Unable to Enable PXE Boot on Secondary Interface in MAAS

Tutorials
1

Environment

  • MAAS installation method: Snap
  • Interface with PXE enabled: ens160 (fabric-0)
  • Interface with DHCP running but no PXE: ens192 (fabric-2)

Problem Description

I’m managing a MAAS deployment where I have two network interfaces:

  • ens160 (on fabric-0) with PXE enabled but DHCP disabled (“No DHCP”)
  • ens192 (on fabric-2) with DHCP enabled (“MAAS-provided”) but no PXE boot option

I need to enable PXE booting on the ens192 interface (fabric-2) which already has DHCP running, but I can’t find where to enable this setting. When I look at the subnet configuration for 172.31.64.0/29, I don’t see any PXE options.

What I’ve Tried

1. Checking Services Status

Initially had an issue with the temporal service, but that’s now resolved:

arvani@arvani:~$ sudo snap services maas
Service      Startup  Current  Notes
maas.pebble  enabled  active   -

2. Using MAAS CLI

Attempted to use the CLI to enable PXE on fabric-2:

arvani@arvani:~$ maas sasan vlan update fabric-2 0 boot_mode=pxe
usage: maas [-h] COMMAND ...
argument COMMAND: invalid choice: 'sasan'

I’m stuck at creating a proper MAAS profile to use the CLI commands:

maas login sasan http://localhost:5240/MAAS/api/2.0

(I’m still working through the API key generation process)

Configuration Details

Network Interfaces

NAME PXE LINK/INTERFACE SPEED TYPE FABRIC SUBNET IP ADDRESS DHCP
ens160 ✓ 10 Gbps/10 Gbps Physical fabric-0 172.31.60.112/29 172.31.60.119 No DHCP
ens192 10 Gbps/10 Gbps Physical fabric-2 172.31.64.0/29 172.31.64.2 MAAS-provided

Subnet Configuration for 172.31.64.0/29

  • Managed allocation: Enabled
  • Active discovery: Enabled
  • Proxy access: Enabled
  • Allow DNS resolution: Enabled
  • Gateway IP: 1.1.1.1
  • DNS: 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2

Questions

  1. How can I enable PXE boot on my ens192 interface (fabric-2)?
  2. Is this configured at the VLAN level, and if so, where exactly in the web interface?
  3. What’s the proper way to use the MAAS CLI to enable this (correct syntax for creating profile and enabling PXE)?
  4. Is there a configuration file I can edit directly to enable this setting?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I need both interfaces to support PXE booting for my deployment scenario.

Screenshots

I’ve attached screenshots showing:

  1. Services status (all running)
  2. Network interfaces configuration showing PXE enabled only on ens160
  3. Subnet configuration for 172.31.64.0/29
    image
    image1645×271 47.5 KB

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

2

MAAS can’t magically enable PXE on your machine. MAAS provides DHCP, and if you are using IPMI or redfish and you manage the machine through MAAS, your machine will be instructed to PXE boot. Still, it depends on your BIOS/UEFI settings as it will use the first NIC if you already have DHCP with MAAS running on that VLAN. You might be able to disable PXE from the first interface on your BIOS/UEFI settings still

3

According to my settings, I set up DHCP on the second interface and there is a VLAN between this MAAS and my client, which is fully connected. You are saying that it is not possible to receive DHCP requests through the second port?! Did I understand correctly? And this cannot be changed?!

4

You have to change the BIOS settings in your machine and move up the second nic in the boot priority

5

I do this, but they cannot communicate with my MAAS machine! However, when I set a static IP on the client machine, they can talk to each other!

6

When you power on the machine, what do you see on the screen/console? Does it try to PXE boot from the second nic?

7

yes i do try pxe with the second nic,i compare the mac address that show on boot page and it is same with my target machine that connected with mass on second nic!

8

Untitled
Untitled1624×648 16.1 KB

here is my topology for clear everything

9

What’s the error you get on the screen?

10

there is no error!it takes a time and then continue to my old machine for example!

11

it sounds like a misconfiguration of your network. You said you are using VLANS, but from the screenshots you sent all your VLANS are untagged.

Also, I don’t quite get the diagram of your topology. Could you draw all the links you have and all the VLANS you are using?

12

Topology is exact like this!
also it doesnt need define vlan because the all ports access on a vlan!

13

What MAAS version did you install?

14

i installed MAAS: 3.6.0

15

I’d suggest to take a tcpdump on the MAAS node to ensure that the DHCP discovery packets are received on the interface where you enabled DHCP

16

Im getting the same issue.

I have 2 networks setup:
192.168.0.0/24 - NO DHCP - ens18
192.168.1.0/24 - Maas controlled DHCP - ens19

When I look at the controllers, I see the interface on the 192.168.0.0/24 interface (ens18) set for PXE / NO DHCP

How can my clients on the isolated network of 192.168.1.0/24 PXE off the other network?

I see when from console when I boot the VM that its trying the 192.168.0.0 network, but failing because it cant get there.

The VMs only have ONE nic assigned to them and on the 192.168.1.0/24 network.

Seems like a bug in MAAS

image
image1909×282 45 KB

17

Here is the client booting - Client VM only has nic that is pointing to the 192.168.1.0 network so this failes

image
image1512×268 71.3 KB

18

You have the wrong boot interface set on MAAS. You have to boot the machine from that interface first, or create the machine with that interface as boot interface

19

Thanks, but this MAAs configuration is convoluted and absolutely insane! Our test lab is very elementary considering, and to set MAAS up is a PITA really; considering we deployed cobbler and foreman in several of our environments with little to no issues - and Foreman is not trivial to set up ;).

Ubuntu MAAS seems like a nice idea, but it seems like its designed by people that really have no IT experience at all. Ill give it a couple more years and see where its at and try again.

Sorry, but I removed it and will just keep using what we have in place.

Thanks for the reply though :slight_smile:

20

Hello,

I think I also had the same problem since I upgraded to MAAS 3.6.0.
Since, to be as simple as possible, I had removed one interface, keeping only one interface, in the provisioning VLAN (default / native VLAN on the switch ports).

With tcpdump, I can see DHCP DISCOVER comming AND DHCPOFFER sent, but the network Interface does nothing.
I can(t tell if it receviced something or not. It can be droped between my MAAS VM (VMware) and the baremetal server.

I use a trunk portgroup on VMware, and a tagged VLAN interface on my VM.
It worked with 3.5…