Provisioning

Central control plane for a Proxmox homelab cluster. Handles PXE booting bare metal, unattended Proxmox installation, cluster join, and host lifecycle management.

What it does

1. Operator registers a host (MAC address + server type)
2. Operator triggers "rebuild with Proxmox"
3. Provisioning generates an ephemeral SSH key pair for this rebuild
4. Host PXE boots → dnsmasq responds → iPXE chain-loads the Proxmox installer
5. Installer fetches a per-host answer file (TOML) with the ephemeral public key
6. Proxmox installs unattended → post-install webhook fires
7. Host reboots → first-boot script phones home with IP + hardware ID
8. Provisioning SSHes in using the ephemeral key → pvecm add joins the cluster
9. Ephemeral key removed from both the host and database
10. Host registered in Infrastructure → marked ready

Admin dashboard shows real-time progress via SSE.

Host States

registered → pxe_ready → pxe_booted → installing → installed → first_boot → joining → ready
                                                                                         ↓
                                                                                       failed

Deploy

Prerequisites

• Docker + Docker Compose on the target host
• Host must be on the same network as the bare-metal nodes (for PXE/DHCP)
• Registry access to gitea.thewrightserver.net

No static SSH keys required — Provisioning generates ephemeral keys per rebuild automatically.

Setup

# Log in to the container registry
docker login gitea.thewrightserver.net

# Run the install script (creates /opt/provisioning with config templates)
curl -sf https://gitea.thewrightserver.net/josh/Provisioning/raw/branch/main/deploy/install.sh | bash

Or manually:

mkdir -p /opt/provisioning && cd /opt/provisioning
curl -sfO https://gitea.thewrightserver.net/josh/Provisioning/raw/branch/main/docker-compose.yml
curl -sf https://gitea.thewrightserver.net/josh/Provisioning/raw/branch/main/deploy/provisioning.example.yaml -o provisioning.yaml
curl -sf https://gitea.thewrightserver.net/josh/Provisioning/raw/branch/main/deploy/server-types.example.yaml -o server-types.yaml

Configure

Edit provisioning.yaml:

Key	Description
server.public_url	LAN-reachable URL (e.g. http://192.168.1.100:8080)
pxe.interface	NIC name on the host (e.g. eth0, enp2s0)
pxe.subnet	LAN CIDR for proxy-DHCP
proxmox.existing_node	IP of any current cluster member
proxmox.join_fingerprint	From pvecm status on an existing node
credentials.root_password_hash	Generate with mkpasswd -m sha-512
infrastructure.base_url	URL of the Infrastructure service
infrastructure.server_type_map	Maps local type keys to Infrastructure IDs

Edit server-types.yaml with your actual hardware types:

server_types:
  minisforum-ms-01:
    display_name: "Minisforum MS-01"
    boot_disk: "/dev/nvme0n1"
    management_nic: "enp2s0"
    gpu: false
    hostname_prefix: "pve-ms"

  minisforum-um790:
    display_name: "Minisforum UM790 Pro"
    boot_disk: "/dev/nvme0n1"
    management_nic: "enp1s0"
    gpu: true
    hostname_prefix: "pve-um"

Run

docker compose up -d

Dashboard at http://<host>:8080.

Update

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

API

Host Management

Method	Path	Description
GET	/api/hosts	List all hosts
GET	/api/hosts/{id}	Get host details
POST	/api/hosts	Register host (hostname, mac, server_type)
DELETE	/api/hosts/{id}	Remove host
POST	/api/hosts/{id}/rebuild	Start rebuild operation

Boot Flow (called by PXE-booting hosts)

Method	Path	Description
GET	/ipxe/{mac}	iPXE boot script
POST	/api/boot/answer	Proxmox answer file (TOML)
POST	/api/hosts/{id}/installed	Post-install webhook
GET	/api/hosts/{id}/first-boot-script	First-boot shell script
POST	/api/hosts/{id}/phone-home	First-boot reports IP + hardware ID

Dashboard

Method	Path	Description
GET	/	Host grid with live state tiles
GET	/hosts/{id}	Host detail + operation history
GET	/events	SSE stream

Development

# Run tests
go test ./...

# Run locally (PXE disabled)
cp deploy/provisioning.example.yaml provisioning.yaml
cp deploy/server-types.example.yaml server-types.yaml
# Edit provisioning.yaml: set pxe.enabled=false, infrastructure.base_url=""
go run ./cmd/provisioning -config provisioning.yaml

# Build binary
make build

# Build Docker image locally
make docker

Architecture

cmd/provisioning/       Entry point, wiring, shutdown
internal/
  config/               YAML config + hot-reloaded server types (fsnotify)
  db/                   SQLite (WAL mode, embedded migrations)
  model/                Domain types (Host, Operation, Image, ServerType)
  store/                SQL stores (hosts, operations, locks, images)
  statemachine/         Table-driven host state machine
  events/               SSE fan-out hub
  pxe/                  dnsmasq supervisor, iPXE scripts, answer files, first-boot
  orchestrator/         Lifecycle driver (ephemeral keys, cluster join, infra registration)
  infra/                Infrastructure API client
  api/                  HTTP handlers (JSON API + HTML dashboard)
  httpserver/           chi router assembly
  web/                  Embedded static assets (CSS, JS)

CI/CD

Gitea Actions workflow (.gitea/workflows/build.yml):

• Runs go test and go vet on every push to main
• Builds Docker image and pushes to gitea.thewrightserver.net/josh/provisioning:latest