Info for the PXE NIC available in MAAS UI but there is no API to get this info

[Larry Michel]

In creating virtual switches on an Hypervisor, we need the ability to differentiate between the management NIC, which in most cases corresponds to the PXE device, from other NICs on the system.

Maas API can now return the list of NICs that are connected to a specific network. Unfortunately, we are not able to tell beforehand which NIC is the PXE device since we are getting back a list of all the connected MAC addresses. This corresponds to scenario where multiple physical NICs connect to a flat network.

Consequently, we are forced to pass all the MAC addresses (PXE and non-PXE alike) to a charm which will then randomly select a physical NIC on top of which it will create a virtual switch. This results in the network configuration potentially being inconsistent from build to build.

In the MAAS UI, that information is available as we're able to determine which NIC that system PXE booted from. However, this information does not appear to be available through maas API.

From UI:
===========================================================================
Network

MAC IP Network
2c:59:e5:47:a6:e4 (PXE) 10.245.0.205 (static) oil-mgmt (10.245.0.0/18)
2c:59:e5:47:a6:e5 10.245.43.97 (dynamic) oil-mgmt (10.245.0.0/18)
2c:59:e5:47:a6:e6
2c:59:e5:47:a6:e7
===========================================================================

Looking at info returns for Node through maas <> nodes list:

===========================================================================
"macaddress_set": [
            {
                "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-0fd68e9a-ae17-11e3-b194-00163efc5068/macs/2c%3A59%3Ae5%3A47%3Aa6%3Ae5/",
                "mac_address": "2c:59:e5:47:a6:e5"
            },
            {
                "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-0fd68e9a-ae17-11e3-b194-00163efc5068/macs/2c%3A59%3Ae5%3A47%3Aa6%3Ae4/",
                "mac_address": "2c:59:e5:47:a6:e4"
            },
            {
                "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-0fd68e9a-ae17-11e3-b194-00163efc5068/macs/2c%3A59%3Ae5%3A47%3Aa6%3Ae7/",
                "mac_address": "2c:59:e5:47:a6:e7"
            },
            {
                "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-0fd68e9a-ae17-11e3-b194-00163efc5068/macs/2c%3A59%3Ae5%3A47%3Aa6%3Ae6/",
                "mac_address": "2c:59:e5:47:a6:e6"
            }
        ],
===========================================================================

or:

===========================================================================

ubuntu@maas-trusty-back-may22:~$ maas root network list-connected-macs oil-mgmt
...
[
    {
        "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-f626062e-ae16-11e3-b194-00163efc5068/macs/2c%3A59%3Ae5%3A9a%3Acf%3A14/",
        "mac_address": "2c:59:e5:9a:cf:14"
    },
    {
        "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-5f9c14e6-ae98-11e3-b194-00163efc5068/macs/d4%3Aae%3A52%3Acc%3A0c%3A37/",
        "mac_address": "d4:ae:52:cc:0c:37"
    },
...
**********************************************************************
    },
    {
        "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-6491e170-ae10-11e3-9074-00163efc5068/macs/d4%3Aae%3A52%3Acc%3A1d%3Ae4/",
        "mac_address": "d4:ae:52:cc:1d:e4"
    },
    {
        "resource_uri": "/MAAS/api/1.0/nodes/node-49c2f628-ae9b-11e3-b194-00163efc5068/macs/90%3Ab1%3A1c%3A5b%3A37%3Ae4/",
        "mac_address": "90:b1:1c:5b:37:e4"
    }
===========================================================================

This information does not appear to be available. We need an API that returns the list of PXE NICs are tags the info as in the UI.

[Raphaël Badin (rvb)]

API should be in sync with UI so this is definitely a bug (a not "wishlist").

[Raphaël Badin (rvb)]

This is fixed now, here is what it looks like: http://paste.ubuntu.com/11412440/.