.. meta::
   :description: Ironic OpenStack bare metal provisioning service documentation. Install, configure, and manage physical servers in cloud environments with comprehensive guides and API references.
   :keywords: ironic, openstack, bare metal, physical servers, provisioning, cloud infrastructure, IPMI, PXE, hardware management
   :author: OpenStack Ironic Team
   :robots: index, follow
   :canonical: https://docs.openstack.org/ironic/latest/

==================================
Welcome to Ironic's documentation!
==================================

Introduction
============

Ironic is an OpenStack project which provisions bare metal (as opposed to
virtual) machines. It may be used independently or as part of an OpenStack
Cloud, and integrates with the OpenStack Identity (keystone), Compute (nova),
Network (neutron), Image (glance), and Object (swift) services.

The Bare Metal service manages hardware through both common (eg. PXE and IPMI)
and vendor-specific remote management protocols. It provides the cloud operator
with a unified interface to a heterogeneous fleet of servers while also
providing the Compute service with an interface that allows physical servers to
be managed as though they were virtual machines.

This documentation is continually updated and may not represent the state of
the project at any specific prior release. To access documentation for a
previous release of ironic, append the OpenStack release name to the URL; for
example, the ``2025.1`` release is available at
https://docs.openstack.org/ironic/2025.1/.

Found a bug in one of our projects? Please see :doc:`/contributor/bugs`.

Would like to engage with the community? See :doc:`/contributor/community`.

Getting Started
===============

Not sure where to begin? Find the goal that best matches yours and start with the
recommended guide.

.. list-table::
  :widths: 60, 40
  :header-rows: 1

  * - If your goal with ironic is:
    - Start here:
  * - Understand and evaluate ironic for my organization
    - :doc:`Technical overview </install/get_started>`
  * - Install ironic standalone for a small number of nodes
    - :doc:`Standalone installation guide </install/standalone>`
  * - Use Ansible to install and configure nodes
    - `Bifrost documentation <https://docs.openstack.org/bifrost/latest/>`_
  * - Use ironic with other OpenStack components
    - :doc:`Integration with other OpenStack services </install/configure-integration>`

Ironic Installation Guide
=========================

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 2

  install/index
  install/standalone
  admin/upgrade-guide

Ironic User Guide
=================

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 3

  user/index

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 1

  API Concept Guide <contributor/webapi>
  API Reference for Ironic <https://docs.openstack.org/api-ref/baremetal/>
  API Version History <contributor/webapi-version-history>

Administrator Guide
===================

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 3

  admin/drivers

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 2

  admin/features

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 2

  admin/operation

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 2

  cli/index

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 2

  configuration/index

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 2

  admin/architecture

* `Release Notes <https://docs.openstack.org/releasenotes/ironic/>`_

.. toctree::
  :hidden:

  admin/index

Contributor Guide
=================

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 3

   contributor/index

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 3

   contributor/documentation-contributing

Support Resources
=================

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   support/index

.. only:: html

References
==========

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   references/index

.. only:: html

   Indices and tables
   ==================

   * :ref:`genindex`
   * :ref:`search`
