Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-08-04 Thread Sunil Venkatesh
Aaron,

I wanted to try the ssh method to change the root password, but I stopped short 
since it will ask for old password before changing to a new one. However, I 
planning to create and make use of user accounts instead of looking for the 
root password.

Thank you for the input.

Regards,
Sunil

On Aug 4, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Aaron Peeler wrote:

 Sunil,
 
 On #2. The VCL load process is to randomize the root (and
 administrator for windows) password. It should be in the vcld.log
 file, but an easier option might be to ssh into the node and set the
 root password to something you know when using xcat's rcons to look at
 the console.
 
 Aaron
 
 
 On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Sunil Venkatesh suni...@umbc.edu wrote:
 Hi Josh,
 
 So, I was able to get the VCL to capture  restore the images on to the 
 Power7 blade without any errors. The VCL web portal shows the Power7 node 
 being loaded with the captured image. I was looking for some clarification 
 with a couple of things.
 
 1. The web portal shows Selection currently not available when I intend to 
 make a reservation on the Power7 blade that I have been working with all 
 this while.
 
 2. Once the image is loaded onto the blade, I am able to login from the 
 management node without a password. However, when I am using rcons to login 
 as root on the Power7 blade, it does not accept the root password I had used 
 during the OS installation. Does the root password get reset to a default 
 one? I was checking vcl/lib/VCL/Module/OS/Linux.pm if that is the case.
 
 Thanks  Regards,
 Sunil
 
 On Jul 7, 2011, at 2:03 PM, Josh Thompson wrote:
 
 This and your next question are both deeper into the backend code that I've
 worked with.  Andy or Aaron may be able to answer your questions further.
 
 Josh
 
 
 
 
 
 -- 
 Aaron Peeler
 Program Manager
 Virtual Computing Lab
 NC State University
 
 All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which
 are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public
 Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.



Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-08-04 Thread Aaron Peeler
interesting it's prompting, which version of linux.
The code is using:
echo $passwd | /usr/bin/passwd -f $account --stdin

sounds this it worked in the vcl code, so should also work at the cmdline.

Aaron

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 12:49 PM, Sunil Venkatesh suni...@umbc.edu wrote:
 Aaron,

 I wanted to try the ssh method to change the root password, but I stopped 
 short since it will ask for old password before changing to a new one. 
 However, I planning to create and make use of user accounts instead of 
 looking for the root password.

 Thank you for the input.

 Regards,
 Sunil

 On Aug 4, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Aaron Peeler wrote:

 Sunil,

 On #2. The VCL load process is to randomize the root (and
 administrator for windows) password. It should be in the vcld.log
 file, but an easier option might be to ssh into the node and set the
 root password to something you know when using xcat's rcons to look at
 the console.

 Aaron


 On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Sunil Venkatesh suni...@umbc.edu wrote:
 Hi Josh,

 So, I was able to get the VCL to capture  restore the images on to the 
 Power7 blade without any errors. The VCL web portal shows the Power7 node 
 being loaded with the captured image. I was looking for some clarification 
 with a couple of things.

 1. The web portal shows Selection currently not available when I intend 
 to make a reservation on the Power7 blade that I have been working with all 
 this while.

 2. Once the image is loaded onto the blade, I am able to login from the 
 management node without a password. However, when I am using rcons to login 
 as root on the Power7 blade, it does not accept the root password I had 
 used during the OS installation. Does the root password get reset to a 
 default one? I was checking vcl/lib/VCL/Module/OS/Linux.pm if that is the 
 case.

 Thanks  Regards,
 Sunil

 On Jul 7, 2011, at 2:03 PM, Josh Thompson wrote:

 This and your next question are both deeper into the backend code that I've
 worked with.  Andy or Aaron may be able to answer your questions further.

 Josh





 --
 Aaron Peeler
 Program Manager
 Virtual Computing Lab
 NC State University

 All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which
 are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public
 Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.





-- 
Aaron Peeler
Program Manager
Virtual Computing Lab
NC State University

All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which
are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public
Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.


Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-07-22 Thread Sunil Venkatesh

Josh,

Could you provide me with the links to the resources of the VCL workshop? If 
there is a way to witness the workshop while it is in progress, that would help 
too. 

Regards,
Sunil


On Jul 7, 2011, at 2:03 PM, Josh Thompson wrote:

 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 Sunil,
 
 On Thursday July 07, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:
 Thanks Josh. My professor was asking about the details of VCL workshop
 in NC. Are you aware of these details?
 
 The workshop is hosted by NCSU.  It takes people from an introduction to VCL 
 to actually installing and managing it.  It is already full, but I think 
 recordings of the sessions may be available when it is over.
 
 
 Please bare with my comments inline.
 
 Responses also inline.
 
 On 7/7/11 11:13 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 On Tuesday July 05, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:
 Hi Josh,
 
 I was able to get the following things done in respect to getting VCL to
 work on POWER.
 
 1. Made modifications in the xcat tables to get the capture process
 working with statelite images instead of stateless images. Particularly
 the noderes  bootparams table.
 
