Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation
Sunil, I don't recall seeing any documentation on those parts. I had to poke around looking at parts of xCAT to see how it worked. It's been a few years since I did that; so, I don't remember much about the process. My recommendation would be to start looking at things in the rootimg.gz image. Looking at it now, I see that /opt/xcat/xcatdsklspost gets run when rootimg.gz boots. It looks like it downloads all of the postscripts from the management node and then run getpostscript.awk which issues a command to xcatd to get the primary postscript for that machine. I've forgotten how xcatd then builds the primary postscript. I do remember that in the partimageng.pm module, I had it add the partimageng postscript. So, you'll really have to start digging through how the xcat postscript system works. Josh On Tuesday June 07, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote: Josh, Is there any place I could find some details on ... /Once the compute node is booted with the stateless image, it uses NFS to mount some things from the management node, and then runs some xcat postscripts,/ I have the stateless images ready with partimage compiled for PPC. For the compute node (power 7) to boot using the stateless images, i need to configure the yaboot instead of pxeboot (which is specific to x86). I wanted to know where in the startup files the execution of partimage and NFS mount is configured. Is it configured by the genimage command itself? Considering the way in which the nodes are configured in the network, it would not be a good idea to let xcat take care of configuring the details like DHCPD for netboot. So, I need to make changes to the configuration files manually, which is why this query came up. Thanks in advance. Regards, Sunil On 6/1/11 1:39 PM, Josh Thompson wrote: Sunil, The stateless image I refer to is what is actually booted on the compute node containing the image to be captured. It's called stateless because it is loaded completely in RAM and does not maintain any state when a reboot occurs. The partimage binary is part of this stateless image and actually runs on the compute node. It does not run on the management node. The management node does not have block level access to the disk on the compute node to be able to capture the image from the disk. I'll try to describe the process a little better. The management node issues a reboot command to the compute node. The compute node uses PXE to load and boot a kernel (vmlinuz), initial RAM disk (initrd.img), and a root filesystem (rootimg.gz) from the management node. All three of these together make up the stateless image. Once the compute node is booted with the stateless image, it uses NFS to mount some things from the management node, and then runs some xcat postscripts, one of which is the partimageng postscript. This postscript determines what partitions are on the compute node and, depending on how the postscript is configured, uses partimage or partimageng to capture an image of the compute node disk that is then saved to the management node. When it is finished capturing the image, it notifies xcat on the management node and then reboots. xcat reconfigures itself to tell the compute node to boot off of disk at next boot. When the compute node comes up, it uses PXE to ask the management node how to boot. The management node tells it to boot off of disk. I hope that clarifies how the system works. If any of it is unclear, please ask for further clarification. Josh On Wednesday June 01, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote: Josh, I had one more clarification. partimage binaries run in the management node to capture an (stateless) image from the compute node right? In that case, is there a need for these binaries to go into the rootimg.gz?? My assumption is, partimage runs on the management node (an intel blade in our case) to capture a stateless image from a compute node (a power 7 blade) and stores these images under /install of the management node. Please correct me if I am wrong here. Regards, Sunil On 6/1/11 9:58 AM, Josh Thompson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday May 31, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote: Hi, I used the steps that were mentioned under https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/VCL/Adding+support+for+par ti mag e+and+partimage- ng+to+xCAT+2.x+%28unofficial%29 to enable partimage support for xcat. I wasn't sure if I need to change references to x86 x86_64 (as directories) to reflect the ppc architecture, as the web page says The architecture for the node must always be set to x86 for this... I have with me the vmlinuz (kernel image) and initrd for the capture process. The 2 nodeset commands By this, do you mean you have vmlinuz and initrd for your power blades, not the ones linked to off of the page you
Re: VCL xCAT2.x BladeCenter
hi Josh, no i do not have the 'os' filed set to 'image' in the nodetype table. also i do not have the 'arch' field set to 'x86', instead i have it set to 'x86_64'. this probably explains why it is not progressing. just so i understand this correctly, this has been my approach, can you confirm if i am following the right trial of path. - first i got my xcat to work, so that i can install an os on baremetal using pxe boot with kickstart templates. - second i got the vcl code setup with unoffical-partimage-setup information. - third i followed the instructions at https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/create-a-linux-base-image.html to capture the baremetal install of the 'os' on a blade. back to the partimage plugin: i read around line number 142: unless (-r $installroot/image/$arch/$profile.img or -r $installroot/image/$arch/$profile.gz or -r $installroot/image/$arch/$profile-parta1.gz) does the above imply that if my 'profile' in nodetype table is set to 'vcl_rhel_node_template' then i need to have the following file under $installroot/image/$arch/ vcl_rhel_node_template.img vcl_rhel_node_template.gz vcl_rhel_node_template-parta1.gz ?? regards, prem -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Prem, Make sure you have partimageng.pm in /opt/xcat/lib/perl/xCAT_plugin. The os field in nodetype needs to be image and the arch field needs to be x86. Can you confirm that is what you have specified in nodetype? Josh On Tuesday June 07, 2011, Prem Kumar wrote: hello, i am trying