Provisioning a Windows node


Provisioning deploys and installs your chosen operating system to target nodes.

What triggers provisioning

There are four requirements for Razor to provision a node.

  • The node must boot with iPXE software.

  • The node's network must link to the Razor server through TFTP.

  • A Razor policy must match the node.

  • The node's installed flag must be set to false.

When these conditions are met, Razor recognizes the node, applies the first matching policy in the policy table, and provisions the node.

With these requirements in mind, you can modify your Razor workflow to suit your goals, your environment, and your familiarity with Razor.

Provision a Windows node

This Windows workflow adapts the provisioning for new users workflow. This process enables you to learn about Razor and verify tags before provisioning nodes.

Before you begin
You're ready to provision a node after you configure:
  • A DHCP/DNS/TFTP service with SELinux configured to enable PXE boot

  • Puppet Enterprise

  • The Razor server and client

To provision Windows machines, you also need:
  • A Windows machine running the same OS that you plan to provision. This machine is used to create a WinPE image.

  • (Optional) An activation key for the OS. A trial license is used if you don't have an activation key.

To follow along with the examples in this workflow, you must also have a new node with at least 8GB of memory. Don’t boot the node before you begin the provisioning process.

In this workflow, you load iPXE software and register nodes with the microkernel so you can view node details. Then you configure Razor objects, finishing with creating a policy. Provisioning is triggered when you reinstall the node in order to remove the installed flag.

The examples in this workflow demonstrate provisioning a sample node with Windows. You can modify the settings and scale up your workflow as needed for your environment.

Configure SMB share

Because neither the WinPE environment nor the Windows installer can use an HTTP source for installation, you must use a server message block (SMB) server to store the Razor repositories.

You can configure SMB share automatically, using a Razor class parameter, or manually.

Automatically configure SMB share

Enable the SMB share class parameter on the Razor server to let Razor set up the SMB share automatically.

  1. In the console, select Nodes > Classification, then click the Razor server node group.
  2. On the Configuration tab, enable the SMB share parameter.
    Parameter Value
    enable_windows_smb true
    Note: If you change enable_windows_smb from true to false later, the share remains enabled but isn’t managed by Puppet.
  3. Commit changes, run Puppet, and then restart the pe-razor-server service.

Manually configure SMB share

If Samba is already installed on your Razor server, you can manually configure it to work with Razor.

  1. Navigate to the Samba directory: cd /etc/samba
  2. Edit the smb.conf file:
    1. Modify the network settings as necessary for your environment.
    2. Edit the global service definition to allow unauthenticated access.
          security     = user
          map to guest = bad user
    3. Add a service definition that allows anonymous access and points to the repo_store_root class parameter of the pe_razor module.
          comment   = Windows Installers
          path      = /opt/puppetlabs/server/data/razor-server/repo
          guest ok  = yes
          writable  = no
          browsable = yes
  3. Restart Samba: service smb restart

Load iPXE software

Set your machines to PXE boot so that Razor can interact with the node and provision the operating system. This process uses both the undionly.kpxe file from the iPXE open source software stack and a Razorbootstrap.ipxe script.

  1. Download the iPXE boot image and copy the image to your TFTP server’s /var/lib/tftpboot directory:
    `cp undionly.kpxe /var/lib/tftpboot`
  2. Download the iPXE bootstrap script from the Razor server and copy the script to your TFTP server’s /var/lib/tftpboot directory:
    `wget   "https://$<RAZOR_HOSTNAME>:$<HTTPS_PORT>/api/microkernel/bootstrap?nic_max=1&http_port=$<HTTP_PORT>" -O /var/lib/tftpboot/bootstrap.ipxe`
    Note: Don’t use localhost as the name of the Razor host. The bootstrap script chain-loads the next iPXE script from the server, so it must contain the correct host name.

Register a node with the microkernel

Registering a node lets you learn about the node before Razor provisions it. With registered nodes, you can view facts about the node, add metadata to the node, and see which tags the node matches.

  1. Boot the node. This can mean physically pressing the power button, using IPMI to manage the node’s power state, or, in the case of a VM, starting the VM.

    The node boots into the microkernel and Razor discovers the node. After the initial PXE boot, the node downloads the microkernel.

  2. On the Razor server, view the new node: razor nodes
    The output displays the new node ID and name, for example:
     id: "http://localhost:8150/api/collections/node/node1"
     name: "node1"
     spec: "/razor/v1/collections/nodes/member"
  3. View the node’s details: razor nodes <NODE_NAME>
    The output displays hardware and DHCP information, the path to the log, and a placeholder for tags, for example:
             mac: ["08-00-27-8a-5e-5d"]
          serial: "0"
            uuid: "9a717dc3-2392-4853-89b9-27fec1aec7b2"
     dhcp_mac: "08-00-27-8a-5e-5d"
             log => http://localhost:8150/api/collections/node/node1/log
     tags: []
  4. When the microkernel is running on the machine, view facts about the node: razor nodes <NODE_NAME> facts

    Facter periodically sends facts back to the server about the node, including IP address, details about network cards, and block devices.

