Greetings xCAT experts.
I was bitten by something that appears to be a bug, but I ask you, "Is
this really a bug?"
The bottom line is that if I specify a mkdef command to manually create
a definition of an HMC on a Power system, I can successfully do an rscan
using the HMC definition if and only if I specify a userid and password
for the HMC on the mkdef command.
I decided I needed to manually create a definition of an HMC because my
management node was not on the same subnet as the HMC. In the
XCAT_System_p_Hardware_Management document, under the "Add the default
account for the hmc" section, I see instructions to create default
values for the userid and password for HMCs. I followed those
instructions, which led to the following "hmc" entry appearing in the
passwd table:
# tabdump passwd
#key,username,password,cryptmethod,comments,disable
"system","root","cluster",,,
"omapi","xcat_key","MHI1QUNJeGwzQ1BPTXJLaHh0bGVJV21TNHJZYVdUTUY=",,,
"hmc","hscroot","abc123",,,
The document goes on to show how to manually define an HMC entry, but
only in the context of doing that because the userid and/or password
differs from the default just put into the passwd table.
I thought I wanted to create a manual entry for other reasons. Since
the userid and password were not different from what I had just put into
the passwd table, I decided to do the mkdef to define the HMC without
specifying a userid and password:
# mkdef -t node -o aphmc5 groups="hmc,all" nodetype=hmc mgt=hmc
1 object definitions have been created or modified.
When I then tried to do an rscan, I got an error:
# rscan -z aphmc5
The node aphmc5 is neither a hcp nor an lpar
After a lot of poking around, I finally realized that I could get the
rscan to work if I set the userid and password on the mkdef command:
# rmdef -t node -o aphmc5
# mkdef -t node -o aphmc5 groups="hmc,all" nodetype=hmc mgt=hmc \
username=hscroot password=abc123
1 object definitions have been created or modified.
# rscan -z aphmc5
... got a lot of info about CECs and LPARs
After trying both types of mkdef several times and looking at how xCAT
database tables were changed, I discovered that when I do the mkdef with
the userid and password, among many other table changes made, an entry
is added to the ppchcp table, BUT when I do the mkdef without the userid
and password, no such entry is added to ppchcp.
This seems to my inexperienced eyes to be a bug. I would think that
whether or not I specify a userid and password on the mkdef, an entry
would be added to ppchcp. Looking at the documentation of the ppchcp
table columns, it sure looks like an entry without userid and password
values should be valid, and the code should in that case use the userid
and password found in the passwd table:
# tabdump -d ppchcp
hcp: Hostname of the HMC or IVM.
username: Userid of the HMC or IVM. If not filled in, xCAT \
willlook in the passwd table for key=hmc or key=ivm. \
If not in the passwd table, the default used is \
hscroot or HMCs and padmin for IVMs.
password: Password of the HMC or IVM. If not filled in, xCAT \
will look in the passwd table for key=hmc or key=ivm. \
If not in the passwd table, the default used is \
abc123 for HMCs and padmin for IVMs.
comments: Any user-written notes.
disable: Set to 'yes' or '1' to comment out this row.
Poking around the code, there is only one location, in PPC.pm, where the
error message "The node aphmc5 is neither a hcp nor an lpar" can be
generated. I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the code, but it did
appear that the error message could be generated if there were no entry
in the ppchcp table for the HMC specified.
Shouldn't the mkdef command be creating an entry in the ppchcp table
when I don't specify a userid and password? Or am I misunderstanding
something?
Regards,
Eric Agar
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