 2. Used partimage to capture the images (did NOT set usepartimageng to
 1).
 
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 16:38 compute.img.capturedone
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 15:58 compute.img.capturefailed
 -rw--- 1 root root 6.5M Jul  5 16:07 compute-parta2.gz
 -rw--- 1 root root 679M Jul  5 16:10 compute-parta3.gz
 -rw--- 1 root root  23M Jul  5 16:38 compute-parta6.gz
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  512 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.mbr
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  363 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.sfdisk
 
 
 2 partitions including the boot partition present on the blade were
 captured under /install/image/ppc64/. Initially, RHEL 5 was installed on
 a 600 GB partition due to which the capture process failed. The image of
 the partition was generated once the partition size was reduced to 6GB.
 Is it necessary for me to use partimage-ng instead of partimage itself?
 
 Are you asking if you need to use partimage-ng for partitions that are
 600GB? If so, I don't really know.  We've never dealt with partitions
 that large.
 
 Here, I am just asking if images captured using partimage are recognized
 by VCL or is it required that I use partimage-ng. From your earlier
 emails to Prem, I could notice that the only difference between
 partimage  partimage-ng (after setting userpartimageng to 1) is the
 former generates images with .gz and the later generates .img. Am I
 right here? Also, I was able to get the 600GB partition captured, since
 the partition was empty, it resulted in a ~17MB image file.
 
 VCL can deploy images captured with both partimage and partimage-ng.  At 
 NCSU, 
 we were going to switch to partimage-ng, which is why I added in support for 
 it, but then we realized we'd have to upgrade all of our management nodes to 
 xCAT2 at the same time or some of them wouldn't be able to deploy newly 
 captured images that were captured with partimage-ng (the support for xCAT1.x 
 can't deploy using partimage-ng).  So, we just stuck with partimage.  The 
 captured file format between the two is different.
 
 When proceeding further with vcld --setup, the script was not able to
 find the images that were created using partimage. The options that are
 provided in the script does not allow for selecting an architecture
 other than x86/x86_64.
 
 You'll need to modify the vcld image.pm module.  Look in
 /usr/local/vcl/lib/VCL.  In image.pm, look for the function
 'setup_capture_base_image'; then, find 'my @architecture_choices' and add
 'ppc' as another option.
 
 As a matter of fact, I tried this step. But, the
 _get_image_repository_path function in
 /usr/local/vcl/lib/VCL/Module/Provisioning/xCAT.pm does not recognize
 the architecture when I choose ppc/ppc64 in the menu. On line 2922 in
 the same file, image_architecture is set to undefined. I think the list
 of supported architectures is stored in some mysql table. I haven't
 checked regarding this, i was trying to get VCL to recognize the images
 as x86/x86_64 by setting up soft links in the search paths of VCL.
 
 This and your next question are both deeper into the backend code that I've 
 worked with.  Andy or Aaron may be able to answer your questions further.
 
 Josh
 
 Also, in the error log vcld is looking for
 
 /opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/image/rh5image-power010701bi34-v0.tmpl
 
 and cannot find the template file. Should the template file that needs
 to be accessed in this case be createimage.ppc64.tmpl?
 
 This is actually a check to make sure the image doesn't already exist
 before trying to capturing it.  So, it is good that it doesn't find it.
 
 If possible, could you please provide me with the details of steps that
 take place here. If there are any documentation available regarding
 this, that would work too. U said image doesn't already exist before
 trying to capturing it, how 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-07-07 Thread Josh Thompson
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Tuesday July 05, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:
 Hi Josh,
 
 I was able to get the following things done in respect to getting VCL to
 work on POWER.
 
 1. Made modifications in the xcat tables to get the capture process
 working with statelite images instead of stateless images. Particularly
 the noderes  bootparams table.
 
 2. Used partimage to capture the images (did NOT set usepartimageng to 1).
 
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 16:38 compute.img.capturedone
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 15:58 compute.img.capturefailed
 -rw--- 1 root root 6.5M Jul  5 16:07 compute-parta2.gz
 -rw--- 1 root root 679M Jul  5 16:10 compute-parta3.gz
 -rw--- 1 root root  23M Jul  5 16:38 compute-parta6.gz
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  512 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.mbr
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  363 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.sfdisk
 
 
 2 partitions including the boot partition present on the blade were
 captured under /install/image/ppc64/. Initially, RHEL 5 was installed on
 a 600 GB partition due to which the capture process failed. The image of
 the partition was generated once the partition size was reduced to 6GB.
 Is it necessary for me to use partimage-ng instead of partimage itself?

Are you asking if you need to use partimage-ng for partitions that are 600GB?  
If so, I don't really know.  We've never dealt with partitions that large.
 
 When proceeding further with vcld --setup, the script was not able to
 find the images that were created using partimage. The options that are
 provided in the script does not allow for selecting an architecture
 other than x86/x86_64.

You'll need to modify the vcld image.pm module.  Look in 
/usr/local/vcl/lib/VCL.  In image.pm, look for the function 
'setup_capture_base_image'; then, find 'my @architecture_choices' and add 
'ppc' as another option.

 Also, in the error log vcld is looking for
 
 /opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/image/rh5image-power010701bi34-v0.tmpl
 
 and cannot find the template file. Should the template file that needs
 to be accessed in this case be createimage.ppc64.tmpl?

This is actually a check to make sure the image doesn't already exist before 
trying to capturing it.  So, it is good that it doesn't find it.

It sounds like you're almost there.  Great work!

Josh

 I have attached a log at the end of the mail. I am not sure where I have
 gone wrong with the VCL configuration.
 
