Welcome to MetalSoft’s documentation!¶
MetalSoft is an intelligent bare metal automation software platform for managing data centers and equipment, from a single rack of servers or tens of thousands across the globe.
The MetalSoft Platform
- Getting started
- Architecture
- Deploying MetalSoft
- Deployment Overview
- Hardware/Cabling Requirements
- Installation of the MetalSoft Global Controller
- Installation of the MetalSoft Site Controller
- Check Connectivity
- Create Datacenter Record
- Create Users/Accounts
- Register Switch templates (if applicable)
- Create Subnets
- Register Switches
- Register Servers
- Register Storage (If applicable)
- Register OS templates
- Set up network profiles (if applicable)
- Test deployment of OS in Infrastructure Editor
- Summary
- Physical topology
- Kubernetes cluster compute requirements
- Deploying the MetalSoft Global Controller
- Kubernetes cluster compute requirements
- Other requirements
- Installing the MetalSoft controller kubernetes application
- Required controller firewall configuration
- Ports open for inbound from Site Controllers
- Ports open for inbound from clients
- Outbound traffic
- For Firmware Upgrades:
- For pulling ISO files, can be hosted on customers own http storage:
- For installing/upgrading Kubernetes:
- For pulling MetalSoft images at installation/upgrade time:
- For pulling standard images at installation/upgrade time:
- Mail Server requirements If using Office365 for email alerts:
- For base OS package updates:
- For installing kubernetes
- Inter-cluster traffic
- Deploying the MetalSoft Site Controller
- Deploying MetalSoft in an air gapped environment
- Setup of MetalSoft Kubernetes Cluster on K3S
- Using the CLI
- Registering switches via Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
- Registering servers via Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
- Deploying MetalSoft to support legacy (PXE) deployments
- Deploying MetalSoft using OVAs
- Deploying MetalSoft without switches
- Enabling end-users to create custom RAID configurations
- Enabling traffic accounting
- Deployment Overview
- Troubleshooting and Maintenance
- Troubleshooting deploys using the Operation’s Graph (AFC tree)
- Troubleshooting server registrations using the Operation’s Graph (AFC tree)
- Event log archiving via Kafka
- Managing custom ISO’s
- Post upgrade testing
- Kubernetes cluster certificate management
- How to backup MetalSoft
- How to enable Disaster Recovery for MetalSoft
- Release notes
- Version 6.4 - January 28, 2025
- Version 6.3.3 - September 30, 2024
- Version 6.3.2 - August 30, 2024
- Version 6.3.1 - August 1, 2024
- Version 6.3 - June 29th, 2024
- Version 6.2.1 - March 18, 2024
- Version 6.2 - February 1, 2024
- Version 6.1 - November 8, 2023
- Version 6.0 - June 12, 2023
- Version 5.3 - 1st of May 2023
- Version 5.2 - 6 January 2023
- Version 5.1 - 23 January 2023
- Version 5.0 - 4 November 2022
- Version 4.10.1 - 25 July 2022
- Version 4.10 - 24 may 2022
- Version 4.9 - 15 December 2021
- Version 4.8.2 - 15 July 2021
- Version 4.8.1 - 30 March 2021
- Version 4.8 - 03 March 2021
- Version 4.7 - 17 December 2020
- Version 4.6 - 26 October 2020
- Version 4.5 - 12 August 2020
- Version 4.4 - 9 July 2020
- Version 4.1 - 21 April 2020
- Version 4.0 - 12 March 2020
- Configuration
- Users and permissions
- Authentication Overview
- Managing users and permissions
- User accounts
- Role based access control (RBAC)
- Users related permissions
- Licenses related permissions
- Firmware related permissions
- Datacenter related permissions
- Servers
- Switches
- Storage
- IPAM Subnets
- Infrastructures
- OS Templates
- Events & jobs
- Workflows
- Prices & Subscriptions
- Reports
- Utility
- Deprecated permissions, do not use
- Resource ownership
- The “Billable” account
- Credentials access - DEPRECATED
- User limits
- Suspend and unsuspend a user
- Block and unblock user
- Archiving an user
- Delegation
- Configuring LDAP authentication for Microsoft Active Directory
- Configure SAML for OKTA
- Managing Resource Pools
- Managing accounts
- Data centers
- Networking
- Networking overview
- Managing switches
- Switch replace
- Managing switch pairs
- IP address Management (IPAM)
- Managing network profiles
- Creating a new network profile
- Configuring a custom access mode VLAN for the switch ports
- Allowing a VLAN ID to be trunked on the port
