Hi!

I've replied back to the list with your question so that this can help any folks in the future Googling for this issue. Also someone else on the list may have better documentation to be able to point you to.

This Youtube video should be able to help you with defining your IPMI devices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rUJ3dy2hjQ

This user has a few good xCAT videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/sumavisor



If your servers are already pulling an IP address for their BMC interfaces from DHCP, more than likely you either:

A) Have the BMC interfaces plugged into the same flat switch as your cluster network. In which case I would recommend vlanning them on the switch so they are not sharing the same network and properly defining the BMC network in the "networks" table.

or

B) When you did your "getmacs" or other methods for adding all of the MAC addresses into the xcat database you also added the BMC interfaces and have the BMC network configured with your xcat management node as the DHCP server.



In order to do my racks of c6100's, all I had to do was follow the configuration steps that are outlined in that Youtube video. The BMC interfaces were plugged into a completely separate switch that the xCAT management node was also plugged into, and also had an IP on. I defined the network in the "networks" table *without* DHCP support (as I did not want my BMC interfaces obtaining dynamic IP's) and manually configured them all using "bmcsetup".


Hope this helps!
Russell


On 3/19/2012 10:27 AM, Evelio Quiros wrote:
Hello Russell,

Thanks for the information. I've been looking at the documentation, but still at a loss about how these basic functions work.

Ok, so I looked at the setup screen for one of the nodes (d6100a). There is a place for IPMI configuration, but it doesn't let me enter an IP. Also, when I issue an rpower command, the server is already up and has it's IP address from the dhcp server (in the same management node).

What did you do to get your C6100s working with xCAT?

Thanks,
Al Quiros
Florida International University


From: Russell Jones <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:31:01 -0500
To: Al Quiros <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [xcat-user] xCAT with Dell 6100 servers

Yes, you have to have an IP that the xCAT server can talk to in order for it to be able to issue remote power requests. You also have to configure a username and password in the tables, as well as a DNS address for the BMC ip's. The xcat command "bmcsetup" can do all of the compute-side of the configuration for you.

Check the wiki for further information on how to do that. This page can help you understand the various xcat tables more: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/xcat/index.php?title=Intro_to_xCAT_Tables

This page has some information regarding the various xcat commands: http://xcat.sourceforge.net/man8/nodeset.8.html




On 3/16/2012 1:23 PM, Evelio Quiros wrote:

Well, we just got these C6100s for testing in a possible HPC configuration.
I am trying to get xCAT to talk to their IPMI configuration, but I suspect that additional configuration is required.
Currently, when I issue the following command:

rpower d6100a reset

I get this:

d6100a: Error: timeout

So, I guess I must be missing something that tells xCAT where the machine is, and how to reach it
Perhaps BIOS configuration at the C6100 node ? The setup screen tells me that IPMI is enabled.
Does the IPMI need further configuration, like an IP address ? 
The ultimate goal here is to use VCL to control bare-metal installs via xCAT.

Thanks,
Al Quiros
Florida International University


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:37:52 -0500
From: Russell Jones <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [xcat-user] xCAT with Dell 6100 servers
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

What are you needing to setup? :)

On 3/14/2012 3:08 PM, Evelio Quiros wrote:
Hello,

Is there some information on setting up Dell 6100 nodes in xCAT ?

Thanks,
Al Quiros
Florida International University



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