Identify the key checkpoint for below kind of node operation
- Provisioning
- Discovery
- Node reboot (Diskful)
The goal here is to standardize the xCAT status and provide a way for the Admin to better understand the progress of xCAT provisioning on the nodes and the state changes reflected in the status attribute for the node. If the node is stuck at some status, they can easily determine where the error occurred.
Although fine grained status is better for Admin to understand the whole progress, but considering the the less impact to xCAT daemon when provisioning large scale of nodes in the same time, only key status will be reported. Details progress could be got from the log system.
Note: site.nodestatus
could be set to N
to disable the node status reporting mechanism during the operations.
Provisioning
- Diskful installation In such kind of OS installation, xCAT will generate the corresponding boot configuration files and leverage the OS primitive installer to finish the whole OS installation and configuration.
Stage | Status | Set by | Notes |
Booting from net | powering-on | rpower | 1. Server is powering on 2. And try to boot itself via `bootp` on provision NIC |
OS Provisioning | installing | pre-script in kickstart | Operating System is installing |
booting | post-script in kickstart | After finishing all xCAT Postscript and Operating System is rebooting to firstboot | |
xCAT Postboot Processing | postbooting | xcatpostinit1->xcatinstallpost | Post Boot Scripts Running |
booted|failed | xcatpostinit1->xcatinstallpost | xCAT completed all defined configuration and OS is deployed. (If any postbootscript failed, the status will be failed) |
- Diskless installation In this kind of OS installation, xCAT will provision the node with a pre-built images.
Stage | Status | Set by | Notes |
Booting from net | powering-on | rpower | 1. Server is powering on 2. And try to boot itself via `bootp` on provision NIC |
OS Provisioning | netbooting | script in dracut | Operating System is installing |
xCAT Postboot Processing | postbooting | xcatpostinit1->xcatdlspost | Post Boot Scripts Running |
booted|failed | xcatpostinit1->xcatdlspost | xCAT completed all defined configuration and OS is deployed. (If any postbootscript failed, the status will be failed) |
Node reboot
For diskless node, a reboot means a new installation. So here is only for diskful compute nodes.
Stage | Status | Set by | Notes |
Shut-down | powering-off | rpower | Server is shutting down |
Rebooting | powering-on | rpower | Server is booting |
xCAT Postboot Processing | postbooting | xcatpostinit1->xcatdlspost | Post Boot Scripts Running (Only available when `site.runbootscripts=yes`) |
booted|failed | xcatpostinit1->xcatdlspost | xCAT completed all defined configuration and OS is deployed. (If any postbootscript failed, the status will be failed) |
A convenient tool to check the node status (After discussion, this feature is defered)
Now the status are only in log file, it is planned to have a new xcatprobe
sub-command to show the status changing history.
nodecheck config [-n noderange] [-V|--verbose]
nodecheck status [-n noderange] [-V|--verbose]
Example output:
boston02:
07-07-2017 17:01:27 powering-on
07-07-2017 17:10:26 installing
07-07-2017 17:31:08 booting
07-07-2017 17:38:08 postbooting
07-07-2017 17:39:47 booted
The contents in /var/log/xcat/cluster.log
like below:
cluster.log-20170709:Jul 7 17:01:27 c910f02c05p03 xcat: boston02 status: powering-on statustime: 07-07-2017 17:01:27
cluster.log-20170709:Jul 7 17:10:26 c910f02c05p03 xcat: boston02 status: installing statustime: 07-07-2017 17:10:26
cluster.log-20170709:Jul 7 17:31:08 c910f02c05p03 xcat: boston02 status: booting statustime: 07-07-2017 17:31:08
cluster.log-20170709:Jul 7 17:39:47 c910f02c05p03 xcat: boston02 status: booted statustime: 07-07-2017 17:39:47
Q & A document on how to debug the issue
If a node has an intermediate status for a long time, it may mean some issues on it. Here we need provide a Q&A for it. When the node hang at one status, how to debug and find the root cause.
Other Design Considerations
- N/A
Out of Scope
As the status is reported by Compute Nodes, so if there might be potential issue the status cannot be reported to management node successfully. (For example, networking issue)
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.