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siderolabs / talos

Talos Linux is a modern Linux distribution built for Kubernetes.
https://www.talos.dev
Mozilla Public License 2.0
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Reset / wipe option in dashboard #9646

Open bartlaarhoven opened 2 weeks ago

bartlaarhoven commented 2 weeks ago

Feature Request

Description

It would be great to have the option to wipe my disks and reset the node somewhere inside the dashboard.

Situation

I've been busy the past 3 days getting a Talos worker node up and running on a plain new bare metal server, and I definitely wanted SecureBoot to work and Talos disk encryption. I've watched the BIOS and boot loop hundreds of times before I got the correct combination of keys, BIOS config, TPM settings etc.

During those days, I've had Talos installed several times. But more than once, the combination of settings (UEFI, Talos, TPM) caused Talos to boot, but stay in "Booting" mode as it couldn't decrypt the hard drive, as it couldn't access the TPM.

At that point, there's no possibility to reset the node. talosctl cannot access it (yet), and I can't add kernel parameters in the boot menu as SecureBoot doesn't let me modify kernel parameters. So I'm stuck. Solution was a plain old Ubuntu stick and wipe the disk that way, but you can imagine I would've liked an easier way.

If the dashboard would give me a way to execute some (administrative) tasks like this, it would be great. I can imagine that it's scary as anyone with access to the server can then execute this destructive action, so maybe it should be protected by some password. But all in all, it would've helped a great deal if the dashboard would've supported some basic tasks like that.

smira commented 2 weeks ago

I think dashboard itself doesn't sound like a great interface for such administrative actions.

After some time, Talos should get support for multi-profile UKIs which would allow to have an option to wipe the system even for multi-profile UKIs.