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Target:
- enable the management of essential information of osimage under source control tool such as GIT
- provide an easy workflow to generate, manage and apply the osimage versions
- enable the sharing of osimages among clusters
Design:
the osimage entity under source control
1. the content of the osimage entity under source control:
• the osimage definition in YAML format, generated by “xcat-inventory export”
osimage:
rhels7.4-ppc64le-netboot-compute:
basic_attributes:
arch: ppc64le
distribution: rhels7.4
osdistro: rhels7.4-ppc64le
osname: Linux
diskpartitionspec: /install/osimages/rhels7.4-ppc64le-netboot-compute/scripts/partfile
genimgoptions:
exlist: /opt/xcat/share/xcat/netboot/rh/compute.rhels7.ppc64le.exlist
permission: '755'
postinstall: /opt/xcat/share/xcat/netboot/rh/compute.rhels7.ppc64le.postinstall
rootimgdir: /install/netboot/rhels7.4/ppc64le/compute
imagetype: linux
package_selection:
otherpkgdir: /install/post/otherpkgs/rhels7.4/ppc64le
pkgdir: /install/rhels7.4/ppc64le
pkglist: /opt/xcat/share/xcat/netboot/rh/compute.rhels7.ppc64le.pkglist
provision_mode: netboot
role: compute
scripts:
postbootscripts: scriptC,scriptD
postscripts: scriptA,scriptB
schema_version: '2.0'
• the files inferred in the osimage definition:
- pkglist(if customized)
- otherpkglist(if customized)
- postscripts(if customized)
- postbootscripts(if customized)
- diskpartitionspec
- filestosync
- template(if customized)
- exlist(if customized)
- postinstall(if customized)
- initrd and compressed rootimg(not by default)
- the information about the repo under pkgdir and otherpkgdir directories
2. the directory hierarchy of osimage entity
the related path of the files under the osimage directory follows the relative path in the osimage definition under “/”, the directory hierarchy of the osimage “rhels7.4-ppc64le-netboot-compute” is:
./install/postscripts/scriptA
./install/postscripts/scriptB
./install/postscripts/scriptC
./install/postscripts/scriptD
./install/osimages/rhels7.4-ppc64le-netboot-compute/scripts/partfile
./definition.yaml
the workflow of osimage versions:
xcat-inventory export –t osimage –o rhels7.4-ppc64le-netboot-comput –f then a osimage entity will be generated under the specified path
the osimage directory can be managed under source control system.
The genimage and packimage can be performed according to the osimage definition under the osimage directory instead of osimage definition in DB by “genimage –f ”, “packimage –f ”, the generated initrd and compressed rootimg can be placed to the same place in current xCAT code logic “/install/netboot/….”
After osimage is confirmed work fine during provision, it can be applied to xCATdb by “xcat-inventory import –f”
The osimages can be shared by pull the osimage directory from the source control repo of share the tarball of the osimage directory. User should make sure the “pkgdir” and “otherpkgdir” holding the packages is compatible with the osimage definition.
The restructure of osimage entity in xCAT
Currently, the osimages share lots of files shipped by xCAT, such as pkglist, templates. This caused some difficulty while share or source control the osimages. An idea is to infer these default files by a “#INCLUDE#” clause in side the files of each osimage, so that each osimage will have all the files, 3-rd party rpms, initrd and rootimg(for diskless) in its director
News
- Apr 22, 2016: xCAT 2.11.1 released.
- Mar 11, 2016: xCAT 2.9.3 (AIX only) released.
- Dec 11, 2015: xCAT 2.11 released.
- Nov 11, 2015: xCAT 2.9.2 (AIX only) released.
- Jul 30, 2015: xCAT 2.10 released.
- Jul 30, 2015: xCAT migrates from sourceforge to github
- Jun 26, 2015: xCAT 2.7.9 released.
- Mar 20, 2015: xCAT 2.9.1 released.
- Dec 12, 2014: xCAT 2.9 released.
- Sep 5, 2014: xCAT 2.8.5 released.
- May 23, 2014: xCAT 2.8.4 released.
- Jan 24, 2014: xCAT 2.7.8 released.
- Nov 15, 2013: xCAT 2.8.3 released.
- Jun 26, 2013: xCAT 2.8.2 released.
- May 17, 2013: xCAT 2.7.7 released.
- May 10, 2013: xCAT 2.8.1 released.
- Feb 28, 2013: xCAT 2.8 released.
- Nov 30, 2012: xCAT 2.7.6 released.
- Oct 29, 2012: xCAT 2.7.5 released.
- Aug 27, 2012: xCAT 2.7.4 released.
- Jun 22, 2012: xCAT 2.7.3 released.
- May 25, 2012: xCAT 2.7.2 released.
- Apr 20, 2012: xCAT 2.7.1 released.
- Mar 19, 2012: xCAT 2.7 released.
- Mar 15, 2012: xCAT 2.6.11 released.
- Jan 23, 2012: xCAT 2.6.10 released.
- Nov 15, 2011: xCAT 2.6.9 released.
- Sep 30, 2011: xCAT 2.6.8 released.
- Aug 26, 2011: xCAT 2.6.6 released.
- May 20, 2011: xCAT 2.6 released.
- Feb 14, 2011: Watson plays on Jeopardy and is managed by xCAT!
- xCAT Release Notes Summary
- xCAT OS And Hw Support Matrix
- xCAT Test Environment Summary
History
- Oct 22, 2010: xCAT 2.5 released.
- Apr 30, 2010: xCAT 2.4 is released.
- Oct 31, 2009: xCAT 2.3 released.
xCAT's 10 year anniversary! - Apr 16, 2009: xCAT 2.2 released.
- Oct 31, 2008: xCAT 2.1 released.
- Sep 12, 2008: Support for xCAT 2
can now be purchased! - June 9, 2008: xCAT breaths life into
(at the time) the fastest
supercomputer on the planet - May 30, 2008: xCAT 2.0 for Linux
officially released! - Oct 31, 2007: IBM open sources
xCAT 2.0 to allow collaboration
among all of the xCAT users. - Oct 31, 1999: xCAT 1.0 is born!
xCAT started out as a project in
IBM developed by Egan Ford. It
was quickly adopted by customers
and IBM manufacturing sites to
rapidly deploy clusters.