 -Sunil
 
 -
 
 rh5image-power010701bi34-v0 image creation failed
 
 time: 2011-07-05 11:03:25
 caller: image.pm:reservation_failed(385)
 ( 0) image.pm, reservation_failed (line: 385)
 (-1) image.pm, process (line: 167)
 (-2) vcld, make_new_child (line: 568)
 (-3) vcld, main (line: 346)
 
 management node: web1.bluegrit.cs.umbc.edu
 reservation PID: 9866
 parent vcld PID: 19110
 
 request ID: 30
 reservation ID: 30
 request state/laststate: image/image
 request start time: 2011-07-05 11:03:20
 request end time: 2011-07-05 12:03:20
 for imaging: no
 log ID: none
 
 computer: power01.bluegrit.cs.umbc.edu
 computer id: 2
 computer type: blade
 computer eth0 MAC address:undefined
 computer eth1 MAC address:undefined
 computer private IP address: 172.20.106.1
 computer public IP address: 172.20.106.1
 computer in block allocation: no
 provisioning module: VCL::Module::Provisioning::xCAT2
 
 image: rh5image-power010701bi34-v0
 image display name: power010701bi
 image ID: 34
 image revision ID: 34
 image size: 1450 MB
 use Sysprep: yes
 root access: yes
 image owner ID: 1
 image owner affiliation: Local
 image revision date created: 2011-07-05 11:03:25
 image revision production: yes
 OS module: VCL::Module::OS::Linux
 
 user: admin
 user name: vcl admin
 user ID: 1
 user affiliation: Local
 
 RECENT LOG ENTRIES FOR THIS PROCESS:
 2011-07-05
 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|Module.pm:create_os_object(304)|VCL::Module::OS:
 :Linux OS object created for rh5image-power010701bi34-v0, address: 88fb070
 2011-07-05 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|xCAT.pm:initialize(110)|XCATROOT
 environment variable is not set, using /opt/xcat 2011-07-05
 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|xCAT.pm:initialize(128)|xCAT root path found:
 /opt/xcat 2011-07-05
 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|xCAT.pm:initialize(130)|xCAT module initialized
 2011-07-05 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|xCAT2.pm:initialize(110)|XCATROOT
 environment variable is not set, using /opt/xcat 2011-07-05
 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|xCAT2.pm:initialize(128)|xCAT root path found:
 /opt/xcat 2011-07-05
 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|xCAT2.pm:initialize(130)|xCAT module initialized
 2011-07-05
 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|Module.pm:create_provisioning_object(420)|VCL::M
 odule::Provisioning::xCAT2 module loaded 2011-07-05
 11:03:25|9866|30:30|image|Module.pm:create_mn_os_object(335)|management
 node OS object 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-07-07 Thread Sunil Venkatesh
Thanks Josh. My professor was asking about the details of VCL workshop 
in NC. Are you aware of these details?



Please bare with my comments inline.

On 7/7/11 11:13 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Tuesday July 05, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:

Hi Josh,

I was able to get the following things done in respect to getting VCL to
work on POWER.

1. Made modifications in the xcat tables to get the capture process
working with statelite images instead of stateless images. Particularly
the noderes  bootparams table.

2. Used partimage to capture the images (did NOT set usepartimageng to 1).

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 16:38 compute.img.capturedone
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 15:58 compute.img.capturefailed
-rw--- 1 root root 6.5M Jul  5 16:07 compute-parta2.gz
-rw--- 1 root root 679M Jul  5 16:10 compute-parta3.gz
-rw--- 1 root root  23M Jul  5 16:38 compute-parta6.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  512 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.mbr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  363 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.sfdisk


2 partitions including the boot partition present on the blade were
captured under /install/image/ppc64/. Initially, RHEL 5 was installed on
a 600 GB partition due to which the capture process failed. The image of
the partition was generated once the partition size was reduced to 6GB.
Is it necessary for me to use partimage-ng instead of partimage itself?

Are you asking if you need to use partimage-ng for partitions that are 600GB?
If so, I don't really know.  We've never dealt with partitions that large.
Here, I am just asking if images captured using partimage are recognized 
by VCL or is it required that I use partimage-ng. From your earlier 
emails to Prem, I could notice that the only difference between 
partimage  partimage-ng (after setting userpartimageng to 1) is the 
former generates images with .gz and the later generates .img. Am I 
right here? Also, I was able to get the 600GB partition captured, since 
the partition was empty, it resulted in a ~17MB image file.



When proceeding further with vcld --setup, the script was not able to
find the images that were created using partimage. The options that are
provided in the script does not allow for selecting an architecture
other than x86/x86_64.

You'll need to modify the vcld image.pm module.  Look in
/usr/local/vcl/lib/VCL.  In image.pm, look for the function
'setup_capture_base_image'; then, find 'my @architecture_choices' and add
'ppc' as another option.


As a matter of fact, I tried this step. But, the 
_get_image_repository_path function in 
/usr/local/vcl/lib/VCL/Module/Provisioning/xCAT.pm does not recognize 
the architecture when I choose ppc/ppc64 in the menu. On line 2922 in 
the same file, image_architecture is set to undefined. I think the list 
of supported architectures is stored in some mysql table. I haven't 
checked regarding this, i was trying to get VCL to recognize the images 
as x86/x86_64 by setting up soft links in the search paths of VCL.

Also, in the error log vcld is looking for

/opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/image/rh5image-power010701bi34-v0.tmpl

and cannot find the template file. Should the template file that needs
to be accessed in this case be createimage.ppc64.tmpl?

