[ironic][power] Anyone using PReP partitioning support?
Greetings Power folks! The Ironic project is curious if anyone is using PReP partitioning support? Specifically Ironic has long had a code path to manage creation of the PReP partition for booting power hardware as part of the partition image path code, but as time has gone on we're unsure if anyone is actively using this code path on newer versions of Ironic, coupled with the general decline of partition image usage. If anyone is using Power with newer versions of Ironic, please let us know if you're using partition images with Ironic, thus using PReP partitions. Specifically we're curious because we have a discussion topic which has been raised for the upcoming PTG. Thanks! -Julia
On Sat, 4 Oct 2025 at 04:29, Julia Kreger <juliaashleykreger@gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings Power folks!
Salutations in reply Julia
The Ironic project is curious if anyone is using PReP partitioning support? Specifically Ironic has long had a code path to manage creation of the PReP partition for booting power hardware as part of the partition image path code, but as time has gone on we're unsure if anyone is actively using this code path on newer versions of Ironic, coupled with the general decline of partition image usage.
I doubt it's in use anywhere. Certainly none of the power installs I'm aware of are using a version of ironic new enough to use it. It was largely added to support power systems that have I/O adapters with *only* native 4k blocksize, as the default diskimage uses 512b blocksize. With traits and a small amount of wasted storage it's easy enough to create a second diskimage with 4k blocksize.
If anyone is using Power with newer versions of Ironic, please let us know if you're using partition images with Ironic, thus using PReP partitions. Specifically we're curious because we have a discussion topic which has been raised for the upcoming PTG.
If it would be helpful and it isn't too terrible timewise for Australia, let me know when it is (roughly) and I can try to be there. Yours Tony.
Greetings Tony! Reply below! On Fri, Oct 3, 2025 at 9:09 PM Tony Breeds <tony@bakeyournoodle.com> wrote:
On Sat, 4 Oct 2025 at 04:29, Julia Kreger <juliaashleykreger@gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings Power folks!
Salutations in reply Julia
The Ironic project is curious if anyone is using PReP partitioning support? Specifically Ironic has long had a code path to manage creation of the PReP partition for booting power hardware as part of the partition image path code, but as time has gone on we're unsure if anyone is actively using this code path on newer versions of Ironic, coupled with the general decline of partition image usage.
I doubt it's in use anywhere. Certainly none of the power installs I'm aware of are using a version of ironic new enough to use it. '
Thanks, That was kind of what I was suspecting.
It was largely added to support power systems that have I/O adapters with *only* native 4k blocksize, as the default diskimage uses 512b blocksize. With traits and a small amount of wasted storage it's easy enough to create a second diskimage with 4k blocksize.
Interesting! Thank you for the additional context! As an aside, it is do-able today to do a native 4k block size with DIB. Yes, the default is 512, but it can be set to 4k. Ironic actually has a CI job which exercises this intentionally as some x86 hardware vendors have chosen to switch to 4k.
If anyone is using Power with newer versions of Ironic, please let us know if you're using partition images with Ironic, thus using PReP partitions. Specifically we're curious because we have a discussion topic which has been raised for the upcoming PTG.
If it would be helpful and it isn't too terrible timewise for Australia, let me know when it is (roughly) and I can try to be there.
I don't think we've pinned down a schedule yet for the PTG.
Yours Tony.
participants (2)
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Julia Kreger
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Tony Breeds