XCAT_2.12.1_Release_Notes

New Functions and Changes in Behavior

Features

New Commands

• go-xcat - A tool to perform xCAT installation

  To 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 and mkdef 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 provisioning

  Set 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 hosts

  rscan 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