4. Testing the MAAS Server

At this point, your MAAS server should be set up and configured correctly. (You may need to wait for images to complete importing, though; go to the Images page of the web UI to check the status of this process.) To test MAAS, follow these steps:

1. Prepare a computer by configuring it to boot via PXE. This computer need not be a computer you plan to certify; anything that can PXE-boot should work, although to fully test the MAAS server, the test system should provide IPMI or some other power-control tool that MAAS supports.

2. Connect the test computer to the MAAS server’s internal network and power it on.

   • The test computer should PXE-boot from the MAAS server.

   • This first boot should be to the enlistment image, which provides some very basic information to the MAAS server.

   • Once the node powers itself off you should see it listed in the MAAS machines list (click Machines in the top menu) with a Status field of “New.” If it doesn’t appear, try refreshing the page.

3. Click on the node’s hostname to view the node’s summary page.

4. You may need to make a few changes in the Configuration area:

   • If necessary, click “Edit” in the Machine Configuration section to change the architecture of the machine. Click “Save Changes” when you’re done.

   • For non-IPMI machines, you will most likely have to enter power control details by clicking Edit next to the Power Configuration heading. This may necessitate setting an IP address, MAC address, password, or other information, depending on the power control technology in use. Click “Save Changes” when you’re done. If you make such changes, MAAS may take a few seconds to detect the node’s power state.

5. Click “Take Action” near the top-right corner of the page, followed by “Commission” from the resulting drop-down menu. You must then click “Start Commissioning for machine.”

   • The node should power on again. This time you’ll see it PXE-boot the commissioning image. Note that if your test system lacks a BMC or other means to remotely control its power, you must manually power it on.

   • The node should do a bit more work this time before powering off again.

   • Once it’s done, the UI will show a Status of “Ready.”

   • Some servers provide an option called “minimum password change interval,” or something similar, in their BMCs’ web-based interfaces, that prevents BMC passwords from being changed very frequently. MAAS will attempt to change the password upon commissioning, though, and if this is done immediately after enlisting the node, it will fail. If the BMC configuration commissioning step fails, you may need to set this minimum password change interval to 0 or otherwise disable this feature, then try commissioning again. Alternatively, checking the “Skip configuring supported BMC controllers with a MAAS generated username and password” option when commissioning the node may work around this problem.

6. Once the system powers off after commissioning, click “Take Action” followed by “Deploy.” You must then click “Start deployment for machine” to confirm this action.

   • The node should power on again (or you will have to control it manually if it lacks a BMC). This time it will take longer to finish working, as MAAS will install Ubuntu and the certification suite on the system.

   • Once it’s done, the computer will reboot into its installed image.

   • Log into the node from the MAAS server by using SSH, as in ssh testnode if you’ve given the node the name testnode.

   • In the node, type canonical-certification-precheck. The certification suite’s precheck script should run to verify that the system is ready for testing. Don’t be too concerned with the results; the point of this operation is to check that the certification suite was properly installed, and at this point, additional steps are needed for the precheck script to say the node’s ready for testing. These details are described in the Self-Testing Guide, which is available from your MAAS server itself, such as http://172.24.124.1.

If any of these steps fail, you may have run into a MAAS bug; your test computer may have a buggy or misconfigured PXE, IPMI, or other subsystem; or you may have misconfigured something in the MAAS setup. You may want to review the preceding sections to verify that you configured everything correctly. To help in debugging problems, the node status page includes sections entitled Commissioning, Tests, and Logs with various pieces of diagnostic information related to commissioning and deployment.

At any time after enlisting a node, you can click the node’s hostname near the upper-left corner of its summary page. This will enable you to change the hostname to something descriptive, such as the computer’s model number. Click “Save” when you’ve made your changes.