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Add a Host

MFCloud supports three onboarding paths. They coexist forever — pick whichever fits your deployment style.

The host is installed from the MFCloud Hypervisor ISO. The Emergency UI, agent, libvirt, OVS, ZFS, and the LINSTOR satellite are all baked in.

  1. Boot the ISO and complete install. See Installing a Hypervisor Node.
  2. In the master console: Inventory → Add Host.
  3. Enter the node IP. The master detects /etc/mfcloud-release and /var/lib/mfcloud/firstboot.done and uses the fast-path registration (no package install).

Use this when you have a freshly-built node already booted (no human at the console).

  1. The node generates an Ed25519 keypair on first boot and POSTs to /api/internal/node-join with a challenge/response.
  2. The master creates a per-node RabbitMQ user, returns credentials, and adds the node to pending_nodes.
  3. An admin approves the node in the master console.

Requires INTERNAL_SECRET, CONTROL_PLANE_IP, RMQ_ADMIN_USER/PASS in the master .env.

Use this when the host already exists (a vanilla Rocky/RHEL/Alma node) and you want MFCloud to install everything.

  1. Inventory → Add Host.
  2. Enter IP, root password, and a name.
  3. The master SSHes in and runs the bootstrap: installs qemu-kvm, libvirt, mfcloud-agent, OVS, ZFS, LINSTOR satellite, configures firewall, and registers.

After registration

  • The host appears in the tree under the chosen cluster.
  • Hardware Health card pulls iDRAC/IPMI Redfish data once you save BMC credentials.
  • The host's local Emergency UI on :8443 continues to work as a break-glass channel.
  • VMs deployed here only get NAT'd IPs (libvirt's default network, 192.168.122.0/24) until you bridge the host's NIC to your real LAN — see Bridge a Single NIC for VM Networking. This applies to every SSH-Push onboarded host; imaged hosts may already have a bridge configured by the ISO.