Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
The requested document has been attached to https://sourceforge.net/p/xcat/wiki/HowTos/ at the xCAT Overview link. Lissa K. Valletta 8-3/B10 Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 (tie 293) 433-3102 From: Lissa Valletta/Poughkeepsie/IBM@IBMUS To: Josh Nielsen jniel...@hudsonalpha.org Cc: xCAT Users Mailing list xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net Date: 10/20/2014 01:58 PM Subject:Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book I can ask him. Lissa K. Valletta 8-3/B10 Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 (tie 293) 433-3102 Inactive hide details for Josh Nielsen ---10/20/2014 01:02:10 PM---Actually, it occurs to me to ask: Can Jordi's presentation bJosh Nielsen ---10/20/2014 01:02:10 PM---Actually, it occurs to me to ask: Can Jordi's presentation be uploaded to the sourceforge wiki so th From: Josh Nielsen jniel...@hudsonalpha.org To: xCAT Users Mailing list xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: Lissa Valletta/Poughkeepsie/IBM@IBMUS Date: 10/20/2014 01:02 PM Subject: Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book Actually, it occurs to me to ask: Can Jordi's presentation be uploaded to the sourceforge wiki so that it can benefit more people? -Josh On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Josh Nielsen jniel...@hudsonalpha.org wrote: Hi John, I had a similar experience to you in the matter of the documentation only taking me so far and the rest was left to my real world implementations (mostly troubleshooting when things didn't go as expected). xCAT has dependencies on many other things that are assumed to be working already (like SNMP on switches if you are using network discovery, to take one example among many), and so has many moving pieces. I too found the Sumavi documentation useful to an extent. I have over 20 pages of notes in a google doc of my own observations on specific xCAT things I have run into. To add to your list of documentation though, I discovered this little gem of a presentation by Jordi Caubet working at IBM Spain given in 2011: http://www.bsc.es/media/4373.pdf. It may not cover everything you need but I actually found that it had details about xCAT that you cannot find elsewhere. For example on slide 56 he shows the exact order that deployment template scripts are parsed in in a very useful picture, which is information not even to be found in the sourceforge wiki (maybe someone reading this can fix that?). Anyway, maybe that will give you something you are looking for. Regards, Josh Nielsen On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Russell Jones russell-l...@jonesmail.me wrote: This is a good start. It's a little bit old and does some things in a different way than I would, but the overall information in it is great: http://sumavi.com/books/xcat-administrators-guide On 10/16/2014 2:35 PM, John Hosie wrote: I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, John W. Hosie III jwh3 -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho
Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
Have you tried to use the Official xCAT docuementation. This documentation is kept up to date by the xCAT team. https://sourceforge.net/p/xcat/wiki/XCAT_Documentation/ If you are on x-series you should start with the following: https://sourceforge.net/p/xcat/wiki/XCAT_iDataPlex_Cluster_Quick_Start/ If p-series https://sourceforge.net/p/xcat/wiki/XCAT_pLinux_Clusters/ Lissa K. Valletta 8-3/B10 Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 (tie 293) 433-3102 From: John Hosie john_ho...@hotmail.com To: xCAT Users Mailing list xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net Date: 10/16/2014 04:46 PM Subject:Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book Russell, Thank you. I have found this document and used it quite a bit so far. (I'm converting RHEL6.4 to CENTOS6.5 in our cluster and it has helped me to understand what was there and how to do it right to some extent.) It does seem to be a bit dated, and doesn't seem to go into everything well. But it does a good job, and is written to be understood, as opposed to written to show how smart the author is. Thanks again for the quick reply. I'm still going to need to be digging, though. Sincerely, John W. Hosie III 301 509 1089 (M) 301 869 6327 (H) jwh3 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 14:46:10 -0500 From: russell-l...@jonesmail.me To: xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book This is a good start. It's a little bit old and does some things in a different way than I would, but the overall information in it is great: http://sumavi.com/books/xcat-administrators-guide On 10/16/2014 2:35 PM, John Hosie wrote: I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, John W. Hosie III jwh3 -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
Hi John, I had a similar experience to you in the matter of the documentation only taking me so far and the rest was left to my real world implementations (mostly troubleshooting when things didn't go as expected). xCAT has dependencies on many other things that are assumed to be working already (like SNMP on switches if you are using network discovery, to take one example among many), and so has many moving pieces. I too found the Sumavi documentation useful to an extent. I have over 20 pages of notes in a google doc of my own observations on specific xCAT things I have run into. To add to your list of documentation though, I discovered this little gem of a presentation by Jordi Caubet working at IBM Spain given in 2011: http://www.bsc.es/media/4373.pdf. It may not cover everything you need but I actually found that it had details about xCAT that you cannot find elsewhere. For example on slide 56 he shows the exact order that deployment template scripts are parsed in in a very useful picture, which is information not even to be found in the sourceforge wiki (maybe someone reading this can fix that?). Anyway, maybe that will give you something you are looking for. Regards, Josh Nielsen On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Russell Jones russell-l...@jonesmail.me wrote: This is a good start. It's a little bit old and does some things in a different way than I would, but the overall information in it is great: http://sumavi.com/books/xcat-administrators-guide On 10/16/2014 2:35 PM, John Hosie wrote: I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, *John W. Hosie III* *jwh3* -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device.http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing listxCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.nethttps://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
