/
Auto Provisioning NIOS Appliances
Document toolboxDocument toolbox

Auto Provisioning NIOS Appliances

Owned by Aliaksei Shautsou (Deactivated)
Last updated: Jul 22, 2022 by Gary Leicht

In addition to using the Grid Setup Wizard or accessing the Join Grid dialog box to join appliances to a Grid, you can set up an Infoblox appliance using the auto provision feature, which allows a DHCP server to automatically assign an IP address to the appliance. You can then join the auto-provisioned appliance to a Grid.

Note: The Infoblox 805 Series appliances support auto-provisioning, and enable it by default. vNIOS appliances do not support auto-configuration.

When you connect the appliance to the network, a lease request is automatically sent to the DHCP server. The DHCP server fingerprints the client as "Infoblox Appliance", as the DHCP client provides the unique option sequence (1,28,2,2,3,3,15,6,12) and vendor ID (INFOBLOX). The DHCP server assigns a DHCP lease and a dynamic IP address to the appliance. If the DHCP lease request fails, the default IP address is assigned to the appliance. The DHCP client tries to send the lease request for a duration of one minute when the appliance is either in the factory default state or in the auto-configured default IP address state after a reboot.

If you do not use auto-provisioning to set up the appliance, then you can wait one minute before connecting the appliance to the network. Otherwise, the DHCP server will assign a dynamic IP address to the appliance. Note that if you have already set the IP address for the appliance through the NIOS CLI, Grid Manager, or API, then auto-provisioning is disabled for the appliance and the lease address is not requested. When auto-provisioning is enabled for an appliance, the DNS, DHCP, FTP, TFTP, HTTP, NTP, bloxTools, Captive Portal, Reporting services, as well as backup and restore are disabled for the member until a static IP address is set for the appliance. You can join a single appliance or HA pair to the Grid. After the appliance joins the Grid, the static IP address is set for the appliance.
Complete the following to set up an appliance using auto-provisioning and to join the auto-provisioned appliance to the Grid Master:

  1. Connect the appliance to a network by using an Ethernet cable. For information about cabling the appliance to a network, refer to Cabling the Appliance to a Network.
  2. Connect the appliance to a power source and turn on the power. For information about powering the appliance, refer to Powering the Appliance.
    The appliance automatically sends a lease request to the DHCP server, which assigns a DHCP lease and a dynamic IP address to the appliance. The DHCP client tries to send the lease request for a duration of one minute and if the request fails, the default IP address (192.168.1.2) is assigned to the appliance.
  3. Join the appliance to the Grid Master. For information about joining an appliance to the Grid Master, refer to the NIOS Administrator Guide.

A static IP address is set and auto-provisioning is automatically disabled for the appliance after it joins the Grid. If the Grid member fails to join the Grid, then the remote console is enabled for the appliance and you can join the appliance to the Grid through the remote console. You can login to the remote console using the user name admin, and the Grid shared secret as the password.

Note: When auto-provisioning is disabled for an appliance and the network address is not preserved, auto-provisioning will be re-enabled and a DHCP lease request sent to the DHCP server if you reset the appliance using the CLI command reset all auto_provision or reset the database using the CLI command  reset database auto_provision. However, if the static IP address for an appliance is set and network settings are preserved, auto-provisioning will be re-enabled for the appliance but the lease address will not be requested if you reset the database using the CLI command reset database auto_provision.