Add prelude and update release notes for 12.1.0

Some minor clean-up of already merged release notes for
improved clarity/message consistency.

Change-Id: I937ac31f3c939ae2c53cefd65394b7af02485642

releasenotes/notes/add-node-description-790097704f45af91.yaml

@@ -2,5 +2,5 @@
 features:
   - |
     Adds a ``description`` field to the node object to enable operators to
-    store any information relates to the node. The field is up to 4096
+    store any information related to the node. The field is up to 4096
-    characters.
+    UTF-8 characters.

releasenotes/notes/add-support-for-smart-nic-0fc5b10ba6772f7f.yaml

@@ -1,10 +1,8 @@
 ---
-prelude: >
-    Add support for Smart NICs in baremetal servers.
 features:
   - |
-    Enable use of Smart NICs by extending ironic to implement generic
+    Adds support to enable deployment workflow changes necessary to support
-    networking services for baremetal servers.
+    the use of Smart NICs in the ``ansible``, ``direct``, ``iscsi`` and
-
+    ``ramdisk`` deployment interfaces. Networking service integration for
-    Extending the ramdisk, direct, iscsi and ansible deployment Interfaces
+    this functionality is not anticipated until the Train release of the
-    to support the Smart NIC use-cases.
+    Networking service.

releasenotes/notes/prelude-to-the-stein-f25b6073b6d1c598.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+prelude: |
+    The Bare Metal as a Service team joyfully announces our OpenStack Stein
+    release of ironic 12.1.0. While no steins nor speakers were harmed during
+    the development of this release, we might have suffered some hearing
+    damage after we learned that we could increase the volume well
+    past eleven!
+
+    Notable items include:
+
+    * Increased parallelism of power synchronization to improve overall
+      conductor efficiency.
+    * API fields to support node ``description`` and ``owner`` values.
+    * HPE iLO ``ilo5`` and Huawei ``ibmc`` hardware types.
+    * Allocations API interface to enable operators to find and select
+      bare metal nodes for deployment.
+    * JSON-RPC can now be used for ``ironic-api`` to ``ironic-conductor``
+      communication as opposed to using an AMQP messaging provider.
+    * Support for customizable PXE templates and streamlined deployment
+      sequences.
+    * Initial support for the definition of "deployment templates" to
+      enable operators to define and match customized deployment sequences.
+    * Initial work for supporting SmartNIC configuration is included,
+      however the Networking Service changes required are not anticipated
+      until sometime during the Train development cycle.
+    * And numerous bug fixes, including ones for IPv6 and IPMI.
+
+    This release includes the changes in ironic's ``12.0.0`` release which
+    was also released during the Stein development cycle and includes a number
+    of improvements for Bare Metal infrastructure operators. More about our
+    earlier stein release can be found in our
+    `release notes <https://docs.openstack.org/releasenotes/ironic/stein.html#relnotes-12-0-0>`_.

releasenotes/notes/socat-respawn-de9e8805c820a7ac.yaml

@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
 ---
 fixes:
-  - Ironic does not monitor the socat proxy started for serial console
+  - Fixes an issue where the socat process would exit on client disconnect,
-    access. The socat process would exit on client disconnect, which
+    which would (a) leave a zombie socat process in the process table and (b)
-    would (a) leave a zombie socat process in the process table and (b)
+    disable any subsequent serial console connections. This issue was
-    disable any subsequent serial console connections. Fixed the issue by
+    addressed by updating ironic to call socat with the
-    updating Ironic to call socat with the ``fork,max-children=1`` options,
+    ``fork,max-children=1`` options, which makes socat persist and accept
-    which makes socat persist and accept multiple connections (but only one
+    multiple connections (but only one at a time).
-    at a time).  See https://storyboard.openstack.org/#!/story/2005024.
+    Please see story `2005024 <https://storyboard.openstack.org/#!/story/2005024>`_
+    for additional information.

releasenotes/notes/story-2004444-f540d9bbc3532ad0.yaml

@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@
 ---
 fixes:
   - |
-    For the IPMI hardware type setting the driver option
+    Fixes an issue with the ``ipmi`` hardware type where
-    ``node['driver_info']['ipmi_force_boot_device']`` has been made more
+    ``node['driver_info']['ipmi_force_boot_device']`` could be interpreted
-    flexible to avoid situations where
+    as ``True`` when set to values such as "False".
-    ``openstack baremetal node set --driver-info ipmi_force_boot_device=False node-0``
-    leaves the option enabled.