Actually, it occurs to me to ask: Can Jordi's presentation be uploaded to the sourceforge wiki so that it can benefit more people? -Josh On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Josh Nielsen jniel...@hudsonalpha.org wrote: Hi John, I had a similar experience to you in the matter of the documentation only taking me so far and the rest was left to my real world implementations (mostly troubleshooting when things didn't go as expected). xCAT has dependencies on many other things that are assumed to be working already (like SNMP on switches if you are using network discovery, to take one example among many), and so has many moving pieces. I too found the Sumavi documentation useful to an extent. I have over 20 pages of notes in a google doc of my own observations on specific xCAT things I have run into. To add to your list of documentation though, I discovered this little gem of a presentation by Jordi Caubet working at IBM Spain given in 2011: http://www.bsc.es/media/4373.pdf. It may not cover everything you need but I actually found that it had details about xCAT that you cannot find elsewhere. For example on slide 56 he shows the exact order that deployment template scripts are parsed in in a very useful picture, which is information not even to be found in the sourceforge wiki (maybe someone reading this can fix that?). Anyway, maybe that will give you something you are looking for. Regards, Josh Nielsen On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Russell Jones russell-l...@jonesmail.me wrote: This is a good start. It's a little bit old and does some things in a different way than I would, but the overall information in it is great: http://sumavi.com/books/xcat-administrators-guide On 10/16/2014 2:35 PM, John Hosie wrote: I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, *John W. Hosie III* *jwh3* -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device.http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing listxCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.nethttps://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
I can ask him. Lissa K. Valletta 8-3/B10 Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 (tie 293) 433-3102 From: Josh Nielsen jniel...@hudsonalpha.org To: xCAT Users Mailing list xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: Lissa Valletta/Poughkeepsie/IBM@IBMUS Date: 10/20/2014 01:02 PM Subject:Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book Actually, it occurs to me to ask: Can Jordi's presentation be uploaded to the sourceforge wiki so that it can benefit more people? -Josh On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Josh Nielsen jniel...@hudsonalpha.org wrote: Hi John, I had a similar experience to you in the matter of the documentation only taking me so far and the rest was left to my real world implementations (mostly troubleshooting when things didn't go as expected). xCAT has dependencies on many other things that are assumed to be working already (like SNMP on switches if you are using network discovery, to take one example among many), and so has many moving pieces. I too found the Sumavi documentation useful to an extent. I have over 20 pages of notes in a google doc of my own observations on specific xCAT things I have run into. To add to your list of documentation though, I discovered this little gem of a presentation by Jordi Caubet working at IBM Spain given in 2011: http://www.bsc.es/media/4373.pdf. It may not cover everything you need but I actually found that it had details about xCAT that you cannot find elsewhere. For example on slide 56 he shows the exact order that deployment template scripts are parsed in in a very useful picture, which is information not even to be found in the sourceforge wiki (maybe someone reading this can fix that?). Anyway, maybe that will give you something you are looking for. Regards, Josh Nielsen On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Russell Jones russell-l...@jonesmail.me wrote: This is a good start. It's a little bit old and does some things in a different way than I would, but the overall information in it is great: http://sumavi.com/books/xcat-administrators-guide On 10/16/2014 2:35 PM, John Hosie wrote: I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, John W. Hosie III jwh3 -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
[xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, John W. Hosie III jwh3 -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
This is a good start. It's a little bit old and does some things in a different way than I would, but the overall information in it is great: http://sumavi.com/books/xcat-administrators-guide On 10/16/2014 2:35 PM, John Hosie wrote: I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, */John W. Hosie ^III /* /jwh3/ -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book
Russell, Thank you. I have found this document and used it quite a bit so far. (I'm converting RHEL6.4 to CENTOS6.5 in our cluster and it has helped me to understand what was there and how to do it right to some extent.) It does seem to be a bit dated, and doesn't seem to go into everything well. But it does a good job, and is written to be understood, as opposed to written to show how smart the author is. Thanks again for the quick reply. I'm still going to need to be digging, though. Sincerely, John W. Hosie III301 509 1089 (M)301 869 6327 (H) jwh3 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 14:46:10 -0500 From: russell-l...@jonesmail.me To: xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [xcat-user] Good xCAT Book This is a good start. It's a little bit old and does some things in a different way than I would, but the overall information in it is great: http://sumavi.com/books/xcat-administrators-guide On 10/16/2014 2:35 PM, John Hosie wrote: I'm working on a government contract to support an HPC environment that uses xCAT. I've spent over 7 1/2 months working with a document that really doesn't say much more than how to get hardware support that was produced by the vendor who did the initial installation. I've also used what I could find in Google. But, to tell you the truth, none of it really seems to be all that good. It tells me about this or that implementation, and can be adapted to meet my needs, but it takes time and effort that seems to be more than should be necessary. Now, it may be better than it once was. I'll give you that. But I'd like to know if there is a good published document out there I can look for, electronic or pulp, that I can use to give me better guidance? What is there out there? And are there any sites you've run across that might help me to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge? Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate the pieces of documentation I've found. I'd just like to find something that would help me to be able to tie it all together better. Sincerely, John W. Hosie III jwh3 -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho ___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho___ xCAT-user mailing list xCAT-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcat-user
