XCAT_2.12.1_Release_Notes

New Functions and Changes in Behavior

New Features

• New command go-xcat

  A tool to perform xCAT install.

  Refer to the xCAT download page http://xcat.org/download.html

  Steps to use go-xcat to install/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 development version of xCAT)

• New option --template for lsdef and mkdef commands

  • lsdef --template

    List all xCAT shipped template files.

  • mkdef -t node cn1 --template ppc64lekvmguest-template ip=1.1.1.1 ...

    Create a new node base on the template ppc64lekvmguest-template.

• Enhance rinstall command

  Now the new rinstall command supports to perform the OS deployment for all the OS and ARCHs. You can leverage this command to replace the sequence of nodeset->rsetboot/rbootseq/rnetboot->rpower commands.

  rinstall <noderange> osimage=<image name>

• Add xcatdebugmode support for diskless

  When enable the site.xcatdebugmode=1, additional debug logs will be generated for the netbooting process of diskless node.

• Refine the discovery framework

  xCAT discovery framework has been refined to generate more reasonable logs for hardware discovery process.

  Following is an example of logs for a 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 command to scan the KVM host

  The rscan command was enhanced to scan the user created kvm guess against KVM host. The restriction is the scanned kvm guest does not support mkvm/chvm commands.

• New command xcatprobe (EXPERIMENTAL)

  xcatprobe is a new added command which is designed to probe any potential xCAT problems.

  # 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.

• xcatprobe xcatmn -n eth0

  Probe the configuration for xCAT Management Node.

• xcatprobe discovery

  Probe the node discovery process.

• xcatprobe osdeploy -n <noderange>

  Probe the OS deployment process for nodes. To collect all the messages for OS deployment, you should start this command before the OS deployment.

• xcatprobe switch-macmap

  Probe the mac mapping of switches for switch-based NODE discovery. This is a very useful subcommand to debug the switch-based discovery problem.

xCAT Documentation

xCAT documentation is hosted on ReadTheDocs: http://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

Download xCAT

• xcat-core

  • RHEL/SLES - xcat-core-2.12-linux.tar.bz2
  • Ubuntu - xcat-core-2.12-ubuntu.tar.bz2

• xcat-dep

  • RHEL/SLES - xcat-dep-2.12-linux.tar.bz2
  • Ubuntu - xcat-dep-2.12-ubuntu.tar.bz2

  • xCAT currently provides ipmitool-xcat-1.8.15 for the following Operating systems:

    • RHEL 7 (ppc64le, ppc64, x86_64)
    • RHEL 6 (ppc64, x86_64)
    • SLES 12 (ppc64le, x86_64)
    • SLES 11 (ppc64, x86_64)

    1.8.15 or higher must be installed on an xCAT MN that manages OpenPower machines.

Test Environment

Hardware Platform and Operating Systems which have been verified:

Hardware Platform	Operation System
IBM Power S822LC	RHELS7.2
IBM Power S822LC	Ubuntu14.04.3
IBM Power S822LC	Ubuntu14.04.4
IBM Power S822LC	Ubuntu16.04
IBM Power S822LC	SLES12
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	Ubuntu14.04.3
iDataPlex M4 DX360	Ubuntu14.04.4
iDataPlex M4 DX360	Ubuntu16.04
iDataPlex M4 DX360	SLES12 SP1

Key Bug Fixes

• Issue 1258

• Issue 1252

• Issue 1114 Bug fix for switchdiscover -s snmp.

• 1115 Improved the performance for hardware discovery.

• 1122 Fixed a genimage issue that it will caused the /dev on the MN to be readonly.

• 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.