Prepare the Management Node¶

These steps prepare the Management Node or xCAT Installation

Install an OS on the Management Node¶

Install one of the supported operating systems on your target management node.

The system requirements for your xCAT management node largely depend on the size of the cluster you plan to manage and the type of provisioning used (diskful, diskless, system clones, etc). The majority of system load comes during cluster provisioning time.

Memory Requirements:

Cluster Size	Memory (GB)
Small (< 16)	4-6
Medium	6-8
Large	> 16

Configure the Base OS Repository¶

xCAT uses the apt package manager on Ubuntu Linux distributions to install and resolve dependency packages provided by the base operating system. Follow this section to create the repository for the base operating system on the Management Node

Copy the DVD iso file to /tmp on the Management Node:

# This example will use ubuntu-14.04.3-server-ppc64el.iso

Mount the iso to /mnt/iso/ubuntu14 on the Management Node.

mkdir -p /mnt/iso/ubuntu14
mount -o loop /tmp/ubuntu-14.04.3-server-ppc64el.iso /mnt/iso/ubuntu14

Create an apt repository file /etc/apt.repos.d/ubuntu14-dvd.repo that points to the locally mounted iso image from the above step. The file contents should appear as the following:
```
[ubuntu-14-dvd-server]
name=UBUNTU 14 SERVER packages
baseurl=file:///mnt/iso/ubuntu14/Server
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
```

Set up Network¶

The Management Node IP address should be set to a static IP address.

Modify the interfaces file in /etc/network and configure a static IP address.

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
    address 10.3.31.11
    netmask 255.0.0.0