Generating BIOS templates for Bright 9.1

Starting with Bright Cluster Manager 9.1, BIOS management is done using the Redfish API. This article describes how to generate BIOS templates that are used by Bright View and cmsh to allow the user to manage different BIOS properties. BIOS templates are files which contain JSON data describing the BIOS properties for a particular model, in a format that can be easily shown in Bright View and cmsh. This article assumes familiarity with how BIOS management works in general in Bright 9.1. For more information, please consult the Bright Cluster Manager 9.1 Administrator Manual.

 

Preparation

On a Bright 9.1 head node:

module load cm-bios-tools python3

 

On any other Linux host:

1. Install python3
2. Download and extract the archive that holds the tools

wget https://support2.brightcomputing.com/bios-redfish/cm-bios-tools-9.1.tar.gz -O $HOME/cm-bios-tools-9.1.tar.gz
cd $HOME && tar -xvzf cm-bios-tools-9.1.tar.gz
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/cm-bios-tools-9.1

 

Fetch available BIOS attributes

The first step is to fetch all the available BIOS attribute names that the Redfish API of a host exposes and save it to a file in JSON format.

cm-bios-fetch-attributes-info -H <BMC IP ADDRESS> \
                              -U <BMC USERNAME> \
                              -P <BMC PASSWORD> > /tmp/bios_attribute_names.json

The content of the generated file looks similar to what is shown below:

cat /tmp/bios_attributes.json
[
  "AcPwrRcvry",
  "AcPwrRcvryDelay",
  "AcPwrRcvryUserDelay",
  "BootMode",
....
....
]

Update generated JSON file

Remove all attributes that should not be manageable through Bright Cluster Manager.

Generate Bright BIOS template

Generate the new Bright compatible JSON template required for Bright View and cmsh.

cm-bios-template-create -H <BMC IP ADDRESS> \
                        -U <BMC USERNAME> \
                        -P <BMC PASSWORD> \
                        -f /tmp/bios_attribute_names.json \
> dell_r640.json

Using the BIOS template

For Bright View and cmsh to be able to identify the new model, the generated template must be saved on the head node to /cm/local/apps/cm-bios-tools/templates/dell_r640.json. For more information, please consult the Bright Cluster Manager 9.1 Administrator Manual.

Please send new template that should be included in the default set of templates shipped with Bright Cluster Manager 9.1 to the following email address: