Bare Metal Setup Wizard

What the Bare Metal Setup Wizard does

The Bare Metal Setup Wizard walks you through bringing physical-server provisioning online. It checks each prerequisite in order, configures the network your servers boot on, fetches the deployment agent images, starts the provisioning services, and confirms they answer. The page header reads Bare Metal Setup Wizard — Configure bare metal server provisioning. This wizard will guide you through the setup process.

It is a five-step flow with a progress indicator across the top: Check Status, Network Detection, IPA Images, Start Services, and Verify Setup. Completed steps turn green with a tick, the step you are on is blue, and steps ahead are grey. You can click back to any completed step, and forward by at most one.

How to reach it, and when you need it

The wizard is a standalone screen rather than a sidebar entry, because provisioning normally configures itself the first time it is used. The day-to-day controls live under Settings → Bare Metal, whose Overview sub-tab shows live service health and lets you start, stop, or restart provisioning — the same actions as the wizard's last step. Open the wizard when you want to walk the steps yourself: to set the provisioning network by hand, to fetch the agent images before your first deploy, or to see exactly which prerequisite is not met.

Note: the wizard is smart about where it drops you. If setup is already complete it opens on Verify Setup. If a previous attempt is part-way through, it resumes at the first unmet step — network, images, or start — depending on how far you got.

Step 1 — Check Status

The first step is headed Setup Status, with the line Checking the current status of the bare metal provisioning installation and configuration. Five checks are listed, each showing Ready in green with a tick, or Pending in grey with a cross:

Readiness checks

Check	What it confirms
Docker Available	Docker is required to run provisioning containers. The container runtime that hosts the provisioning services is installed and reachable.
Network Configured	Provisioning network settings detected.
IPA Images Ready	Deployment agent images downloaded.
Services Running	Provisioning services are running.
API Accessible	Provisioning API is responding.

1. Read the five checks to see what is still outstanding.
2. If you fix something outside the wizard, click Refresh to run the checks again.
3. Click Continue to move on. This step never blocks you — the later steps do the work.

Step 2 — Network Detection

This step is headed Network Configuration: Configure the network settings for PXE boot provisioning. The system will attempt to auto-detect your network configuration.

Start by clicking Auto-detect Network. Until you do, no fields are shown. The wizard scans for a suitable interface and address range, shows a green Network Detected banner reading Found interface … with IP …, and fills the form with what it found. Every value can then be edited by hand.

Provisioning network fields

Field	What you supply	Example
Provisioning Network (CIDR)	The subnet your bare-metal servers boot on. Required.	192.168.1.0/24
Network Interface	The adapter that serves that network.	eth0
Gateway IP	The gateway address for that subnet.	192.168.1.1
DHCP Start	First address handed to a booting server.	192.168.1.100
DHCP End	Last address in that pool.	192.168.1.200

Use Back to return to the checks, or Continue to move on. Continue stays disabled until Provisioning Network (CIDR) has a value; the other four may be left blank and are treated as automatic.

Tip: keep the boot range well away from addresses you manage in IPAM. The pool here is handed out temporarily during a deploy, not allocated to a customer.

Step 3 — IPA Images

Headed IPA Images: The Deployment Agent (IPA) images are required for deploying operating systems to bare metal servers. These are the small kernel and ramdisk a server boots into over the network so the platform can write an operating system onto its disks.

1. Click Check IPA Images. Two rows appear: IPA Kernel and IPA Ramdisk, each showing where it is stored, or Not downloaded.
2. If either is missing, a Download IPA Images button appears with the note This will download approximately 500MB of data. Click it and the wizard fetches both.
3. When both are present you get a green IPA Images Ready confirmation and Continue unlocks.

Tip: the download can take a few minutes on a slow link. Leave the wizard open while it runs — it re-checks every couple of seconds and updates on its own. If you navigate away, come back and click Check IPA Images again to pick up where it got to.

Step 4 — Start Services

Headed Start Provisioning Services: Start the Docker containers to enable bare metal provisioning. Two panels sit side by side.

Configuration Summary repeats what you are about to apply — Network:, Interface:, and DHCP Range:. A field you left blank reads Auto; a missing network reads Not set.

Services lists what will start:

• Provisioning API (port 6385)
• Provisioning Conductor
• DHCP/TFTP Server
• HTTP Image Server

There are two ways to launch, and no Continue button — either action takes you to the last step:

1. One-Click Setup — the recommended path. Applies the network configuration, makes sure the images are in place, and starts every service in one action.
2. Start Only — starts the services with the current configuration without re-running the earlier steps. Use it when the network is already configured and you only need the services up.

Both show a spinner reading Starting... while they work. Back returns you to the images step.

Step 5 — Verify Setup

Headed Verify Setup: Verify that the provisioning service is running and accessible. Three checks are shown — Services Running (Docker containers are healthy), API Accessible (Provisioning API responds to requests), and Setup Complete (All configuration steps completed). When all three pass, a green banner reads Bare Metal Setup Complete! with You can now manage OS images and deploy operating systems to your dedicated servers.

Verify step controls

Button	What it does
Refresh Status	Runs the verification checks again.
Restart Services	Restarts the provisioning services. Shown only while they are running.
Stop Services	Stops them. Shown only while they are running.
Start Services	Starts them. Shown only while they are stopped.

A Next Steps section offers two tiles, Manage OS Images and Deployment Templates, both of which take you to Settings, where you build the catalogue of operating systems and deployment templates your customers pick from at checkout. See OS Images and Deployment Templates.

Managing it afterwards

Go to Settings → Bare Metal. It has three sub-tabs: Overview, OS Images, and Templates. The Overview tab is the day-to-day console:

• A status card reading Automation Ready (Ready for bare metal provisioning), Setup in Progress... (Configuring provisioning service automatically...), or Services Stopped (Click Start to resume services), with Start, or Restart and Stop, alongside it.
• Service Status — one circle per provisioning component, green for running, grey for stopped, amber for anything else.
• Nodes — counts of Total, Active and Available enrolled machines, plus an Error count when any is in trouble. Shown only while the services are running.
• IPA Images — whether the Kernel and Ramdisk are Downloaded or Not available.
• Server Hostname Suffix — Domain appended to each bare-metal server name at deploy time to form its FQDN. Leave it blank to use the short name only, or enter a domain and click Save; the field previews the result as you type.
• Refresh, top right, re-reads everything on the tab.

Practical notes

Need Help? The panel at the bottom of the wizard says it plainly: Bare metal provisioning requires a dedicated provisioning network with PXE boot support. Ensure your servers' BMC/IPMI interfaces are accessible from this network. Get that right before you start services, or servers will enrol but never boot.

• Looking is safe. Steps 1 to 3 only inspect and prepare. Nothing about your running configuration changes until you press a start button on step 4.
• Re-run any step. The progress indicator lets you click back to a completed step, and most steps offer Refresh, Back, or a re-check button so you can try again after fixing something.
• Order matters. Configure the network before starting services — the boot range is baked into the services when they start, so changing it later means a restart from step 4.
• Next, build the catalogue. Provisioning being up is not the same as being able to sell it. Add operating systems in OS Images and at least one entry in Deployment Templates, then record your machines in Inventory.

Related articles

Inventory · OS Images · Deployment Templates · IPAM · Settings