New Functions and Changes in Behavior
Features
New Commands
-
go-xcat
- A tool to perform xCAT installationTo use
go-xcat
to install or update xCAT:# wget http://xcat.org/files/go-xcat -O - >/tmp/go-xcat # chmod +x /tmp/go-xcat # /tmp/go-xcat install (install the latest stable version of xCAT) # /tmp/go-xcat -x devel install (install the latest development version of xCAT)
-
xcatprobe
- A command to probe/diagnose potential problems with xCAT (BETA)-
Use the
-l
option to list the supported sub-commands:# xcatprobe -l Supported sub commands are: switch-macmap To retrieve MAC address mapping for the specified switch, or all the switches defined in switches table in xCAT db. detect_dhcpd detect_dhcpd can be used to detect the dhcp server in a network for a specific mac address. Before using this command, please install tcpdump command ahead. The operating system supported are redhat, sles, ubuntu and debian. osdeploy Do probe for os provision process, realtime monitor of os provision process. xcatmn After xcat installation, use this command to check if xcat has been installed correctly and is ready for use. Before using this command, please install tftp, nslookup and wget commands ahead. The platform supported are redhat, sles and ubuntu. discovery Do probe for discovery process, including pre-check for required configuration and realtime monitor of discovery process.Before using this command, please install nslookup command ahead. image Use this command to check if all compute nodes have the same images installed or if compute nodes are installed with the same image as defined on MN.
-
Probe the configuration for xCAT Management Node:
xcatprobe xcatmn -n eth0
-
Probe the node discovery process:
xcatprobe discovery
-
Probe the OS deployment process for nodes. To collect all the messages for OS deployment start the probe command before the OS deployment:
xcatprobe osdeploy -n <noderange>
-
Probe the mac address mapping of switches to help debug switch-based discovery problems:
xcatprobe switch-macmap
-
New arguments
-
lsdef
andmkdef
commands now support a--template
option.-
To list all the template files shipped by xCAT:
lsdef --template
-
To create a new compute node object based on the
ppc64lekvmguest-template
template:mkdef -t node cn1 --template ppc64lekvmguest-template ...
-
New Functions
-
Enhance
rinstall
rinstall
now supports Operating System deployment for all Operating Systems and Architectures. Leverage this single command to replace the various arcitecture specific sequences:nodeset
->rsetboot/rbootseq/rnetboot
->rpower
.rinstall <noderange> osimage=<image name>
-
xcatdebugmode
- supports diskless provisioningSet
site.xcatdebugmode=1
to generate debug log information during the netbooting process of diskless nodes. -
Refine hardware discovery framework
xCAT hardware discovery framework has been improved to generate more useful logs during hardware discovery
Example of the logs generated during switch-based hardware discovery:
xcat[91111]: xcat.discovery.aaadiscovery: (8335-GTB*100464A) Get a discover request xcat[91111]: xcat.discovery.blade: (8335-GTB*100464A) Processing discovery request xcat[91111]: xcat.discovery.blade: (8335-GTB*100464A) Error: Could not find any node xcat[91111]: xcat.discovery.switch: (8335-GTB*100464A) Processing discovery request xcat[91111]: xcat.discovery.switch: (8335-GTB*100464A) Find node:c910f05c29 for the discovery request xcat: The attribute bmcinband is specified, just remove the temp BMC node if there is xcat: Find BMC node-8335-gtb-100464a, so remove it xcat: c910f05c29 has been discovered xcat[91111]: xcat.discovery.zzzdiscovery: (8335-GTB*100464A) Finish to process the discovery request xcat[91111]: xcat.discovery.zzzdiscovery: (8335-GTB*100464A) Successfully processed by switch method
-
Enhance
rscan
- scans KVM hostsrscan
has been enhanced to scan the user created KVM guests on KVM host machines.One restriction is the scanned kvm guests do not support
mkvm/chvm
commands.
xCAT Documentation
xCAT documentation is hosted on ReadTheDocs: http://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/en/2.12.1/index.html
Download xCAT
-
xcat-core
- RHEL/SLES - xcat-core-2.12.1-linux.tar.bz2
- Ubuntu - xcat-core-2.12.1-ubuntu.tar.bz2
-
xcat-dep
- RHEL/SLES - xcat-dep-2.12.1-linux.tar.bz2
- Ubuntu - xcat-dep-2.12.1-ubuntu.tar.bz2
Test Environment
Hardware Platform and Operating Systems which have been verified:
Hardware Platform | Operation System |
---|---|
IBM Power S822LC | RHELS7.2 |
IBM Power S822LC | Ubuntu14.04.4 |
IBM Power S822LC | Ubuntu16.04 |
IBM Power S822LC | SLES12 SP1 |
IBM Power 750 | RHELS7.2 |
IBM Power 750 | SLES11 SP4 |
iDataPlex M4 DX360 | RHELS7.2 |
iDataPlex M4 DX360 | SLES11 SP4 |
iDataPlex M4 DX360 | Ubuntu14.04.4 |
iDataPlex M4 DX360 | Ubuntu16.04 |
iDataPlex M4 DX360 | SLES12 SP1 |
Key Bug Fixes
-
Issue 1258
switchdiscover -s snmp
could not get Mellanox switch's mac -
Issue 1252
switchdiscover -s snmp
could not use port 161 by nmap way on rh env -
Issue 1114 Bug fix for
switchdiscover -s snmp
. -
Issue 1115 Improved the performance for hardware discovery.
-
Issue 1122 Fixed a genimage issue that it will caused the /dev on the MN to be readonly.
-
Issue 1008 Fixed the issue that
restart xcatd
might report certain DB access problem.
Restrictions and Known Problems
-
Issue 1329 xCAT has problem to support slatelite against sles12.1
-
Issue 1415
xcatprobe image
subcommand has problem to handle the compute nodes have different osimage. -
Issue 1487
xcatprobe discovery|osdeploy
does not support sles11.x
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.