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Posted to user@vcl.apache.org by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu> on 2011/03/21 17:25:15 UTC

VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Hi community,

I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for bare 
metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a success 
story on this kind of setup yet?

Thanks,
John Ma
Marist College
 

Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

Do you have IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR set to /opt or to /opt/image/x86?  It needs to 
be /opt.

One thing to try is changing usepartimageng to 1 on line 147.  That will 
switch to using partimageng instead of partimage and tell us if it is 
something specific to partimage.

The next step will be to find the partimage logs, which is a little more 
complicated.

Feel free to hop on IRC to debug a little faster: #asfvcl on freenode.

Josh

On Friday April 01, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> Josh,
> 
> I added the debugging code. It turned out NFS looks fine. I also manually
> verified the NFS share:
> 
>   [root@blade14 ~]# mkdir nfstest
>   [root@blade14 ~]# mount 172.20.0.1:/opt/image/x86 nfstest/
>   [root@blade14 ~]# cd nfstest/
>   [root@blade14 nfstest]# mkdir writetest
> 
> 
> 
> How to debug the partimage save operation?
> 
> Thanks,
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   04/01/2011 09:06 AM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> - gpg control packet
> John,
> 
> The partimageng postscript mounts an image store via NFS at /install.  The
> NFS
> server and path are specified in the xCAT site table as IMAGELIBSERVER and
> 
> IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR.  More info about this part is at the bottom of our
> wiki
> page explaining how to add partimage support to xCAT.
> 
> Do you have your image store exported read/write via NFS and available to
> the
> client nodes?
> 
> As a test, you could modify the partimageng script to output more
> debugging
> info.  You could modify the mount command on line 144 to be:
> 
> logger -t xcat "Attempting to mount image store:
> $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR"
> if ! mount -o nfsvers=3,tcp,nolock,rw $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR
> /install; then
>     echo "CRITICAL ERROR: Failed to mount image store at
> $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR; unable to save image"
>     logger -t xcat "CRITICAL ERROR: Failed to mount image store at
> $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR; unable to save image"
>     sleep 3
>     exit 1
> fi
> 
> Josh
> 
> On Thursday March 31, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> > Josh,
> > 
> > Thanks again for the help. I configured an anonymous ftp share of
> > 
> > /install, and it passed the previous error. Now I am at here:
> >   Mar 30 21:06:53 blade08 blade08 xcat: running partimage -z1 -f3 -odbc
> > 
> > save /dev/sda1 /install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.gz
> > 
> >   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage exited with a non-zero
> > 
> > status, failing
> > 
> >   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage-ng failed with exit
> 
> code
> 
> > 1
> > 
> >   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 init: rc3 main process (1166) killed
> 
> by
> 
> > TERM signal
> > 
> > Blade08 then rebooted itself and loop again. partimage's save location
> > /install/image/x86/.. doesn't seem right to me, but how to configure it
> 
> to
> 
> > use nfs?
> > See the attached log file for more details, ( the clock on blade08 is
> 
> off
> 
> > or maybe UTC)
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> > To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date:   03/31/2011 03:29 PM
> > Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > - gpg control packet
> > John,
> > 
> > Sorry to take so long to get back to you.
> > 
> > I didn't even realize this until digging through xcatdsklspost, but your
> > management node needs to be sharing out /install via ftp.  I'm assuming
> > xcat
> > sets this up because I don't remember setting that up manually.  The
> > following
> > line is from xcatdsklspost:
> > 
> > wget -l inf -N -r --waitretry=10 --random-wait --retry-connrefused -t 0
> 
> -T
> 
> > 60
> > ftp://$SIP/postscripts 2> /tmp/wget.log
> > 
> > $SIP is obtained earlier in the script from some dhcp information.
> > 
> > The next line is where your screenshot shows the first error:
> > 
> > mv $SIP/postscripts/* /xcatpost;
> > 
> > The wget command should try forever until it downloads everything under
> > ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  The fact that you are getting past wget, but
> 
> the
> 
> > move
> > is failing for $SIP/postscripts/* makes me think you don't have anything
> > under
> > ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  Can you try using a normal ftp client to browse
> > ftp://172.20.101.140/postscripts?  It may be that the ftp server is
> > sharing
> > out the wrong directory.
> > 
> > Josh
> > 
> > On Friday March 25, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> > > Josh,
> > > 
> > > I made some progress, but stuck again. This time at the reboot of the
> > > machine being captured. The machine apparently cannot find
> 
> postscripts.
> 
> > > Any idea about how to fix it or what to try next?
> > > 
> > > I placed partimageng in /install/postscripts on our VCL (web, db, and
> > 
> > mgt
> > 
> > > code) server - Blade14 (172.20.101.140). The machine being captured is
> > > blade08 (172.20.101.80).
> > > 
> > > Here is the screenshot:
> > > 
> > > Here is the pxe boot config file:
> > > [root@blade14 ~]# cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/blade08
> > > #image image-x86-centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0
> > > DEFAULT xCAT
> > > LABEL xCAT
> > > 
> > >  KERNEL xcat/image/x86/vmlinuz
> > >  APPEND initrd=xcat/image/x86/initrd.img
> > > 
> > > imgurl=http://blade14//install/image/x86/installer_files/rootimg.gz
> > > image=/install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.img blocks=512
> > > action=save installnic=eth0 reboot  noipv6
> > > 
> > >   IPAPPEND 2
> > > 
> > > [root@blade14 ~]#
> > > 
> > > Thanks,
> > > John Ma
> > > Marist College
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> > > To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > > Date:   03/22/2011 12:15 PM
> > > Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
Josh,

