Manage bare metal in your data center

RunOS manages the lifecycle of physical servers through their baseboard management controllers, or BMCs. Use it to discover servers, install an approved image, and open a serial console when the operating system cannot boot.

From rack to ready server

1. Give the site cluster a path to your BMC network. Configure a scan range and BMC credentials. RunOS can reach controllers such as Dell iDRAC and HPE iLO through that site network.
2. Discover servers in the scan range. Discovery reads the inventory. Register the servers you want to manage.
3. Select a provisioning profile and a golden image. Pin the target disk before reinstalling a server with more than one block device.
4. Allocate the server to a tenant account when it is ready. Allocation changes access to the server. It does not reinstall the operating system.

Use the CLI, REST API, or MCP for these operations. You can also use the serial console in the browser when SSH is unavailable. The provisioning profile needs a serial adapter for this console.

Who controls the server?

The provider account owns the servers and BMCs. A tenant can use the controls for its allocated servers, including power and the serial console. A provider operation on an allocated server affects the tenant’s machine. Use approval policies and the audit log to control and review risky operations.

What happens when a server changes hands?

Reinstalling overwrites the selected disk. Check that the golden image is reachable before you reinstall. Deallocation powers off the server and clears partition tables and filesystem signatures from every disk. Plan for a separate sanitization step if your policy requires full erasure.

See the bare metal release notes for example commands. If you plan to sell capacity to customers, see RunOS for neocloud operators.