Interactive initial site setup workflow

[mmou-nv]

Problem

Node ingestion currently requires operators to manually run several steps in the correct order. Missing or reordering steps can leave expected machines unlinked or machines stuck in early provisioning states.

The workflow includes tasks such as:

• Setting site-wide host and DPU BMC credentials.
• Setting host UEFI credentials.
• Writing DPU UEFI credentials into the site-local Vault path.
• Enabling trusted-machine approval for secure boot measurements.
• Preparing expected machine data.
• Adding or replacing expected machines.
• Monitoring whether host BMCs, DPU BMCs, and DPU OOB interfaces are discovered and linked.

This is difficult to perform safely without already knowing the implementation details and ordering.

Requested improvement

Provide an interactive ingestion flow that guides an operator through a single-host validation path and then optionally scales to bulk ingestion.

The flow should:

• Check required credentials and approval state before ingestion.
• Discover candidate host BMCs automatically when possible.
• Collect serial numbers and BMC MAC addresses from discovered BMCs instead of requiring operators to hand-build JSON when the data is already available.
• Ask the operator which discovered hosts should be managed.
• Add selected expected machines safely without replacing the entire expected machine set.
• Explain the current blocker when a host remains unlinked.

Why this matters

The first node in a new site is often used as a validation path. Operators need a safe single-host workflow rather than starting with a full replace-all expected machine import.

Possible shape

Example operator experience:

nico-admin ingest wizard

The wizard could show:

• Credentials present/missing.
• Trusted machine approval present/missing.
• Discovered BMC candidates.
• Candidate host serials and BMC MACs.
• DPU BMC/OOB discovery status.
• Which hosts are safe to add as expected machines.