This is actually a check to make sure the image doesn't already exist before
trying to capturing it.  So, it is good that it doesn't find it.
If possible, could you please provide me with the details of steps that 
take place here. If there are any documentation available regarding 
this, that would work too. U said image doesn't already exist before 
trying to capturing it, how does VCL capture the images? does it make 
use of the images that are already generated using partimage? if so, in 
what places does it look for the images?


Sorry for asking too many questions. I could trace the scripts to check 
the flow, but, that would take a lot of time. You have been really 
patient with all my queries, appreciate that.


Thanks
Sunil

It sounds like you're almost there.  Great work!

Josh


I have attached a log at the end of the mail. I am not sure where I have
gone wrong with the VCL configuration.

-Sunil

-

rh5image-power010701bi34-v0 image creation failed

time: 2011-07-05 11:03:25
caller: image.pm:reservation_failed(385)
( 0) image.pm, reservation_failed (line: 385)
(-1) image.pm, process (line: 167)
(-2) vcld, make_new_child (line: 568)
(-3) vcld, main (line: 346)

management node: web1.bluegrit.cs.umbc.edu
reservation PID: 9866
parent vcld PID: 19110

request ID: 30
reservation ID: 30
request state/laststate: image/image
request start time: 2011-07-05 11:03:20
request end time: 2011-07-05 12:03:20
for imaging: no
log ID: none

computer: power01.bluegrit.cs.umbc.edu
computer id: 2
computer type: blade
computer eth0 MAC address:undefined
computer eth1 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-07-07 Thread Josh Thompson
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Sunil,

On Thursday July 07, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:
 Thanks Josh. My professor was asking about the details of VCL workshop
 in NC. Are you aware of these details?

The workshop is hosted by NCSU.  It takes people from an introduction to VCL 
to actually installing and managing it.  It is already full, but I think 
recordings of the sessions may be available when it is over.
 
 
 Please bare with my comments inline.

Responses also inline.

 On 7/7/11 11:13 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:
  -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
  Hash: SHA1
  
  On Tuesday July 05, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:
  Hi Josh,
  
  I was able to get the following things done in respect to getting VCL to
  work on POWER.
  
  1. Made modifications in the xcat tables to get the capture process
  working with statelite images instead of stateless images. Particularly
  the noderes  bootparams table.
  
  2. Used partimage to capture the images (did NOT set usepartimageng to
  1).
  
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 16:38 compute.img.capturedone
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root0 Jul  5 15:58 compute.img.capturefailed
  -rw--- 1 root root 6.5M Jul  5 16:07 compute-parta2.gz
  -rw--- 1 root root 679M Jul  5 16:10 compute-parta3.gz
  -rw--- 1 root root  23M Jul  5 16:38 compute-parta6.gz
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  512 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.mbr
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  363 Jul  5 16:07 compute-sda.sfdisk
  
  
  2 partitions including the boot partition present on the blade were
  captured under /install/image/ppc64/. Initially, RHEL 5 was installed on
  a 600 GB partition due to which the capture process failed. The image of
  the partition was generated once the partition size was reduced to 6GB.
  Is it necessary for me to use partimage-ng instead of partimage itself?
  
  Are you asking if you need to use partimage-ng for partitions that are
  600GB? If so, I don't really know.  We've never dealt with partitions
  that large.
 
 Here, I am just asking if images captured using partimage are recognized
 by VCL or is it required that I use partimage-ng. From your earlier
 emails to Prem, I could notice that the only difference between
 partimage  partimage-ng (after setting userpartimageng to 1) is the
 former generates images with .gz and the later generates .img. Am I
 right here? Also, I was able to get the 600GB partition captured, since
 the partition was empty, it resulted in a ~17MB image file.

VCL can deploy images captured with both partimage and partimage-ng.  At NCSU, 
we were going to switch to partimage-ng, which is why I added in support for 
it, but then we realized we'd have to upgrade all of our management nodes to 
xCAT2 at the same time or some of them wouldn't be able to deploy newly 
captured images that were captured with partimage-ng (the support for xCAT1.x 
can't deploy using partimage-ng).  So, we just stuck with partimage.  The 
captured file format between the two is different.

  When proceeding further with vcld --setup, the script was not able to
  find the images that were created using partimage. The options that are
  provided in the script does not allow for selecting an architecture
  other than x86/x86_64.
  
  You'll need to modify the vcld image.pm module.  Look in
  /usr/local/vcl/lib/VCL.  In image.pm, look for the function
  'setup_capture_base_image'; then, find 'my @architecture_choices' and add
  'ppc' as another option.
 
 As a matter of fact, I tried this step. But, the
 _get_image_repository_path function in
 /usr/local/vcl/lib/VCL/Module/Provisioning/xCAT.pm does not recognize
 the architecture when I choose ppc/ppc64 in the menu. On line 2922 in
 the same file, image_architecture is set to undefined. I think the list
 of supported architectures is stored in some mysql table. I haven't
 checked regarding this, i was trying to get VCL to recognize the images
 as x86/x86_64 by setting up soft links in the search paths of VCL.

This and your next question are both deeper into the backend code that I've 
worked with.  Andy or Aaron may be able to answer your questions further.

