Bare Metal Setup Wizard
Step-by-step guide to the five-step Bare Metal Setup Wizard: check status, configure the provisioning network, download agent images, start services, and verify.
What the Bare Metal Setup Wizard does
The Bare Metal Setup Wizard walks your staff through enabling physical-server (dedicated server) provisioning. It checks each prerequisite in order, helps you configure the provisioning network, downloads the deployment agent images, and starts the services that let you deploy operating systems onto bare metal hardware over the network. The page header reads "Bare Metal Setup Wizard — Configure bare metal server provisioning. This wizard will guide you through the setup process."
The wizard runs as a five-step flow with a progress indicator across the top: Check Status, Network Detection, IPA Images, Start Services, and Verify Setup. You move forward with the Continue button, which stays disabled until the current step's requirement is met.
How to reach it
The wizard is the guided first-time path for turning on bare metal provisioning. Once provisioning is configured, the day-to-day controls live under Settings → Bare Metal, where the Overview sub-tab shows live service health and lets you start, stop, or restart provisioning.
Heads up: the wizard is smart about where to drop you in. If setup is already complete, it opens on the final Verify Setup step. If a previous attempt is in progress, it resumes at the first unmet step — at the network, images, or start step depending on how far you got.
Step 1 — Check Status
The first step displays a readiness summary. Each check shows a green Ready badge or a grey Pending badge:
| Check | What it confirms |
|---|---|
| Docker Available | The runtime needed to run the provisioning services is present. |
| Network Configured | Provisioning network settings have been detected or set. |
| IPA Images Ready | The deployment agent kernel and ramdisk images are downloaded. |
| Services Running | The provisioning services are up. |
| API Accessible | The provisioning service is responding to requests. |
- Review the five checks to see what still needs attention.
- If you fix a prerequisite outside the wizard, click Refresh to re-run all checks.
- Click Continue to move to network detection.
Step 2 — Network Detection
This step configures the network used for PXE boot provisioning. Click Auto-detect Network and the wizard scans for a suitable interface and address range, then pre-fills the form with what it found — you will see a green Network Detected banner reading "Found interface … with IP …". You can edit any value by hand.
| Field | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Provisioning Network (CIDR) | The subnet your bare metal nodes boot on. | 192.168.1.0/24 |
| Network Interface | The network adapter that serves the provisioning network. | eth0 |
| Gateway IP | The gateway address for that subnet. | 192.168.1.1 |
| DHCP Start | First address handed out to booting nodes. | 192.168.1.100 |
| DHCP End | Last address in the DHCP pool. | 192.168.1.200 |
Use Back to return to the status step, or Continue to proceed. Continue stays disabled until at least the Provisioning Network (CIDR) field has a value.
Step 3 — IPA Images
The deployment agent images are required to install operating systems onto bare metal servers. Click Check IPA Images to query the local image store. The wizard then shows two status rows:
- IPA Kernel — present, or Not downloaded.
- IPA Ramdisk — present, or Not downloaded.
If either is missing, a Download IPA Images button appears, with a note that this downloads approximately 500 MB of data. Click it and the wizard fetches both images. When both are present you will see a green IPA Images Ready confirmation, and Continue unlocks.
Tip: the download can take a few minutes on slower links. Leave the wizard open while it runs — it polls every couple of seconds and updates automatically once both images are in place.
Step 4 — Start Services
This step shows a Configuration Summary on the left (Network, Interface, and DHCP Range — the values you set in step 2, or Auto where you left a field blank) and the list of services that will start on the right:
- Provisioning API (port 6385)
- Provisioning Conductor
- DHCP/TFTP Server
- HTTP Image Server
You then have two ways to launch:
- One-Click Setup — the recommended path. It applies the network configuration, makes sure the images are ready, and starts every service in a single action, then jumps you to the verify step.
- Start Only — starts the services using the current configuration without re-running the earlier setup steps. Use this if you have already configured the network and just need the services up.
Both buttons show a spinner with Starting… while they work. Use Back if you need to revisit the image step first.
Step 5 — Verify Setup
The final step confirms everything is running. It shows three checks — Services Running, API Accessible, and Setup Complete — and, when all pass, a green Bare Metal Setup Complete! banner.
From here you have a set of controls:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Refresh Status | Re-runs the verification checks. |
| Restart Services | Restarts the running provisioning services. (Shown only while services are running.) |
| Stop Services | Stops the provisioning services. (Shown only while services are running.) |
| Start Services | Starts the services. (Shown only while services are stopped.) |
A Next Steps section offers two shortcut tiles — Manage OS Images and Deployment Templates — that take you to the Settings page where you build the catalogue of operating systems and deployment templates your customers see at checkout.
Practical notes
Need Help? Bare metal provisioning requires a dedicated provisioning network with PXE boot support. Make sure your servers' BMC/IPMI interfaces are reachable from that network before you start services — this same guidance appears in the help panel at the bottom of the wizard.
- Reviewing is safe. Steps 1 through 3 only inspect and prepare — nothing changes your running configuration until you press a start button in step 4.
- Re-run any step. The progress indicator across the top lets you click back to a completed step, and most steps offer a Refresh or Back button to re-check after you fix something.
- After setup, manage it from Settings. Go to Settings → Bare Metal → Overview for live service health, plus start, stop, and restart controls, and to set an optional Server Hostname Suffix — the domain appended to each server name at deploy time to form its full hostname (leave it blank to use the short name only).