Docs on adding nodes needs a lot more detail

[Nate Finch]

Looking at the docs on adding nodes: http://maas.ubuntu.com/docs/nodes.html

It's really incredibly unclear what the steps are for adding nodes to a cluster, or what the prerequisites are for machines you add.

Here are the questions I ask myself when I look at this page:

Do I need to install Ubuntu on the nodes before I can enlist them? If so, what versions of Ubuntu are supported? Do they all have to be the same series?

What does "boot via PXE" mean, and how would I know if my machine can do that? If there is setup that is needed for PXE, what configuration do I need?

The docs say "If you have DHCP set up correctly".... What is "correctly"? How can I tell if it is correct or not?

What is an AVAHI boot image? If I run the ubuntu server install disk, is the option to enlist as a MaaS node going to be exceedingly obvious (i.e. in the first menu I see)?

I presume the machine must have some sort of wake-on-network functionality, and that it must be turned on, but this is never clearly stated. For people cobbling together a network from old machines they have lying around, they may well not have that ability. How can they tell if their machine supports that?

Is there still a way machines without wake-on-lan can be used as nodes? If so, how, and what are the drawbacks?

[Julian Edwards (julian-edwards)]

Thanks for the feedback Nate, this is very useful.