Josh

  Also, in the error log vcld is looking for
  
  /opt/xcat/share/xcat/install/image/rh5image-power010701bi34-v0.tmpl
  
  and cannot find the template file. Should the template file that needs
  to be accessed in this case be createimage.ppc64.tmpl?
  
  This is actually a check to make sure the image doesn't already exist
  before trying to capturing it.  So, it is good that it doesn't find it.
 
 If possible, could you please provide me with the details of steps that
 take place here. If there are any documentation available regarding
 this, that would work too. U said image doesn't already exist before
 trying to capturing it, how does VCL capture the images? does it make
 use of the images that are already generated using partimage? if so, in
 what places does it look for the images?
 
 Sorry for asking too many questions. I could trace the scripts 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-22 Thread Sunil Venkatesh
Hi,

Update !

I was able to fix the problem that I was facing with the scripts by
disabling the firewall. But, I still have a problem with the command-

nodeset nodename image

Unless this error is fixed, I don't think partimage will work. Am I right
here?

Thanks,
Sunil



On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Sunil Venkatesh suni...@umbc.edu wrote:

 Josh,

 I have reached a point where I am able to boot the ppc using the statelite
 images created using genimage. But, I was wondering how significant the
 following command is.

 nodeset nodename image

 I got the same error that Prem had mentioned.


 power01: Error: Unable to identify plugin for this command, check relevant
 tables: nodetype.os
 Error: Some nodes failed to set up image resources, aborting

 I tried changing the 'os' field to 'image' under nodetype, that doesn't
 seem to help. I get the same error even after the change. 'arch' in my case
 is set to 'ppc64'.


 Also, I think partimage plugin needs to be changed to support the ppc
 architecture, from what you had mentioned in the other thread.

 I am not sure what the command 'nodeset nodename image' does, but, I am
 able to boot the statelite images by making changes to the yaboot
 configuration files. The ppc blade currently uses LVM, that needs to be
 replaced with ext2/ext3 from what I read from the other thread, am I right?
 Also, just out of curiosity I left the statelite image to boot with my
 current setting. I can see the xcat script throwing an error-

 /opt/xcat/xcatdsklspost: line 229: /xcatpost/getpostscript.awk: No such
 file or directory
 /tmp/mypostscript: line 16: updateflag.awk: command not found

 both getpostscript.awk  updateflag.awk are not found in the rootimg
 created by genimage. Is there any place I could find these scripts?

 Also, please correct me if there is anything wrong with the procedure I am
 following.


 Thanks in advance.

 Regards,
 Sunil

 On 6/13/11 4:13 PM, Josh Thompson wrote:

 Sunil,

  From what I remember, I didn't have to do much to the rootimg.gz image to
 make
 it work.  I created the files I supply before xCAT started using
 statelite
 instead of stateless.  I think statelite uses NFS to mount the image,
 and
 stateless uses an image file downloaded to the node and run out of RAM.
  Since
 generating a statelite image is pretty straightforward use of xCAT, you
 may
 want to ask on the xcat-user email list for help with it.

 Unless you can have the admins of the other dhcp server on your network
 exclude the MAC addresses of your blades, you'll need to create a separate
 private network to control your VCL stuff, either physically or with
 VLANs.

 If they can exclude the MACs, you can set up the dhcp server on your
 management node to only answer to requests from your blades.

 Josh

 On Monday June 13, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:

 Josh,

 Again, Thank you for your valuable inputs. I have got to the point where
 I can get the compute node to boot using the stateless images. I had to
 manually configure the netboot since we already had a DHCP server which
 is not the same as our Management node. Since our setup is not in an
 isolated environment, I could not let xcat handle the dhcp  netboot
 configuration (it messed up out network configuration when i let xcat
 handle it,we had 2 dhcp servers running at that point). Are you aware of
 any way to let xcat handle such scenarios?

 Although I am able to get the compute node to boot with the kernel image
   initrd, and NFS mount the rootimg that was generated using 'genimage',
 I am getting the following error on the compute node's console -

  FATAL error: could not get the entries from litefile table...

 after going thru the init-scripts, I found out 'xCATCmd' binary is not
 present in the rootimg. I am currently checking the xcat packages for
 its availability. If you know the procedure to get it onto the compute
 node, please let me know the same.

 Appreciate your support.

 Thanking you,
 Sunil

 On 6/8/11 9:02 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:

 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 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-21 Thread Sunil Venkatesh

Josh,

I have reached a point where I am able to boot the ppc using the 
statelite images created using genimage. But, I was wondering how 
significant the following command is.


nodeset nodename image

I got the same error that Prem had mentioned.

power01: Error: Unable to identify plugin for this command, check 
relevant tables: nodetype.os

Error: Some nodes failed to set up image resources, aborting

I tried changing the 'os' field to 'image' under nodetype, that doesn't 
seem to help. I get the same error even after the change. 'arch' in my 
case is set to 'ppc64'.


Also, I think partimage plugin needs to be changed to support the ppc 
architecture, from what you had mentioned in the other thread.


I am not sure what the command 'nodeset nodename image' does, but, I 
am able to boot the statelite images by making changes to the yaboot 
configuration files. The ppc blade currently uses LVM, that needs to be 
replaced with ext2/ext3 from what I read from the other thread, am I 
right? Also, just out of curiosity I left the statelite image to boot 
with my current setting. I can see the xcat script throwing an error-


/opt/xcat/xcatdsklspost: line 229: /xcatpost/getpostscript.awk: No such 
file or directory

/tmp/mypostscript: line 16: updateflag.awk: command not found

both getpostscript.awk  updateflag.awk are not found in the rootimg 
created by genimage. Is there any place I could find these scripts?


