Installing

Follow the Install chapter of "Top Document" xCAT2top.pdf

xCAT is installed with the command:

yum install xCAT

(There's some stuff to do before and after that though.)

System

A new system is installed with SL53 x64 running in VMware. Dual CPUs and 2GB RAM. 8GB system disk, 2GB swap, and a second drive with 8GB for /opt. System has private and public network connections at .2. Added my ssh_key disabled root ssh with password. Yum updated. Turn ntpd on. SELinux disabled. IPTables disabled. Add PEERDNS=no to ifcfg-ethX files.

Software Packages

Setup Local YUM Repos

Get latest xcat-core and xcat-dep packages from sourceforge. These are tarballs of two yum repos. Note that sourceforge.net not reachable from aglt2.org. Conveniently, xCAT provides an install process for nodes that are not on internet.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcat/files/

got xcat-core-2.2.2.tar.bz2 and xcat-dep-2.3-200908121603.tar.bz2

create /opt/xcat-yum, unpack tarballs, creating /opt/xcat-yum/xcat-core and /opt/xcat-yum/xcat-dep. run mklocalrepo.sh script for core and proper version in dep, these will create .repo file in /etc/yum.d correct for these local repos:

[root@xcat xcat-yum]# sh /opt/xcat-yum/xcat-core/mklocalrepo.sh 
[root@xcat xcat-yum]# sh /opt/xcat-yum/xcat-dep/rh5/x86_64/mklocalrepo.sh

[root@xcat xcat-yum]# yum list xcat
Loaded plugins: kernel-module
xcat-dep                                                 |  951 B     00:00     
primary.xml.gz                                           |  14 kB     00:00     
xcat-dep                                                       33/33
xcat-2-core                                              |  951 B     00:00     
Available Packages
xCAT.i386                    2.2.2-snap200907211351                  xcat-2-core
xCAT.x86_64                  2.2.2-snap200907211351                  xcat-2-core

Things Needed on System

Install these OS level RPMS: dhcp, bin, expect, httpd, nfs-utils, vsftpd, perl-XML-Parser. Had no trouble doing this on SL53.

Do It

[root@xcat ~]# yum install xCAT
...
================================================================================
 Package                  Arch    Version                    Repository    Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 xCAT                     x86_64  2.2.2-snap200907211351     xcat-2-core  203 k
 xCAT                     i386    2.2.2-snap200907211351     xcat-2-core  203 k
Installing for dependencies:
 atftp                    x86_64  0.7-9                      xcat-dep      36 k
 conserver                x86_64  8.1.16-7                   xcat-dep     220 k
 fping                    x86_64  2.4b2_to-2                 xcat-dep      20 k
 ipmitool                 x86_64  1.8.11-3                   xcat-dep     393 k
 lm_sensors               x86_64  2.10.7-4.el5               sl-base      528 k
 net-snmp                 x86_64  1:5.3.2.2-5.el5            sl-base      716 k
 net-snmp-libs            x86_64  1:5.3.2.2-5.el5            sl-base      1.2 M
 net-snmp-perl            x86_64  1:5.3.2.2-5.el5            sl-base      195 k
 nmap                     x86_64  2:4.11-1.1                 sl-base      680 k
 perl-DBD-SQLite          x86_64  1.14-1                     xcat-dep     294 k
 perl-DBI                 x86_64  1.52-2.el5                 sl-base      605 k
 perl-Expect              noarch  1.21-1                     xcat-dep      72 k
 perl-IO-Socket-SSL       noarch  1.01-1.fc6                 sl-base       49 k
 perl-IO-Tty              x86_64  1.07-1                     xcat-dep      40 k
 perl-Net-SSLeay          x86_64  1.30-4.fc6                 sl-base      192 k
 perl-XML-Simple          noarch  2.14-4.fc6                 sl-base       68 k
 perl-xCAT                noarch  4:2.2.2-snap200908241257   xcat-2-core  300 k
 xCAT-client              noarch  4:2.2.2-snap200908241257   xcat-2-core  4.7 M
 xCAT-nbkernel-ppc64      noarch  1:2.6.18_92-4              xcat-dep     7.9 M
 xCAT-nbkernel-x86        noarch  1:2.6.18_92-8              xcat-dep     6.4 M
 xCAT-nbkernel-x86_64     noarch  1:2.6.18_92-8              xcat-dep     6.9 M
 xCAT-nbroot-core-ppc64   noarch  4:2.2.1-snap200905282321   xcat-2-core   19 k
 xCAT-nbroot-core-x86     noarch  4:2.2.1-snap200905282321   xcat-2-core   19 k
 xCAT-nbroot-core-x86_64  noarch  4:2.2.1-snap200905282321   xcat-2-core   19 k
 xCAT-nbroot-oss-ppc64    noarch  2.0-snap200801291320       xcat-dep     2.4 M
 xCAT-nbroot-oss-x86      noarch  2.0-snap200804021050       xcat-dep     2.3 M
 xCAT-nbroot-oss-x86_64   noarch  2.0-snap200801291344       xcat-dep     2.3 M
 xCAT-server              noarch  4:2.2.2-snap200908241257   xcat-2-core  518 k
 yaboot-xcat              noarch  1.3.14-2                   xcat-dep     100 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install     31 Package(s)         
Update       0 Package(s)         
Remove       0 Package(s)         

Total download size: 40 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
...

Note that the installed does the sane thing and leaves dhcpd off.

Start Using It!

[root@xcat ~]# source /etc/profile.d/xcat.sh 
[root@xcat ~]# tabdump site
#key,value,comments,disable
"xcatdport","3001",,
"xcatiport","3002",,
"tftpdir","/tftpboot",,
"master","127.0.0.1",,
"domain",,,
"installdir","/install",,
"timezone","America/New_York",,
"nameservers","10.10.2.15",,

-- TomRockwell - 05 Sep 2009