This set of templates, *.csv files, is based on the address scheme given: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/eserver/xseries/1350FS_0507.pdf. Additional information can be found in the /usr/share/doc/xCAT/xCAT2.0.doc[pdf] manual in the install. Check the 1350 default templates to see, if they apply to your environment. If you decide to use some of the templates or create your own, then you can use the tabrestore command on each template to load the tables in the database. The templates are located : /usr/share/xcat/templates/e1350 directory. To load the database tables with a set of templates: for i in *.csv; do tabrestore $i; done To verify run tabdump . For example: tabdump nodetype You can add nodes to the database by using the nodeadd command. See example below and /usr/share/doc/xCAT/xCAT2.0.doc[pdf]. For example, to add 2048 IPMI rackmount nodes which happen to start at the first U of the first rack, with each rack having a 1U switch and 41 servers plugged into that switch, numbered 1-41 in order. Nodes named node1-node2048, and be members of groups named: 41nodeperrack,41perswitch,ipmi,compute,all The run the following: nodeadd node1-node2048 groups=41nodeperrack,41perswitch,ipmi,compute,all After that, other tables will setup according to that scheme: nodels node1235 nodepos.u nodepos.rack switch.switch switch.port ipmi.bmc hosts.ip node1235: hosts.ip: 172.20.131.5 node1235: nodepos.u: 5 node1235: nodepos.rack: 31 node1235: switch.switch: switch31 node1235: switch.port: 5 node1235: ipmi.bmc: bmc1235 Note: the hosts table is only used if you use the makehosts command to setup /etc/hosts. An example with blades, 56 to a rack and padding out to four digits: nodeadd node0001-node2048 groups=blade,compute,all,56nodeperrack If wanting to use makehosts for non-server equipment, nodeadd can help for that as well with these templates: (Supplementing the previous rackmount example) nodeadd switch1-switch50 groups=switch nodeadd bmc1-bmc2048 groups=41bmcperrack makehosts switch,41bmcperrack (And to make hosts file entries for 147 AMMs for the 2048 blades above) nodeadd amm1-amm147 groups=amm makehosts amm