Diskful (Stateful) Installation

Any cluster using statelite compute nodes must use a stateful (diskful) Service Nodes.

Note

All xCAT Service Nodes must be at the exact same xCAT version as the xCAT Management Node.

Configure otherpkgdir and otherpkglist for service node osimage

• Create a subdirectory xcat under a path specified by otherpkgdir attribute of the service node os image, selected during the Define Service Nodes step.

  For example, for osimage rhels7-x86_64-install-service

  [root@fs4 xcat]# lsdef -t osimage rhels7-x86_64-install-service -i otherpkgdir
     Object name: rhels7-x86_64-install-service
        otherpkgdir=/install/post/otherpkgs/rhels7/x86_64
  [root@fs4 xcat]# mkdir -p /install/post/otherpkgs/rhels7/x86_64/xcat
  

• Download or copy xcat-core and xcat-dep .bz2 files into that xcat directory

  wget https://xcat.org/files/xcat/xcat-core/<version>_Linux/xcat-core/xcat-core-<version>-linux.tar.bz2
  wget https://xcat.org/files/xcat/xcat-dep/<version>_Linux/xcat-dep-<version>-linux.tar.bz2
  

• untar the xcat-core and xcat-dep .bz2 files

  cd /install/post/otherpkgs/<os>/<arch>/xcat
  tar jxvf core-rpms-snap.tar.bz2
  tar jxvf xcat-dep-*.tar.bz2
  

• Verify the following entries are included in the package file specified by the otherpkglist attribute of the service node osimage.

  xcat/xcat-core/xCATsn
  xcat/xcat-dep/<os>/<arch>/conserver-xcat
  xcat/xcat-dep/<os>/<arch>/perl-Net-Telnet
  xcat/xcat-dep/<os>/<arch>/perl-Expect
  

  For example, for the osimage rhels7-x86_64-install-service

  lsdef -t osimage rhels7-x86_64-install-service -i otherpkglist
  Object name: rhels7-x86_64-install-service
       otherpkglist=/opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/rh/service.rhels7.x86_64.otherpkgs.pkglist
  
  cat /opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/rh/service.rhels7.x86_64.otherpkgs.pkglist
     xcat/xcat-core/xCATsn
     xcat/xcat-dep/rh7/x86_64/conserver-xcat
     xcat/xcat-dep/rh7/x86_64/perl-Net-Telnet
     xcat/xcat-dep/rh7/x86_64/perl-Expect
  

Note

You will be installing the xCAT Service Node RPM xCATsn-<version> on the Service Node, not the xCAT Management Node RPM xCAT-<version>. Do not install xCAT Management Node RPM xCAT-<version> on the Service Node.

Update the rhels6 RPM repository (rhels6 only)

• This section could be removed after the powerpc-utils-1.2.2-18.el6.ppc64.rpm is built in the base rhels6 ISO.

• The direct rpm download link is: ftp://linuxpatch.ncsa.uiuc.edu/PERCS/powerpc-utils-1.2.2-18.el6.ppc64.rpm

• The update steps are as following: - put the new rpm in the base OS packages

  cd /install/rhels6/ppc64/Server/Packages
  mv powerpc-utils-1.2.2-17.el6.ppc64.rpm /tmp
  cp /tmp/powerpc-utils-1.2.2-18.el6.ppc64.rpm .
  # make sure that the rpm is be readable by other users
  chmod +r powerpc-utils-1.2.2-18.el6.ppc64.rpm
  

• create the repodata

  cd /install/rhels6/ppc64/Server
  ls -al repodata/
  total 14316
  dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jul 20 09:34 .
  dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root    4096 Jul 20 09:34 ..
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1305862 Sep 22  2010 20dfb74c144014854d3b16313907ebcf30c9ef63346d632369a19a4add8388e7-other.sqlite.bz2
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1521372 Sep 22  2010 57b3c81512224bbb5cebbfcb6c7fd1f7eb99cca746c6c6a76fb64c64f47de102-primary.xml.gz
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 2823613 Sep 22  2010 5f664ea798d1714d67f66910a6c92777ecbbe0bf3068d3026e6e90cc646153e4-primary.sqlite.bz2
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1418180 Sep 22  2010 7cec82d8ed95b8b60b3e1254f14ee8e0a479df002f98bb557c6ccad5724ae2c8-other.xml.gz
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root  194113 Sep 22  2010 90cbb67096e81821a2150d2b0a4f3776ab1a0161b54072a0bd33d5cadd1c234a-comps-rhel6-Server.xml.gz
  **-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1054944 Sep 22  2010 98462d05248098ef1724eddb2c0a127954aade64d4bb7d4e693cff32ab1e463c-comps-rhel6-Server.xml**
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 3341671 Sep 22  2010 bb3456b3482596ec3aa34d517affc42543e2db3f4f2856c0827d88477073aa45-filelists.sqlite.bz2
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root 2965960 Sep 22  2010 eb991fd2bb9af16a24a066d840ce76365d396b364d3cdc81577e4cf6e03a15ae-filelists.xml.gz
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root    3829 Sep 22  2010 repomd.xml
  -r--r--r-- 1 root root    2581 Sep 22  2010 TRANS.TBL
  createrepo \
  -g repodata /98462d05248098ef1724eddb2c0a127954aade64d4bb7d4e693cff32ab1e463c-comps-rhel6-Server.xml
  

Note

You should use comps-rhel6-Server.xml with its key as the group file.

Install Service Nodes

rinstall <service_node> osimage="<osimagename>"

For example

rinstall <service_node> osimage="rhels7-x86_64-install-service"

Monitor the Installation

Watch the installation progress using either wcons or rcons and monitor log messages:

wcons service     # make sure DISPLAY is set to your X server/VNC or
rcons <node_name>
tail -f /var/log/messages

Note

We have experienced one problem while trying to install RHEL6 diskful Service Node working with SAS disks. The Service Node cannot reboots from SAS disk after the RHEL6 operating system has been installed. We are waiting for the build with fixes from RHEL6 team, once meet this problem, you need to manually select the SAS disk to be the first boot device and boots from the SAS disk.

Update Service Node Diskful Image

To update the xCAT software on the Service Node:

1. Remove previous xcat-core, xcat-dep, and tar files in the NFS mounted /install/post/otherpkgs/ directory:

   rm -rf /install/post/otherpkgs/<os>/<arch>/xcat/xcat-core
   rm -rf /install/post/otherpkgs/<os>/<arch>/xcat/xcat-dep
   rm /install/post/otherpkgs/<os>/<arch>/xcat/<xcat-core.tar>
   rm /install/post/otherpkgs/<os>/<arch>/xcat/<xcat-dep.tar>
   

2. Download the desired tar files from http://xcat.org/download.html to the Management Node, and untar them in the same NFS mounted /install/post/otherpkgs/ directory:

   cd /install/post/otherpkgs/<os>/<arch>/xcat/
   tar jxvf <new-xcat-core.tar>
   tar jxvf <new-xcat-dep.tar>
   

3. On the Service Node, run the package manager commands relative to the OS to update xCAT. For example, on RHEL, use the following yum commands:

   yum clean metadata # or yum clean all
   yum update '*xCAT*'