===========
Fake driver
===========

Overview
========

The ``fake-hardware`` hardware type is what it claims to be: fake. Use of this
type or the ``fake`` interfaces should be temporary or limited to
non-production environments, as the ``fake`` interfaces do not perform any of
the actions typically expected.

The ``fake`` interfaces can be configured to be combined with any of the
"real" hardware interfaces, allowing you to effectively disable one or more
hardware interfaces for testing by simply setting that interface to
``fake``.

Use cases
=========

Development
-----------
Developers can use ``fake-hardware`` hardware-type to mock out nodes for
testing without those nodes needing to exist with physical or virtual hardware.

Adoption
--------
Some OpenStack deployers have used ``fake`` interfaces in Ironic to allow an
adoption-style workflow with Nova. By setting a node's hardware interfaces to
``fake``, it's possible to deploy to that node with Nova without causing any
actual changes to the hardware or an OS already deployed on it.

This is generally an unsupported use case, but it is possible. For more
information, see the relevant `post from CERN TechBlog`_.

.. _`post from CERN TechBlog`: https://techblog.web.cern.ch/techblog/post/ironic-nova-adoption/