Parallel Commands

xCAT provides a set of commands that can run common remote commands (ssh, scp, rsh, rcp, rsync, ping, cons) in parallel on xCAT managed nodes. The xCAT commands will format the output making the results easier to parse and help administrators manage large clusters.

The following commands are provided:

  • pcons - runs a command on the noderange using the out-of-band console
  • pping - parallel ping
  • ppping - parallel ping between nodes in a cluster
  • prsync - parallel rsync
  • pscp - parallel remote copy ( supports scp and not hierarchy)
  • psh - parallel remote shell ( supports ssh and not hierarchy)
  • pasu - parallel ASU utility
  • xdcp - concurrently copies files to and from multiple nodes. ( scp/rcp and hierarchy)
  • xdsh - concurrently runs commands on multiple nodes. ( supports ssh/rsh and hierarchy)
  • xdshbak - formats the output of the xdsh command
  • xcoll - Formats command output of the psh, xdsh, rinv command

Examples for xdsh

  • To set up the SSH keys for root on node1, run as root:

    xdsh node1 -K
    
  • To run the ps -ef command on node targets node1 and node2, enter:

    xdsh node1,node2 "ps -ef"
    
  • To run the ps command on node targets node1 and run the remote command with the -v and -t flag, enter:

    xdsh node1,node2 -o"-v -t" ps =item *
    
  • To execute the commands contained in myfile in the XCAT context on several node targets, with a fanout of 1, enter:

    xdsh node1,node2 -f 1 -e myfile
    
  • To run the ps command on node1 and ignore all the dsh environment variable except the DSH_NODE_OPTS, enter:

    xdsh node1 -X `DSH_NODE_OPTS' ps
    
  • To run on Linux, the xdsh command dpkg -l| grep vim on the node ubuntu diskless image, enter:

    xdsh -i /install/netboot/ubuntu14.04.2/ppc64el/compute/rootimg "dpkg -l|grep vim"
    
  • To run xdsh with the non-root userid “user1” that has been setup as an xCAT userid and with sudo on node1 and node2 to run as root, do the following, see Granting users xCAT privileges:

    xdsh node1,node2 --sudo -l user1 "cat /etc/passwd"
    

Examples for xdcp

  • To copy the /etc/hosts file from all nodes in the cluster to the /tmp/hosts.dir directory on the local host, enter:

    xdcp all -P /etc/hosts /tmp/hosts.dir
    

    A suffix specifying the name of the target is appended to each file name. The contents of the /tmp/hosts.dir directory are similar to:

    hosts._node1   hosts._node4   hosts._node7
    hosts._node2   hosts._node5   hosts._node8
    hosts._node3   hosts._node6
    
  • To copy /localnode/smallfile and /tmp/bigfile to /tmp on node1 using rsync and input -t flag to rsync, enter:

    xdcp node1 -r /usr/bin/rsync -o "-t" /localnode/smallfile /tmp/bigfile /tmp
    
  • To copy the /etc/hosts file from the local host to all the nodes in the cluster, enter:

    xdcp all /etc/hosts /etc/hosts
    
  • To rsync the /etc/hosts file to your compute nodes:

    Create a rsync file /tmp/myrsync, with this line:

    /etc/hosts -> /etc/hosts
    
    or
    
    /etc/hosts -> /etc/ (last / is required)
    

    Run:

    xdcp compute -F /tmp/myrsync
    
  • To rsync the /etc/file1 and file2 to your compute nodes and rename to filex and filey:

    Create a rsync file /tmp/myrsync, with these line:

    /etc/file1 -> /etc/filex
    
    /etc/file2 -> /etc/filey
    

    Run:

    xdcp compute -F /tmp/myrsync to update the Compute Nodes
    
  • To rsync files in the Linux image at /install/netboot/ubuntu14.04.2/ppc64el/compute/rootimg on the MN:

    Create a rsync file /tmp/myrsync, with this line:

    /etc/hosts /etc/passwd -> /etc
    

    Run:

    xdcp -i /install/netboot/ubuntu14.04.2/ppc64el/compute/rootimg -F /tmp/myrsync