Expose custom network in non ubuntu deployments

[Gabriel Samfira]

The new custom network configuration in MAAS is really nice, but it only works with ubuntu deployments. With really minimal changes and a short powershell script, this can easily be enabled in windows as well.

The problem is, that by default MAAS does not expose the custom network config in the preseed data passed to curtin. This can safely be enabled for operating systems that get deployed from full disk images (like Windows). For other operating systems that use the tgz format, curtin will try to run the builtin hooks that configure networking.

I suggest that a new metadata property be set for the images that get uploaded to MAAS that indicate whether or not the image itself supports custom networking. Something like:

maas maasadmin boot-resources create name=windows/win2012hvr2 architecture=amd64/generic filetype=ddtgz content@=./win2012hvr2.raw.tgz custom_networking=True

The finalize (or other appropriate) hook inside the image can then take care of the networking config for that image. Same can be done for custom storage as well.

[Mike Pontillo (mpontillo)]

As of MAAS 2.0, this data will now be exposed to all operating systems, not just Ubuntu.

I just want to be clear, though, that we have not developed any of the necessary curtin hooks for non-Ubuntu operating systems to make use of this data.