I added the debugging code. It turned out NFS looks fine. I also manually 
verified the NFS share:

  [root@blade14 ~]# mkdir nfstest
  [root@blade14 ~]# mount 172.20.0.1:/opt/image/x86 nfstest/
  [root@blade14 ~]# cd nfstest/
  [root@blade14 nfstest]# mkdir writetest



How to debug the partimage save operation?

Thanks,
John Ma
Marist College




From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   04/01/2011 09:06 AM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

The partimageng postscript mounts an image store via NFS at /install.  The 
NFS 
server and path are specified in the xCAT site table as IMAGELIBSERVER and 

IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR.  More info about this part is at the bottom of our 
wiki 
page explaining how to add partimage support to xCAT.

Do you have your image store exported read/write via NFS and available to 
the 
client nodes?

As a test, you could modify the partimageng script to output more 
debugging 
info.  You could modify the mount command on line 144 to be:

logger -t xcat "Attempting to mount image store: 
$IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR"
if ! mount -o nfsvers=3,tcp,nolock,rw $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR 
/install; then
    echo "CRITICAL ERROR: Failed to mount image store at 
$IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR; unable to save image"
    logger -t xcat "CRITICAL ERROR: Failed to mount image store at 
$IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR; unable to save image"
    sleep 3
    exit 1
fi

Josh

On Thursday March 31, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> Josh,
> 
> Thanks again for the help. I configured an anonymous ftp share of
> /install, and it passed the previous error. Now I am at here:
>   Mar 30 21:06:53 blade08 blade08 xcat: running partimage -z1 -f3 -odbc
> save /dev/sda1 /install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.gz
>   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage exited with a non-zero
> status, failing
>   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage-ng failed with exit 
code
> 1
>   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 init: rc3 main process (1166) killed 
by
> TERM signal
> 
> Blade08 then rebooted itself and loop again. partimage's save location
> /install/image/x86/.. doesn't seem right to me, but how to configure it 
to
> use nfs?
> See the attached log file for more details, ( the clock on blade08 is 
off
> or maybe UTC)
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/31/2011 03:29 PM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> - gpg control packet
> John,
> 
> Sorry to take so long to get back to you.
> 
> I didn't even realize this until digging through xcatdsklspost, but your
> management node needs to be sharing out /install via ftp.  I'm assuming
> xcat
> sets this up because I don't remember setting that up manually.  The
> following
> line is from xcatdsklspost:
> 
> wget -l inf -N -r --waitretry=10 --random-wait --retry-connrefused -t 0 
-T
> 60
> ftp://$SIP/postscripts 2> /tmp/wget.log
> 
> $SIP is obtained earlier in the script from some dhcp information.
> 
> The next line is where your screenshot shows the first error:
> 
> mv $SIP/postscripts/* /xcatpost;
> 
> The wget command should try forever until it downloads everything under
> ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  The fact that you are getting past wget, but 
the
> move
> is failing for $SIP/postscripts/* makes me think you don't have anything
> under
> ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  Can you try using a normal ftp client to browse
> ftp://172.20.101.140/postscripts?  It may be that the ftp server is
> sharing
> out the wrong directory.
> 
> Josh
> 
> On Friday March 25, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> > Josh,
> > 
> > I made some progress, but stuck again. This time at the reboot of the
> > machine being captured. The machine apparently cannot find 
postscripts.
> > Any idea about how to fix it or what to try next?
> > 
> > I placed partimageng in /install/postscripts on our VCL (web, db, and
> 
> mgt
> 
> > code) server - Blade14 (172.20.101.140). The machine being captured is
> > blade08 (172.20.101.80).
> > 
> > Here is the screenshot:
> > 
> > Here is the pxe boot config file:
> > [root@blade14 ~]# cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/blade08
> > #image image-x86-centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0
> > DEFAULT xCAT
> > LABEL xCAT
> > 
> >  KERNEL xcat/image/x86/vmlinuz
> >  APPEND initrd=xcat/image/x86/initrd.img
> > 
> > imgurl=http://blade14//install/image/x86/installer_files/rootimg.gz
> > image=/install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.img blocks=512
> > action=save installnic=eth0 reboot  noipv6
> > 
> >   IPAPPEND 2
> > 
> > [root@blade14 ~]#
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> > To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date:   03/22/2011 12:15 PM
> > Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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=MuU1
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

