Log Collection: Collecting logs of the whole installation process

The ability to collect logs during the installation (diskful and diskless) can be enabled by setting the “site.xcatdebugmode” to different levels (0,1,2), which is quite helpful when debugging installation problems.

The diskful provision logs:

xcatdebugmode 0 1 2
OS Distribution RHEL SLES UBT RHEL SLES UBT RHEL SLES UBT
Pre-Install
logs
MN N N N
CN C1 C1 C2 C1 C2
Installer
logs
MN N N N M1 M1 M1 M1 M1 M1
CN C3 C3 C3 C3 C3 C3 C3 C3 C3
Post-Install
logs
MN M2 M3 M3
CN C1 C1 C2 C1 C2
PostBootScript
logs
MN M2 M3 M3
CN C1 C1 C2 C1 C2

The diskless provision logs:

xcatdebugmode 0 1 2
OS Distribution RHEL SLES UBT RHEL SLES UBT RHEL SLES UBT
Provision
logs
MN N M3 M3
CN N N N
PostBootScript
logs
MN M3 M3 M4 M3 M4
CN C1 C1 C2 C1 C2
  • Pre-Install logs: the logs of pre-installation scripts, including:
    • %pre section in anaconda,
    • <pre-scripts/> section for SUSE and partman/early_command and preseed/early_command sections for ubuntu.
    • STDOUT and STDERR of the scripts
    • debug trace output of bash scripts with set -x
  • Installer logs: the logs from the os installer itself, i.e, the logs of installation program (anaconda, autoyast and preseed,etc.)
  • Post-Install logs: the logs of post-installation scripts, including
    • %post section in anaconda,
    • <chroot-scripts/> and <post-scripts/> sections for SUSE and preseed/late_command section for ubuntu.
    • STDOUT and STDERR of the scripts
    • debug trace output of bash scripts with set -x
  • Provision logs: the logs during the diskless provision.
  • PostBootScript logs: the logs during the post boot scripts execution, which are specified in postbootscripts attribute of node and osimage definition and run during the 1st reboot after installation.

MN: the logs forwarded to management node:

  • M1: the installer logs will be forwarded to the MN in /var/log/xcat/computes.log file.
  • M2: the error messages will be forwarded to /var/log/xcat/computes.log file on MN only when critical error happens.
  • M3: the installation logs will be forwarded to /var/log/xcat/computes.log file on MN.
  • M4: the debug trace(set -x or -o xtrace) of bash scripts enabled.
  • N: the logs will not be forwarded to MN.

CN: the logs on compute node:

  • C1 - the installation logs will be saved to /var/log/xcat/xcat.log file on CN.
  • C2 - the debug trace(set -x or -o xtrace) of bash scripts enabled.
  • C3 - the installer logs will be saved to the CN in /var/log/anaconda for RHEL, /var/log/YaST2 for SLES, /var/log/installer for UBT.
  • N - the logs will not be saved to CN.