Also, please correct me if there is anything wrong with the procedure I 
am following.


Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Sunil

On 6/13/11 4:13 PM, Josh Thompson wrote:

Sunil,

 From what I remember, I didn't have to do much to the rootimg.gz image to make
it work.  I created the files I supply before xCAT started using statelite
instead of stateless.  I think statelite uses NFS to mount the image, and
stateless uses an image file downloaded to the node and run out of RAM.  Since
generating a statelite image is pretty straightforward use of xCAT, you may
want to ask on the xcat-user email list for help with it.

Unless you can have the admins of the other dhcp server on your network
exclude the MAC addresses of your blades, you'll need to create a separate
private network to control your VCL stuff, either physically or with VLANs.

If they can exclude the MACs, you can set up the dhcp server on your
management node to only answer to requests from your blades.

Josh

On Monday June 13, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:

Josh,

Again, Thank you for your valuable inputs. I have got to the point where
I can get the compute node to boot using the stateless images. I had to
manually configure the netboot since we already had a DHCP server which
is not the same as our Management node. Since our setup is not in an
isolated environment, I could not let xcat handle the dhcp  netboot
configuration (it messed up out network configuration when i let xcat
handle it,we had 2 dhcp servers running at that point). Are you aware of
any way to let xcat handle such scenarios?

Although I am able to get the compute node to boot with the kernel image
  initrd, and NFS mount the rootimg that was generated using 'genimage',
I am getting the following error on the compute node's console -

  FATAL error: could not get the entries from litefile table...

after going thru the init-scripts, I found out 'xCATCmd' binary is not
present in the rootimg. I am currently checking the xcat packages for
its availability. If you know the procedure to get it onto the compute
node, please let me know the same.

Appreciate your support.

Thanking you,
Sunil

On 6/8/11 9:02 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:

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 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-13 Thread Sunil Venkatesh

Josh,

Again, Thank you for your valuable inputs. I have got to the point where 
I can get the compute node to boot using the stateless images. I had to 
manually configure the netboot since we already had a DHCP server which 
is not the same as our Management node. Since our setup is not in an 
isolated environment, I could not let xcat handle the dhcp  netboot 
configuration (it messed up out network configuration when i let xcat 
handle it,we had 2 dhcp servers running at that point). Are you aware of 
any way to let xcat handle such scenarios?


Although I am able to get the compute node to boot with the kernel image 
 initrd, and NFS mount the rootimg that was generated using 'genimage', 
I am getting the following error on the compute node's console -


FATAL error: could not get the entries from litefile table...

after going thru the init-scripts, I found out 'xCATCmd' binary is not 
present in the rootimg. I am currently checking the xcat packages for 
its availability. If you know the procedure to get it onto the compute 
node, please let me know the same.


Appreciate your support.

Thanking you,
Sunil

On 6/8/11 9:02 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:

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 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-13 Thread Josh Thompson
Sunil,

From what I remember, I didn't have to do much to the rootimg.gz image to make 
it work.  I created the files I supply before xCAT started using statelite 
instead of stateless.  I think statelite uses NFS to mount the image, and  
stateless uses an image file downloaded to the node and run out of RAM.  Since 
generating a statelite image is pretty straightforward use of xCAT, you may 
want to ask on the xcat-user email list for help with it.

Unless you can have the admins of the other dhcp server on your network 
exclude the MAC addresses of your blades, you'll need to create a separate 
private network to control your VCL stuff, either physically or with VLANs.

If they can exclude the MACs, you can set up the dhcp server on your 
management node to only answer to requests from your blades.

Josh

On Monday June 13, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:
 Josh,
 
 Again, Thank you for your valuable inputs. I have got to the point where
 I can get the compute node to boot using the stateless images. I had to
 manually configure the netboot since we already had a DHCP server which
 is not the same as our Management node. Since our setup is not in an
 isolated environment, I could not let xcat handle the dhcp  netboot
 configuration (it messed up out network configuration when i let xcat
 handle it,we had 2 dhcp servers running at that point). Are you aware of
 any way to let xcat handle such scenarios?
 
 Although I am able to get the compute node to boot with the kernel image
  initrd, and NFS mount the rootimg that was generated using 'genimage',
 I am getting the following error on the compute node's console -
 
  FATAL error: could not get the entries from litefile table...
 
 after going thru the init-scripts, I found out 'xCATCmd' binary is not
 present in the rootimg. I am currently checking the xcat packages for
 its availability. If you know the procedure to get it onto the compute
 node, please let me know the same.
 
 Appreciate your support.
 
 Thanking you,
 Sunil
 
 On 6/8/11 9:02 AM, Josh Thompson wrote:
  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 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-08 Thread Josh Thompson
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 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-07 Thread Sunil Venkatesh

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+parti
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 listed above?  If you do,
that's a good start.  However, you'll also need rootimg.gz.  rootimg.gz
is the root filesystem for the stateless image.  It also contains the
partimage and partimageng binaries.  Assuming partimage or partimageng
can actually capture partitions from power systems, you'll need to
compile at least one of them to run on power.  For the rootimg.gz image
I provided, I compiled them statically so that I didn't have to worry
about including any library dependencies in rootimg.gz.

