Overview

We want to make a new command to probe all the possible issues in xCAT. It can probe xCAT MN and xCAT node definition statically. It also can probe the node discovery and node deployment staticaly. The goal is to make a command to help xCAT users to predict and debug xCAT problems easily.

Interface

The syntax of the xcatprobe command:

xcatprobe <probe_type> [parameters]

xcatprobe # same as xcatprobe help
xcatprobe help
xcatprobe nodedef <noderange>
xcatprobe osdef <osimage>
xcatprobe xcatmn
xcatprobe node <noderange>
xcatprobe switch
xcatprobe nodeready <noderange> [console] [deployment]
xcatprobe nodediscover
xcatprobe nodedeploy

xcatprobe help

Display the usage of xcatprobe.

Display the basic usage
Display all the probe type

xcatprobe nodedef

Probe node definition.

Check validate of node name
Check ip<=>node entry in /etc/hosts
Check DNS resolution
Check HWcontrol: check definition and try the rpower status to make sure hwcontrol is ready for using.
Check attributes: mgt, netboot, mac

xcatprobe osdef

Probe the definition of OSimage

check the basic attribtues: imagetype, osarch, osdistroname, osname, osvers
check the existence of packages in pkgdir
check the packages in the otherpkgdir
check the entries in the pkglist and otherpkglist
check the rootimage in rootimgdir for netboot image

xcatprobe xcatmn

Probe the readiness of xCAT MN

Check the hostname, long name
Check xcatd has been started sucessfully(six processes is working)
Check xcatd is listening on 2 important port
Check the basic configuration of xcat: site table, passwd table, network table
Check mnip is configured on current server and is a static ip
Check the selinux has been disabled
Check the firewall has been closed
Check the free disk space of /tmp /var /install
Check the size of dhcpd.leases file less than 100MB
Check the network services are running configured properly: dhcpd, named, tftpd, httpd
Verify the all the above items for all the service nodes

xcatprobe node

Probe whether the node is ready for using

ssh without password
syslog has been configured
verify the parallel commands like xdsh: xdcp

xcatprobe switch

Probe the configuration of switches

Check whether the IP, user, password, auth have been configured
Check whether the snmp v1 /v3 are enabled
Check the system description/name from snmp
Display the mac table for the switch

xcatprobe nodeready [console] [deployment]

Probe the readiness of node.

Check the console configuration
- check the node attributes: cons, serial*
- check the cfg in /etc/conserver.cf
Check the readiness for OS deployment:
- provmethod is set, readiness of osimage
- dhcp set in dhcpd.leases
- readiness of bootloader and bootloader cfg file
- readiness of installer kernel + initrd
- readiness of installer cfg file
It can handle all the nodes in the

xcatprobe nodediscover [noderange]

Probe the node discovery process

Start a process to check the following stages for a node discovery process

check the dhcp dynamic range for BMC and host
- if possible, display the free ips in the range
check the readiness of genesis packages first
- check the genesis has been installed
- check the mknb has been run, the genesis kernel+initrd has been created
- check the cfg files have been created and the name is same with the one which has been cfged in the dhcpd.conf
for the case the [noderange] is specified
- check the nextbootorder to be network
node sends dhcp request and get an ip(syslog)
- the ip should be one from the host dynamic ip range
node downloads bootloader
- for x86_64: xnba (syslog/httplog)
- for ppc64le: none
- else: error
node downloads cfg file for bootloader
- for x86_64: xnba cfg (net_cfg for discovery)
- for ppc64le: petitboot cfg
node downloads genesis (kernel + initrd)
node run doxcat
node run discovery
node finish the info collection
node send findme request to xCAT MN
xcatd handle the findme request
xcat find or cannot find a matched node for the discovered node:
[for findme code specific instead of xcatprobe]
- if matched: display the matched node. (Add prefix with the discovery method like: [MTMS], [Switch], [SEQ])
- if not matched: display the
  - [MTMS]: my MTMS is xxxx, cannot find any pre-defined node;
  - [Switch]: my mac is xxxx, my switch port is yyyy+zzzz, cannot find any pre-defined node; Display the mac address table for the switch;
  - [SQE]: cannot find free host or bmc
- log the findme info if xcatdebugmode is enabled
update matched node
finished the node discovery
do the next task: bmcsetup ...

xcatprobe nodedeploy

Probe the process of node deployment

node sends dhcp request (syslog)
node downloads xnba (syslog/httplog)
node downloads xnba cfg (node specific cfg file)
node downloads installer (kernel + initrd)
node downloads cfg file for installer (kickstart, autoyast)
node start package install
node run postscript (A, B, C)
node reboot
node run postbootscript
node is sshd

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.