reloader-image op="push fabricator/reloader:v1.0.40"
01:34:47 INF Running name=reloader-chart op="push fabricator/charts/reloader:1.0.40"
01:34:47 INF Running name=reloader-install op="file /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests/hh-reloader-install.yaml"
01:34:47 INF Running name=reloader-wait op="wait deployment/reloader-reloader"
deployment.apps/reloader-reloader condition met
01:35:15 INF Done took=3m39.586394608s

At that point, you can start interacting with the Fabric using kubectl, kubectl fabric and k9s preinstalled as part of the Control Node installer.

You can now get HONiE installed on your switches and reboot them into ONiE Install Mode and they will be automatically provisioned from the Control Node.

Last update: December 22, 2023
Created: October 26, 2023