It would be a good idea to research how to use xcat's genimage command to
generate stateless images to learn how to do this.

If there's any part of the above that you don't fully understand, please
ask me to clarify it.  Until you have a stateless image that you can
deploy to your power blades, there's no point in trying to debug any VCL
specific items.

Josh
- --
- ---
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
-BEGIN PGP 

Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-01 Thread Josh Thompson
-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+partimag
 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 listed above?  If you do, that's a good 
start.  However, you'll also need rootimg.gz.  rootimg.gz is the root 
filesystem for the stateless image.  It also contains the partimage and 
partimageng binaries.  Assuming partimage or partimageng can actually capture 
partitions from power systems, you'll need to compile at least one of them to 
run on power.  For the rootimg.gz image I provided, I compiled them statically 
so that I didn't have to worry about including any library dependencies in 
rootimg.gz.

It would be a good idea to research how to use xcat's genimage command to 
generate stateless images to learn how to do this.

If there's any part of the above that you don't fully understand, please ask 
me to clarify it.  Until you have a stateless image that you can deploy to 
your power blades, there's no point in trying to debug any VCL specific items.

Josh
- -- 
- ---
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-06-01 Thread Sunil Venkatesh

Josh,

Thank you for that detailed clarification. Appreciate your support.

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+parti
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 listed above?  If you do,
that's a good start.  However, you'll also need rootimg.gz.  rootimg.gz
is the root filesystem for the stateless image.  It also contains the
partimage and partimageng binaries.  Assuming partimage or partimageng
can actually capture partitions from power systems, you'll need to
compile at least one of them to run on power.  For the rootimg.gz image
I provided, I compiled them statically so that I didn't have to worry
about including any library dependencies in rootimg.gz.

It would be a good idea to research how to use xcat's genimage command to
generate stateless images to learn how to do this.

If there's any part of the above that you don't fully understand, please
ask me to clarify it.  Until you have a stateless image that you can
deploy to your power blades, there's no point in trying to debug any VCL
specific items.

Josh
- --
- ---
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-05-31 Thread Sunil Venkatesh

Hi,

I used the steps that were mentioned under

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/VCL/Adding+support+for+partimage+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


nodeset node image
nodeset node install

fail with the following error msg: Error: Invalid nodes and/or groups 
in noderange: power01.


Also, when I start the capture process using vcld --setup, again, 
there is no option to choose a ppc architecture (I am not sure if I 
should be modifying the setup scripts to support ppc architecture). I 
continue with the setup process by choosing the architecture as x86_64 
(instead of ppc for our Power 7 blade). Operating System is RHEL 5. The 
scripts attempts to power down the blade, waits for 120 seconds before 
it quits with a failure. The log file is shown at the bottom of the mail.


The script fails saying the blade didn't turn off, but, I can see in my 
console that the blade is off and it does not respond to connection 
requests. There is a deviation from the configuration that were 
mentioned: the blade we are trying to use as a compute node has only 1 
ethernet port enabled, hence there is no separate private  public 
networks. Will that matter?


Any support with this would be really helpful.  Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Sunil Venkatesh


***

RECENT LOG ENTRIES FOR THIS PROCESS:
|11662|23:23|image| (-2) Module.pm, code_loop_timeout (line: 761)
|11662|23:23|image| (-3) Provisioning.pm, wait_for_power_off (line: 324)
|11662|23:23|image| (-4) Linux.pm, pre_capture (line: 183)
|11662|23:23|image| (-5) xCAT2.pm, capture (line: 792)
2011-05-31 
12:56:37|11662|23:23|image|Module.pm:code_loop_timeout(755)|attempt 36: 
code returned false, seconds elapsed/remaining: 114/6, sleeping for 3 
seconds
2011-05-31 
12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|Module.pm:code_loop_timeout(759)|attempt 37: 
waiting for power01 to power off
2011-05-31 12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|xCAT.pm:_rpower(1944)|attempting 
to execute rpower for computer: power01, mode: stat
2011-05-31 
12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|utils.pm:run_command(9010)|executed command: 
/opt/xcat/bin/rpower power01 stat, pid: 11922, exit status: 1, output:

|11662|23:23|image| Error: Invalid nodes and/or groups in noderange: power01
|11662|23:23|image|  WARNING 
|11662|23:23|image| 2011-05-31 
12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|xCAT.pm:_rpower(1997)|unexpected output 
returned from rpower: Error: Invalid nodes and/or groups in noderange: 
power01

|11662|23:23|image| ( 0) xCAT.pm, _rpower (line: 1997)
|11662|23:23|image| (-1) xCAT.pm, power_status (line: 1675)
|11662|23:23|image| (-2) Provisioning.pm, __ANON__ (line: 324)
|11662|23:23|image| (-3) Module.pm, code_loop_timeout (line: 761)
|11662|23:23|image| (-4) Provisioning.pm, wait_for_power_off (line: 324)
|11662|23:23|image| (-5) Linux.pm, pre_capture (line: 183)
2011-05-31 
12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|xCAT.pm:power_status(1676)|retrieved power 
status of power01: 0

|11662|23:23|image|  WARNING 
|11662|23:23|image| 2011-05-31 
12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|xCAT.pm:power_status(1679)|failed to 
determine power status, rpower subroutine returned 0

|11662|23:23|image| ( 0) xCAT.pm, power_status (line: 1679)
|11662|23:23|image| (-1) Provisioning.pm, __ANON__ (line: 324)
|11662|23:23|image| (-2) Module.pm, code_loop_timeout (line: 761)
|11662|23:23|image| (-3) Provisioning.pm, wait_for_power_off (line: 324)
|11662|23:23|image| (-4) Linux.pm, pre_capture (line: 183)
|11662|23:23|image| (-5) xCAT2.pm, capture (line: 792)
|11662|23:23|image|  WARNING 
|11662|23:23|image| 2011-05-31 
12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|vcld:warning_handler(610)|Use of 
uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at 
/usr/local/vcl/bin/../lib/VCL/Module/Provisioning.pm line 324.