to get bare metal installs to work with vcl2.2 and xcat 2.x using the info provided at: https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng- to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html my xcat installation works fine: i have successfully installed rhel nodes using the following commands nodeset nodename install=Template rpower nodename boot now when i want to first image and then install using the partimage i am having issues as follows: i am running into following error the moment I type in: nodeset node image even after rebooting the management node there has been no change in this error. baremetal-chassis1-13: Unable to identify plugin for this command, check relevant tables: nodetype.os Error: Some nodes failed to set up image resources, aborting to my understanding, for some reason partimage plugin is not being fond or recognized by xcat. can anybody please help. regards, prem. - -- - --- Josh Thompson VCL Developer North Carolina State University
Re: VCL xCAT2.x BladeCenter
hi Josh, kindly bare with other inline questions before i try out your suggestions - 'vcl_rhel_node_template' then i need to have the following file under $installroot/image/$arch/ vcl_rhel_node_template.img vcl_rhel_node_template.gz vcl_rhel_node_template-parta1.gz The above code means that you must have at least one of those files present in $installroot/image/$arch/. Those are the disk image files created by partimageng (any .img files) or partimage (any .gz files). The partimage stuff documented at the unofficial page always uses x86 as for $arch. It will still handle imaging/restoring x86_64 images. Since both x86 and x86_64 were handled the same way, I never bothered making it distinguish between them. So, all images captured with partimage using those instruction will be under $installroot/image/x86/ as i understand: essentially files vcl_rhel_node_template.img 'or' vcl_rhel_node_template.gz gets created for the first time after i have successfully captured an image using the partimageng or partimage respectfully? and this is done using the command 'nodeset node image' also do you think having ssh communicate to private management node over eth1, and compute nodes accessible to end users with ext_ssh over eth0, an issue with the 'vcl code' at any point? regards, prem.
Re: VCL xCAT2.x BladeCenter
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday June 08, 2011, Prem Kumar wrote: hi Josh, kindly bare with other inline questions before i try out your suggestions - 'vcl_rhel_node_template' then i need to have the following file under $installroot/image/$arch/ vcl_rhel_node_template.img vcl_rhel_node_template.gz vcl_rhel_node_template-parta1.gz The above code means that you must have at least one of those files present in $installroot/image/$arch/. Those are the disk image files created by partimageng (any .img files) or partimage (any .gz files). The partimage stuff documented at the unofficial page always uses x86 as for $arch. It will still handle imaging/restoring x86_64 images. Since both x86 and x86_64 were handled the same way, I never bothered making it distinguish between them. So, all images captured with partimage using those instruction will be under $installroot/image/x86/ as i understand: essentially files vcl_rhel_node_template.img 'or' vcl_rhel_node_template.gz gets created for the first time after i have successfully captured an image using the partimageng or partimage respectfully? Correct. and this is done using the command 'nodeset node image' Correct. also do you think having ssh communicate to private management node over eth1, and compute nodes accessible to end users with ext_ssh over eth0, an issue with the 'vcl code' at any point? I don't think it will be a problem. At one point in the past, eth0 had to be used for the private network and eth1 for the public. However, I believe all places that were hard coded to one or the other have been updated to be configurable. Josh - -- - --- Josh Thompson VCL Developer North Carolina State University my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk3vmIcACgkQV/LQcNdtPQP9MQCfUbNU+p9i5994kzm7PH47x1av 5T8AmgOAfuUgtS6evSG2IBN7pBOSaQsC =1qDh -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: VCL xCAT2.x BladeCenter
hi Josh, made some progress with 'os' and 'arch' in nodetype set to 'image' and 'x86', yet i am missing something. kindly could you confirm where i went wrong from below in reference to xcat and partimage setup: - successfully installed a compute node with pxe boot and 'ks' template located under: /install/custom/install/rh - copied vmlinuz and initrd.img from here(https://cwiki.apache.org/VCLDOCS/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html) to /tftpboot/xcat/image/x86/ - also copied rootimg.gz to /install/image/x86/installer_files/ ++since the above images were built with eth0 as the primary nic, i changed it to eth1 because that being my primary nic. ++ not sure if the rootimg.gz here has to be the cpio image from the install of the compute node in the first step? and the vmlinuz and initrd.img from the disk or rhel used to install the compute node. - then set 'os' and 'arch' in nodetype table to 'image' and 'x86' respectively - next typed in the following command: nodeset node image ++ at this point it complained that it could not find: /opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/image/createimage.x86.tmpl , i was hoping my file /opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/image/vcl_rhel_template.tmpl with this single line(#INCLUDE:../scripts/post.rh#) in it should have done the job. not sure why it only needs createimage.x86.tmpl ? after creating the required(createimage.x86.tmpl) file, and the typing the above command creates appropriate pxe configuration files in /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/ with the url and action to save the image etc, which seems right. - now type in the following command to boot the node so as to save the image upon reboot rpower node boot at this point if everything is right, following should happen the stateless image will be used to boot in initial ram disk then use the postinstall partimage script to save the image of the current installation of the 'os' onto the location on management node. +++ here i don't see when does one gets the post install scripts(partimage) from management node? this should finish the capture process hope this is correct? regards, prem.
