NFS Support

[fzakfeld]

Support for Redfish Virtual Media with NFS instead of HTTP. Some servers do not support HTTP (e. g. older MiTAC OCP Servers)

I will gather everything I did to make this work in this Issue

[fzakfeld]

For a NFS Server I used this one: https://hub.docker.com/r/itsthenetwork/nfs-server-alpine/

services:
  samba:
    image: itsthenetwork/nfs-server-alpine
    container_name: nfs-server-alpine
    privileged: true
    environment:
      SHARED_DIRECTORY: /nfsshare
    ports:
      - 2049:2049
    volumes:
      - "/var/lib/docker/volumes/ironic/_data/httpboot:/nfsshare:ro"
    restart: always

Ports could and probably should be changed to bind to the OOB IP

[fzakfeld]

To make Ironic work with nfs URLs, this patch is needed:

--- /var/lib/kolla/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/sushy/resources/manager/virtual_media.py	2025-07-23 14:06:57.925614838 +0000
+++ /var/lib/kolla/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/sushy/resources/manager/virtual_media.py	2025-07-23 14:09:50.738413189 +0000
@@ -197,7 +197,12 @@
                         payload['TransferProtocolType'] = "HTTPS"
                     elif payload['Image'].startswith('http://'):
                         payload['TransferProtocolType'] = "HTTP"
+                    elif payload['Image'].startswith('nfs://'):
+                        payload['TransferProtocolType'] = "NFS"

                     # NOTE (iurygregory) we try to handle the case where a
                     # a TransferMethod is also required in the payload.
                     try:

--- /var/lib/kolla/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ironic/conf/deploy.py	2025-07-23 14:10:27.737012308 +0000
+++ /var/lib/kolla/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ironic/conf/deploy.py	2025-07-23 14:11:05.223619327 +0000
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
                       "requires password credential. Currently utilized by "
                       "the http_basic authentication strategy.")),
     cfg.URIOpt('external_http_url',
-               schemes=['http', 'https'],
+               schemes=['http', 'https', 'nfs'],
                help=_("URL of the ironic-conductor node's HTTP server for "
                       "boot methods such as virtual media, "
                       "where images could be served outside of the "

I might make this upstream at some point, but this would require some more design thoughts

[osfrickler]

What design thoughts do you envision? I created a bug upstream (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic/+bug/2119212) and general feedback was that we can just submit the above changes and then discuss while we go along. Likely some releasenotes and possibly updates to tests and docs would be needed. Do you want to proceed with that yourself or should I do this and add you as co-author?

[berendt]

What design thoughts do you envision? I created a bug upstream (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic/+bug/2119212) and general feedback was that we can just submit the above changes and then discuss while we go along. Likely some releasenotes and possibly updates to tests and docs would be needed. Do you want to proceed with that yourself or should I do this and add you as co-author?

I discussed this with Freerk and it would be good if we could take care of it for now.

[fzakfeld]

Thanks @berendt

One design thought that came through my mind is that the variable is named external_http_url and therefor implying a protocol. If the ironic maintainers are fine with my patch then I'm happy with it too