Adding nodes to the system

Now that the MAAS controller is running, we need to make the nodes aware of MAAS and vice-versa. If you have set up DHCP correctly, and your nodes can boot via PXE then things really couldn’t be much easier and you can use the automatic discovery procedure

Automatic Discovery

With nodes set to boot from a PXE image, they will start, look for a DHCP server, receive the PXE boot details, boot the image, contact the MAAS server and shut down.

During this process, the MAAS server will be passed information about the node, including the architecture, MAC address and other details which will be stored in the database of nodes. You can accept and comission the nodes via the web interface. When the nodes have been accepted the selected series of Ubuntu will be installed.

To save time, you can also accept and commission all nodes from the commandline. This requires that you first login with the API key, which you can retrieve from the web interface:

$ maas-cli maas nodes accept-all

Enlist nodes via boot media

Using Boot media such as an AVAHI boot image or the Ubuntu Server install disk, it is possible to perform the discovery and enlistment process without using DHCP/PXE.

Boot from the media and follow the instructions.

Manually add nodes

If you know the MAC address of a node, you can manually enter details about the node through the web interface.