The partimageng postscript mounts an image store via NFS at /install.  The NFS 
server and path are specified in the xCAT site table as IMAGELIBSERVER and 
IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR.  More info about this part is at the bottom of our wiki 
page explaining how to add partimage support to xCAT.

Do you have your image store exported read/write via NFS and available to the 
client nodes?

As a test, you could modify the partimageng script to output more debugging 
info.  You could modify the mount command on line 144 to be:

logger -t xcat "Attempting to mount image store: $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR"
if ! mount -o nfsvers=3,tcp,nolock,rw $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR /install; then
    echo "CRITICAL ERROR: Failed to mount image store at $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR; unable to save image"
    logger -t xcat "CRITICAL ERROR: Failed to mount image store at $IMAGELIBSERVER:$IMAGELIBINSTALLDIR; unable to save image"
    sleep 3
    exit 1
fi

Josh

On Thursday March 31, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> Josh,
> 
> Thanks again for the help. I configured an anonymous ftp share of
> /install, and it passed the previous error. Now I am at here:
>   Mar 30 21:06:53 blade08 blade08 xcat: running partimage -z1 -f3 -odbc
> save /dev/sda1 /install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.gz
>   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage exited with a non-zero
> status, failing
>   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage-ng failed with exit code
> 1
>   Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 init: rc3 main process (1166) killed by
> TERM signal
> 
> Blade08 then rebooted itself and loop again. partimage's save location
> /install/image/x86/.. doesn't seem right to me, but how to configure it to
> use nfs?
> See the attached log file for more details, ( the clock on blade08 is off
> or maybe UTC)
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/31/2011 03:29 PM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> - gpg control packet
> John,
> 
> Sorry to take so long to get back to you.
> 
> I didn't even realize this until digging through xcatdsklspost, but your
> management node needs to be sharing out /install via ftp.  I'm assuming
> xcat
> sets this up because I don't remember setting that up manually.  The
> following
> line is from xcatdsklspost:
> 
> wget -l inf -N -r --waitretry=10 --random-wait --retry-connrefused -t 0 -T
> 60
> ftp://$SIP/postscripts 2> /tmp/wget.log
> 
> $SIP is obtained earlier in the script from some dhcp information.
> 
> The next line is where your screenshot shows the first error:
> 
> mv $SIP/postscripts/* /xcatpost;
> 
> The wget command should try forever until it downloads everything under
> ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  The fact that you are getting past wget, but the
> move
> is failing for $SIP/postscripts/* makes me think you don't have anything
> under
> ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  Can you try using a normal ftp client to browse
> ftp://172.20.101.140/postscripts?  It may be that the ftp server is
> sharing
> out the wrong directory.
> 
> Josh
> 
> On Friday March 25, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> > Josh,
> > 
> > I made some progress, but stuck again. This time at the reboot of the
> > machine being captured. The machine apparently cannot find postscripts.
> > Any idea about how to fix it or what to try next?
> > 
> > I placed partimageng in /install/postscripts on our VCL (web, db, and
> 
> mgt
> 
> > code) server - Blade14 (172.20.101.140). The machine being captured is
> > blade08 (172.20.101.80).
> > 
> > Here is the screenshot:
> > 
> > Here is the pxe boot config file:
> > [root@blade14 ~]# cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/blade08
> > #image image-x86-centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0
> > DEFAULT xCAT
> > LABEL xCAT
> > 
> >  KERNEL xcat/image/x86/vmlinuz
> >  APPEND initrd=xcat/image/x86/initrd.img
> > 
> > imgurl=http://blade14//install/image/x86/installer_files/rootimg.gz
> > image=/install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.img blocks=512
> > action=save installnic=eth0 reboot  noipv6
> > 
> >   IPAPPEND 2
> > 
> > [root@blade14 ~]#
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> > To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date:   03/22/2011 12:15 PM
> > Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux)

