Ironic
Contents
OpenStack Bare Metal Provisioning Program
OpenStack bare metal provisioning a.k.a Ironic is an integrated OpenStack program which aims to provision bare metal machines instead of virtual machines, forked from the Nova baremetal driver. It is best thought of as a bare metal hypervisor API and a set of plugins which interact with the bare metal hypervisors. By default, it will use PXE and IPMI in order to provision and turn on/off machines, but Ironic also supports vendor-specific plugins which may implement additional functionality. For a general overview please see: Introduction to Ironic.
Latest Documentation
This wiki is updated by volunteers as time permits. For the latest documentation, it is highly advisable to refer to the project documentation which is generated from the embedded documentation. Please see: latest ironic documentation.
Projects
Ironic is governed by the OpenStack Technical Committee. The complete list of deliverables (and associated tags) that are officially under the Ironic umbrella is available here.
Some of the deliverables (or projects) are described below.
ironic
The ironic project includes the ironic-api and ironic-conductor processes.
| Official name | OpenStack Bare Metal Provisioning |
| Source code | https://opendev.org/openstack/ironic |
| Documentation | https://docs.openstack.org/ironic/latest/ |
| Bug tracker | https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic/+bugs |
| Feature tracker | https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic/+bugs (rfe-approved tag) |
| Specifications | http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/ironic-specs |
| Weekly meetings | https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meetings/Ironic |
python-ironicclient
python-ironicclient is a package that includes the python client and CLI.
| Source code | https://opendev.org/openstack/python-ironicclient |
| Bug tracker | https://bugs.launchpad.net/python-ironicclient/+bugs |
| Documentation | https://docs.openstack.org/python-ironicclient/latest/ |
ironic-python-agent
ironic-python-agent is a small python application that is meant to be embedded in a deployment ramdisk.
| Source code | https://opendev.org/openstack/ironic-python-agent |
| Bug tracker | https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic-python-agent/+bugs |
| Documentation | https://docs.openstack.org/ironic-python-agent/latest/ |
bifrost
bifrost consists of Ansible play books for running Ironic standalone (without other OpenStack components).
| Source code | https://opendev.org/openstack/bifrost |
| Bug tracker | https://bugs.launchpad.net/bifrost/+bugs |
| Documentation | https://docs.openstack.org/bifrost/latest/ |
networking-baremetal
networking-baremetal is a Neutron plugin that covers bare metal use cases; it provides deep Ironic/Neutron integration.
| Source code | https://opendev.org/openstack/networking-baremetal |
| Bug tracker | https://bugs.launchpad.net/networking-baremetal/+bugs |
ironic-ui
ironic-ui is a horizon plugin for ironic.
| Source code | https://opendev.org/openstack/ironic-ui |
| Bug Tracker | https://bugs.launchpad.net/ironic-ui/+bugs |
| Documentation | https://docs.openstack.org/ironic-ui/latest/ |
People
Ironic uses a Distributed Project Leadership (DPL) model. This means that the project operates on consensus-based leadership with specific contacts with points of focus. The current list of liasons can be found in the Governance repo, in projects.yaml: https://opendev.org/openstack/governance/src/branch/master/reference/projects.yaml.
As of this writing, January 2026, the liasons are:
| Release | Riccardo Pittau (rpittau) |
| TACT-SIG (testing/CI) | Dmitry Tantsur (dtantsur) |
| Security | Jay Faulkner (JayF) |
| Technical Committee | Doug Goldstein (cardoe) |
| Events | Iury Gregory Melo Ferreira (iurygregory) |
Status
Ironic is the premier project in OpenStack for provisioning Bare Metal. It can be used behind Nova via a virt driver, directly as part of an integrated OpenStack cloud, or used standalone without other OpenStack services (such as via metal3.io or bifrost).
Release notes for Ironic are available at http://docs.openstack.org/releasenotes/ironic/.
Ironic publishes a semi-yearly, post PTG summary of project work items. These summaries are a good way to get up-to-date information on project status. They can be found at https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/ironic-specs/.
Etherpads
Our project teams frequently share ideas and coordinate by using etherpads, some of which stick around for a while. Warning: information on project whiteboards may not be up to date.
IRC
Discussion of the project also takes place in #openstack-ironic on irc.oftc.net. This is a great place to jump in and start your ironic adventure. The channel is very welcoming to new users - no question is a wrong question!
Developers
Guidelines for developers can be found here: https://docs.openstack.org/ironic/latest/contributor/contributing.html. Most successful contributions are made by contributors coordinating closely with the project over IRC, mailing list, or bug tracker.
Pixie Boots, the Ironic drummer bear
Pixie Boots is the mascot of the "Bear Metal" Provisioning Program for OpenStack, a.k.a Ironic. It was drawn by Lucas Alvares Gomes and two versions of it are available: One colored and one outlined. An icon shadowcut of pixie boots is also available, courtesy of Michael Krotscheck. Feel free to use the images to make t-shirts or any other paraphernalia.
High-resolution PNGs versions are available by clicking on the images below:
Colored
Outlined
Icon
You can also download the Inkscape SVG vector file: Ironic_mascot.svg
All images are licensed CC BY-SA.
Pixie Boots rockin': \m/ ʕ•͡ᴥ•ʔ \m/
Outside the OpenStack Bare Metal Provisioning Program
Metal3
Metal3.io is a CNCF incubated project which coordinates use of Ironic to provide bare metal resources to Kubernetes cluster API.