|11662|23:23|image| ( 0) vcld, warning_handler (line: 610)
|11662|23:23|image| (-1) Provisioning.pm, __ANON__ (line: 324)
|11662|23:23|image| (-2) Module.pm, code_loop_timeout (line: 761)
|11662|23:23|image| (-3) Provisioning.pm, wait_for_power_off (line: 324)
|11662|23:23|image| (-4) Linux.pm, pre_capture (line: 183)
|11662|23:23|image| (-5) xCAT2.pm, capture (line: 792)
2011-05-31 
12:56:40|11662|23:23|image|Module.pm:code_loop_timeout(755)|attempt 37: 
code returned false, seconds elapsed/remaining: 117/3, sleeping for 3 
seconds
2011-05-31 
12:56:43|11662|23:23|image|Module.pm:code_loop_timeout(759)|attempt 38: 
waiting for power01 to power off
2011-05-31 12:56:43|11662|23:23|image|xCAT.pm:_rpower(1944)|attempting 
to execute rpower for computer: power01, mode: stat
2011-05-31 
12:56:44|11662|23:23|image|utils.pm:run_command(9010)|executed command: 
/opt/xcat/bin/rpower power01 stat, pid: 11926, exit 

[VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-05-19 Thread Sunil Venkatesh

Hi,

We are currently in the process of configuring VCL 2.2.1 to work on a 
Power 7 blade. Our current setup is:


1. A web-server that hosts the Database and the Web Code. The same 
server acts as the Management node. xCAT is configured as the 
provisioning module on this node.

2. Power7 is our compute node.
3. I used the command vcld --setup command to create/capture base 
image of RHEL 5 that is running on the Power7 blade (by specifying the 
IP address of Power7 blade when prompted for an address).


The creation process failed as Xianqing Yu had mentioned to us earlier. 
Although, before it failed it created appropriate entries in the tables 
image, imagerevision and resource. I was able to Undelete the image 
from the web page and see it under New Reservations.


I am facing similar problems that Mike Waldron had faced with the 
reservation. Even after making memory adjustment, I wasn't able to make 
a reservation. The time table shows all green (available), however, when 
I choose any entry from the list, it takes me directly to New 
Reservation page without any status/feedback. And, I don't see any 
reservations created when I check under Current Reservations. I am 
just assuming the groupings of Images and Computers are correct, is 
there anyway I could verify the same. Also, if there is any reference to 
how the grouping need to be done, please let me know of the same.


Please do correct me if there is anything wrong with the system setup.

Regards,
Sunil Venkatesh
Research Assistant,
MC2 Lab, UMBC.


Re: [VCL 2.2.1] [Power7] Problem with image reservation

2011-05-19 Thread Josh Thompson
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Sunil,

Let's back up a little bit.  The first thing to look at is why the image 
failed.  Unless you created your own stateless image for capturing and 
provisioning images, then xCAT will be unable to capture an image from a Power 
blade.

Did you use the steps here:

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/VCL/Adding+support+for+partimage+and+partimage-
ng+to+xCAT+2.x+%28unofficial%29

for modifying xCAT to be able to capture/deploy images?  If so, the stateless 
images linked to off of that page are for x86 hardware.  You will need to 
create your own stateless or statelite images for Power blades.

Josh

On Thursday May 19, 2011, Sunil Venkatesh wrote:
 Hi,
 
 We are currently in the process of configuring VCL 2.2.1 to work on a
 Power 7 blade. Our current setup is:
 
 1. A web-server that hosts the Database and the Web Code. The same
 server acts as the Management node. xCAT is configured as the
 provisioning module on this node.
 2. Power7 is our compute node.
 3. I used the command vcld --setup command to create/capture base
 image of RHEL 5 that is running on the Power7 blade (by specifying the
 IP address of Power7 blade when prompted for an address).
 
 The creation process failed as Xianqing Yu had mentioned to us earlier.
 Although, before it failed it created appropriate entries in the tables
 image, imagerevision and resource. I was able to Undelete the image
 from the web page and see it under New Reservations.
 
 I am facing similar problems that Mike Waldron had faced with the
 reservation. Even after making memory adjustment, I wasn't able to make
 a reservation. The time table shows all green (available), however, when
 I choose any entry from the list, it takes me directly to New
 Reservation page without any status/feedback. And, I don't see any
 reservations created when I check under Current Reservations. I am
 just assuming the groupings of Images and Computers are correct, is
 there anyway I could verify the same. Also, if there is any reference to
 how the grouping need to be done, please let me know of the same.
 
 Please do correct me if there is anything wrong with the system setup.
 
 Regards,
 Sunil Venkatesh
 Research Assistant,
 MC2 Lab, UMBC.
- -- 
- ---
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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