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=MuU1
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
Josh,

Thanks again for the help. I configured an anonymous ftp share of 
/install, and it passed the previous error. Now I am at here:
  Mar 30 21:06:53 blade08 blade08 xcat: running partimage -z1 -f3 -odbc 
save /dev/sda1 /install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.gz
  Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage exited with a non-zero 
status, failing
  Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 xcat: partimage-ng failed with exit code 
1
  Mar 30 21:06:58 blade08 blade08 init: rc3 main process (1166) killed by 
TERM signal

Blade08 then rebooted itself and loop again. partimage's save location 
/install/image/x86/.. doesn't seem right to me, but how to configure it to 
use nfs?
See the attached log file for more details, ( the clock on blade08 is off 
or maybe UTC)


Thanks,
John






From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   03/31/2011 03:29 PM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.

I didn't even realize this until digging through xcatdsklspost, but your 
management node needs to be sharing out /install via ftp.  I'm assuming 
xcat 
sets this up because I don't remember setting that up manually.  The 
following 
line is from xcatdsklspost:

wget -l inf -N -r --waitretry=10 --random-wait --retry-connrefused -t 0 -T 
60 
ftp://$SIP/postscripts 2> /tmp/wget.log

$SIP is obtained earlier in the script from some dhcp information.

The next line is where your screenshot shows the first error:

mv $SIP/postscripts/* /xcatpost;

The wget command should try forever until it downloads everything under 
ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  The fact that you are getting past wget, but the 
move 
is failing for $SIP/postscripts/* makes me think you don't have anything 
under 
ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  Can you try using a normal ftp client to browse 
ftp://172.20.101.140/postscripts?  It may be that the ftp server is 
sharing 
out the wrong directory.

Josh

On Friday March 25, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> Josh,
> 
> I made some progress, but stuck again. This time at the reboot of the
> machine being captured. The machine apparently cannot find postscripts.
> Any idea about how to fix it or what to try next?
> 
> I placed partimageng in /install/postscripts on our VCL (web, db, and 
mgt
> code) server - Blade14 (172.20.101.140). The machine being captured is
> blade08 (172.20.101.80).
> 
> Here is the screenshot:
> 
> Here is the pxe boot config file:
> [root@blade14 ~]# cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/blade08
> #image image-x86-centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0
> DEFAULT xCAT
> LABEL xCAT
>  KERNEL xcat/image/x86/vmlinuz
>  APPEND initrd=xcat/image/x86/initrd.img
> imgurl=http://blade14//install/image/x86/installer_files/rootimg.gz
> image=/install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.img blocks=512
> action=save installnic=eth0 reboot  noipv6
>   IPAPPEND 2
> [root@blade14 ~]#
> 
> Thanks,
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/22/2011 12:15 PM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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=sW7U
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.

I didn't even realize this until digging through xcatdsklspost, but your 
management node needs to be sharing out /install via ftp.  I'm assuming xcat 
sets this up because I don't remember setting that up manually.  The following 
line is from xcatdsklspost:

wget -l inf -N -r --waitretry=10 --random-wait --retry-connrefused -t 0 -T 60 
ftp://$SIP/postscripts 2> /tmp/wget.log

$SIP is obtained earlier in the script from some dhcp information.

The next line is where your screenshot shows the first error:

mv $SIP/postscripts/* /xcatpost;

The wget command should try forever until it downloads everything under 
ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  The fact that you are getting past wget, but the move 
is failing for $SIP/postscripts/* makes me think you don't have anything under 
ftp://$SIP/postscripts.  Can you try using a normal ftp client to browse 
ftp://172.20.101.140/postscripts?  It may be that the ftp server is sharing 
out the wrong directory.