Build a WinPE image

Create a custom Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) WIM image containing Razor scripts.

  1. On an existing Windows machine running the same operating system that you plan to install, install the Windows assessment and deployment kit in the default location.
  2. Copy the directory at /opt/puppetlabs/server/apps/razor-server/share/razor-server/build-winpe from the Razor server to the existing Windows machine. If the directory is absent from your Razor server, use this archive
  3. Change into the directory you created in the previous step, for example, c:\build-winpe
  4. (Optional) To include additional Windows drivers in the WIM image – for example, if your machines require proprietary UCS drivers – place .inf files in the extra-drivers folder inside the build-winpe directory.

    You can place individual files or directories in the extra-drivers folder.  

  5. Run one of these build scripts, depending on whether you’re using unsigned drivers:
    • Standard build script 
      powershell -executionpolicy bypass -noninteractive -file build-razor-winpe.ps1 -razorurl http://razor:8150/svc
    • Build script for unsigned drivers
When the build script completes, a razor-winpe.wim image appears in a new razor-winpe directory inside the current working directory. 

Create a repository and add the WinPE image

Because Razor can’t unpack Windows DVD images, you must create a stub repository and manually fill it with content.

  1. Copy the Windows ISO image to the Razor server.
  2. Create an empty repository.
    For example:
        --no-content true
  3. After the repository is created, log into your Razor server as root, change into the repository directory, /opt/puppetlabs/server/data/razor-server/<REPO_NAME>, then mount the ISO image:
     $ mount -o loop </PATH/TO/WINDOWS_SERVER.ISO> /mnt
     $ cp -pr /mnt/* <REPO_NAME>
     $ umount /mnt
     $ chown -R pe-razor: <REPO_NAME>
    Note: The repository directory is specified by the repo_store_root class parameter of the pe_razor module. Your directory might be different from the default if you customized this parameter.
  4. Copy the WinPE image from the existing Windows machine to the repository directory on the Razor server.

(Optional) Create tags

Tags let you group nodes based on their characteristics. You can then apply policies based on tags to install appropriate operating systems on tagged nodes. If you don’t specify tags for a policy, the policy binds to any node.

  1. To create a tag called small with a rule that matches machines that have less than 4GB of memory:
     razor create-tag --name small
       --rule '["<", ["num", ["fact", "memorysize_mb"]], 4128]'
  2. (Optional) Inspect the tag on the server: razor tags <TAG_NAME>
    For example, razor tags small responds with:
     From https://razor:8151/api/collections/tags/small:
         name: small
        nodes: 1
     policies: 0
  3. (Optional) Confirm that expected nodes now have the tag: razor tags <TAG_NAME> nodes

    For example, razor tags small nodes displays a table of registered nodes that have less than 4GB of memory.

Tip: To see details about the policies associated with a tag, run razor tags <TAG_NAME> policies. To see its rule, run razor tags <TAG_NAME> rule.

(Optional) Create a broker

Brokers hand off nodes to configuration management systems like Puppet Enterprise.

To hand off Razor nodes to a Puppet master at
razor create-broker --name pe --broker-type puppet-pe

Create a policy

Policies tell Razor what operating system to install on the provisioned node, where to get the OS software, how to configure it, and how to communicate between the node and Puppet Enterprise.

To create a policy that installs CentOS on machines tagged with small, then hands them off to Puppet Enterprise for management:
 razor create-policy --name centos-for-small
    --repo centos-6.7 --broker pe --tag small
    --hostname 'host${id}' --root-password secret
Note: You can view details of a specific policy by running razor policies <POLICY_NAME>. You can view a table of all policies by running razor policies. The order in which policies are listed in the table is important because Razor applies the first matching policy to a node.

Reinstall the node

By default, Razor protects existing nodes from reprovisioning by marking all existing nodes as installed. You must specifically instruct the server to reinstall the node in order to trigger provisioning.

You can skip this step if you change the protect_new_nodes option to false, which allows Razor to provision a node as soon as it PXE boots with a matching policy. Be sure you understand how the protect_new_nodes option works before changing it, however. Failure to protect existing nodes can result in data loss.
Reinstall the node: razor reinstall-node <NODE_NAME>

When you reinstall the node, Razor clears the installed flag and the node restarts and boots into the microkernel. The microkernel reports its facts, and Razor provisions the node by applying the first applicable policy in the policy table.

When provisioning is complete, you can log into the node using the root_password as specified by the node’s metadata, or by the policy that the node is bound to. You can also see the node and its details in the console, and manage it there as you would any other node.

Viewing information about nodes

Use these commands to view details about nodes in your environment.

Command Result
razor nodes Displays a list of nodes that Razor knows about.
razor nodes <NODE_NAME> Displays details about the specified node.
razor nodes <NODE_NAME> log Displays a log that includes the timing and status of installation events, as well as downloads of kickstart files and post-install scripts.
How helpful was this page?