There are multiple ways to onboard network devices to Bare Metal Orchestrator. Before onboarding any device, you must add the device's default credentials in the cred.yaml file, see Default credentials for device discovery.
Bare Metal Orchestrator can onboard Dell and Cisco switches. To onboard Dell switches, see the sections in this chapter related to manual and automatic device discovery. To onboard Cisco switches, see Onboard a Cisco switch in Bare Metal Orchestrator.
Manual device discovery using a device YAML file
Manual device discovery using this method identifies a device and its components, then retrieves the device's inventory information. In Bare Metal Orchestrator, you can discover devices manually by:
- Creating a device. For servers, see Create a server or multiple servers and update configurations. For switches, see Create a switch and update configurations.
- Viewing the inventory. For servers, see View server inventory. For switches, see View switch inventory.
userName
and password
fields must be blank for manual server discovery to work. Manual bulk server discovery using a server YAML file
Manual bulk discovery using this method involves creating a list of servers and baseboard management controllers so that Bare Metal Orchestrator can access the servers, onboard them, and report their inventory. See Manual bulk server discovery.
Automatic device discovery using DHCP
This method of automatic server discovery requires having DHCP enabled in Bare Metal Orchestrator and in the BMC of the server that you want to onboard. For switches, DHCP must be enabled in Bare Metal Orchestrator and in the switch to be onboarded. When a device is automatically discovered, the device components are automatically identified and added to Bare Metal Orchestrator's inventory information. For more information about enabling DHCP for automatic device discovery, see:
Automatic device discovery using ipscan
The ipscan
method auto-discovers all supported devices such as servers on a particular subnet for a site and onboards them. Only secure ports are scanned. For instructions, see Onboard devices using ipscan.