Prepare the Management Node
These steps prepare the Management Node for 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 yum package manager on RHEL 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 fileRHEL-LE-7.1-20150219.1-Server-ppc64le-dvd1.iso
Mount the iso to
/mnt/iso/rhels7.1
on the Management Node.mkdir -p /mnt/iso/rhels7.1 mount -o loop /tmp/RHEL-LE-7.1-20150219.1-Server-ppc64le-dvd1.iso /mnt/iso/rhels7.1
Create a yum repository file
/etc/yum.repos.d/rhels71-dvd.repo
that points to the locally mounted iso image from the above step. The file contents should appear as the following:[rhel-7.1-dvd-server] name=RHEL 7 SERVER packages baseurl=file:///mnt/iso/rhels7.1/Server enabled=1 gpgcheck=1
Configure the Management Node
By setting properties on the Management Node before installing the xCAT software will allow xCAT to automatically configure key attributes in the xCAT site
table during the install.
Ensure a hostname is configured on the management node by issuing the
hostname
command. [It’s recommended to use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) when setting the hostname]To set the hostname of xcatmn.cluster.com:
hostname xcatmn.cluster.com
Add the hostname to the
/etc/sysconfig/network
in order to persist the hostname on reboot.Reboot the server and verify the hostname by running the following commands:
hostname
hostname -d
- should display the domain
Reduce the risk of the Management Node IP address being lost by setting the IP to STATIC in the
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-<dev>
configuration files.Configure any domain search strings and nameservers to the
/etc/resolv.conf
file.