- Specifying a custom subnet for a trunked VLAN
- Extending a VLAN id to an External Connection on a border device
- Aggregating links into M-LAG or LAG groups
- Using a member of a link aggregation without link aggregation configured
- Example configuration
- Adding a network profile using the Admin UI
- Network profiles permissions
- Auto-allocation VLAN IDs
- VRFs
- Creating a new network profile
- Adding a new external connection
- Adding Cisco ACI APIC Switches in a new datacenter
- Enabling Secondary IPs and/or VLANs on the WAN interface
- EVPN VXLAN network provisioner
- Servers
- Servers overview
- Lifecycle stages
- General guidelines when registering servers
- Registering servers that cannot be touched
- Troubleshooting a stuck server registration process
- Server lifecycle
- Managing hardware failures and changes
- Server types
- Adding a new server
- Adding a new managed server
- Re-registering a server
- Adding a new un-managed server
- Managing server firmware
- Managing firmware catalogs
- Managing Firmware baselines
- Server lifecycle
- Managing hardware failures and changes
- Server types
- Adding a new server
- Adding a new managed server
- Managing BIOS settings
- Re-registering a server
- Adding a new un-managed server
- Managing server firmware
- Managing firmware catalogs
- Managing Firmware baselines
- Servers overview
- Storage
- Operating System Templates
- Managing Operating System templates
- Template language and variables
- Advanced OS deployment configurations
- Managing OS templates for legacy deployment process (PXE)
- OS templates simple asset template variables glossary (DEPRECATED)
- JSON Schema
- How to add boot and install drivers to a repository Windows ISO
- Resource Pools
- Managing resource pools
- Creating a resource pool
- Deleting a resource pool
- Assigning a server to a resource pool
- Moving a server from a resource pool to another
- Removing a server from a resource pool
- Adding a subnet pool to a resource pool
- Moving a subnet pool from a resource pool to another
- Removing a subnet pool ver from a resource pool
- Assigning resource pools to users
- Unassign a resource pools for a user
- Managing resource pools
- Monitoring
- Virtualization
- Users and permissions
- ELI
- Operation
- Getting started
- Concepts
- Managing infrastructures
- Managing instance arrays
- Deploying an instance array using the Infrastructure Editor
- Retrieving server access credentials using the UI
- Deploying an instance array using the CLI
- Retrieving server access credentials using the CLI
- Checking the power status of all the instances in this instance array using the CLI
- Rebooting an instance using the CLI
- Managing networks
- Managing drive arrays
- Creating a drive array using the UI
- Listing drive arrays of an instance array using the UI
- Adding a new drive
- Removing a drive
- Expanding disk size
- Creating a drive array using the CLI
- Listing drive arrays of an infrastructure using the CLI
- Deleting a drive array via the CLI
- Manually logging into the iscsi target
- Deploying Kubernetes on MetalSoft
- Using the CLI
- Connecting to linux servers through SSH
- Connecting to Windows servers through RDP
- Delegating access to an infrastructure
- Retrieving the utilization report
- Configuring a custom RAID profile
- Enabling two factor authentication (2FA) in Metalcloud
- Manually managing iSCSI connections
- Retrieving the drive array’s connection details from the UI
- Retriving iscsi access credentials using the CLI
- Logging into the iSCSI target from Linux (CentOS/Redhat)
- Logging into a drive on Windows using PowerShell
- Prepare and format disk in Powershell
- Disconnect from all iscsi targets in Windows using Powershell Or Just disconnect Offline target
- Disable indexing on a drive in Powershell
- Setting delegation for reseller scenarios
- Forcing specific servers at deploy
- Developer resources
- Developer Getting Started
- Connecting to the API
- Callbacks and post-install operations
- Using the Terraform provider
- Building a CI/CD pipeline
- Integrating with a customer portal
- Embedding the remote console
- Integrating with a Billing System
- Workflows
- MetalSoft Extensions
Fabric Manager
- Fabric Manager
- Fabric Manager Overview
- Tutorials
- Tutorial: Switch only operation with Dell Enterprise SONiC in GNS3
- Tutorial - Dell Sonic Enterprise and Dell servers in a spine-leaf configuration