I think my opposition to it, originally, was mainly due to the ad-hoc nature of that design -- and running IPA on a machine while the instance is ACTIVE. With the advent of node servicing, configuring inspection to happen during node servicing seems like a reasonable solution for the use case that also fits within the project fairly well.

--

Jay Faulkner

On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 4:51 AM Dmitry Tantsur <dtantsur@protonmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

On 7/4/24 6:04 PM, Arne Wiebalck wrote:
> Hi Dmitry,
>
> We have indeed been using "active introspection" in CERN's deployment
> to update the introspection data:
>
> - when there was a bug in python-hardware which led to incomplete inventory
>    data (which we only noticed after the nodes were moved into production), and
>
> - to complete the inventory data of previously enrolled nodes where the list
>    of data items to collect changed with time (to make sure all nodes have
>    identically structured data in S3).
>
> Active introspection is not part of our regular workflows, but it has proven to be
> handy when needed. I guess without this project (and/or a stand-alone inspector
> in general?) the possibility to update the inventory data of active nodes will disappear?

Without this project, you can use something else (which may not exist),
but yes, it will disappear without ironic-inspector since this
functionality has not been migrated. Which is possible to do, but
somebody needs to do the work, and the last time we discussed it, some
community members (was it Jay?) where not thrilled about this idea in
general.

Dmitry

>
> (Thanks for raising this!)
>
> Cheers,
>   Arne
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Dmitry Tantsur <dtantsur@protonmail.com>
> Sent: Thursday, 4 July 2024 16:43
> To: openstack-discuss
> Cc: Arne Wiebalck
> Subject: [ironic] the fate of ironic-hardware-inventory-recorder-image
>
> Hi folks!
>
> The project in question
> (https://github.com/metal3-io/ironic-hardware-inventory-recorder-image)
> was created as part of our effort to allow updating introspection data
> in ironic-inspector from inside of already running ("active" in the
> ironic terminology) instances. It is a container image that packages
> ironic-python-agent in a way that limits its activity to finding
> ironic-inspector and posting data to it.
>
> The initial plans did not happen, ironic-inspector is pending
> deprecation in favor of ironic's built-in inspection, and the project is
>    unused by anyone in the Metal3 ecosystem. We want to archive and
> eventually remove it, but we've heard that some members of the ironic
> community (CERN? CC'ing Arne) are using it.
>
> If you do have an interest in this approach, please reach out to me to
> organize a take-over of the project.
>
> Dmitry
>