Josh

On Friday March 25, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> Josh,
> 
> I made some progress, but stuck again. This time at the reboot of the
> machine being captured. The machine apparently cannot find postscripts.
> Any idea about how to fix it or what to try next?
> 
> I placed partimageng in /install/postscripts on our VCL (web, db, and mgt
> code) server - Blade14 (172.20.101.140). The machine being captured is
> blade08 (172.20.101.80).
> 
> Here is the screenshot:
> 
> Here is the pxe boot config file:
> [root@blade14 ~]# cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/blade08
> #image image-x86-centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0
> DEFAULT xCAT
> LABEL xCAT
>  KERNEL xcat/image/x86/vmlinuz
>  APPEND initrd=xcat/image/x86/initrd.img
> imgurl=http://blade14//install/image/x86/installer_files/rootimg.gz
> image=/install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.img blocks=512
> action=save installnic=eth0 reboot  noipv6
>   IPAPPEND 2
> [root@blade14 ~]#
> 
> Thanks,
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/22/2011 12:15 PM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
Josh,

I made some progress, but stuck again. This time at the reboot of the 
machine being captured. The machine apparently cannot find postscripts. 
Any idea about how to fix it or what to try next?

I placed partimageng in /install/postscripts on our VCL (web, db, and mgt 
code) server - Blade14 (172.20.101.140). The machine being captured is 
blade08 (172.20.101.80). 

Here is the screenshot:

Here is the pxe boot config file:
[root@blade14 ~]# cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/blade08
#image image-x86-centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0
DEFAULT xCAT
LABEL xCAT
 KERNEL xcat/image/x86/vmlinuz
 APPEND initrd=xcat/image/x86/initrd.img 
imgurl=http://blade14//install/image/x86/installer_files/rootimg.gz 
image=/install/image/x86/centos5image-blade08mar2466-v0.img blocks=512 
action=save installnic=eth0 reboot  noipv6
  IPAPPEND 2
[root@blade14 ~]#

Thanks,
John Ma
Marist College




From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   03/22/2011 12:15 PM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

The stateless parts are not actually black boxes.  They are gziped cpio 
files 
and are typical linux initrd and root filesystem images.  You can do the 
following to extract them:

mkdir /tmp/stateless
cd /tmp/stateless
mkdir initrd
mkdir rootimg
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/initrd.img
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/rootimg.gz
cd initrd
zcat ../initrd.img | cpio --extract
cd ../rootimg
zcat ../rootimg.gz | cpio --extract # if you do this last command as a 
non-
root user, you will get one error about not being able to create dev/null 
which is okay to ignore unless you want to modify and recreate the image

You would actually need to go through this process if you have hardware 
that 
is not supported in these images.  I only had the hardware at NCSU to 
develop 
on; so, they don't have a very big range of hardware support.  If you 
decide 
to go ahead with using this stuff for partimage and need support for 
different 
hardware, I can guide you through adding it in to initrd and rootimg.

If you wanted to modify and recreate the images after doing the above, you 

would do the following:

cd /tmp/stateless/initrd
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../initrd-new.img
cd /tmp/stateless/rootimg
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../rootimg-new.gz

The two images really don't do much.  Most of the work is done by the 
partimageng postscript.  They really just provide a small install of linux 
on 
which the other stuff can run.

As long as NCSU is using bare metal images, we'll still need a way to use 
xCAT 
and partimage to deploy images, and I don't see us moving completely away 
from 
bare metal images for many years.

I have been told that more recent versions of xCAT 2 do have partimage 
support, but that you have to download that part separately.  I have not 
looked in to this, but if it would be easy to switch VCL over to using 
that, 
it's possible we may do so in the future.

Josh

On Tuesday March 22, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> My concerns to the pre-build images are
>   1. Security - It's a black box. Will need our security officer's
> approval for production use.
>   2. Support - Will it still be available when we need to expand to 
other
> hardware platform or next release of xCAT/partimage?
> 
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/22/2011 10:32 AM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> We like partimage-ng.
> 
> But, we still use both partimage and partimage-ng. Our case is a little
> unique, we started using xCAT1.3 with partimage, then added local
> support ourselves because xcat 2.0 did not include imaging.
> 
> Can you expand on what you feel uncomfortable about? Is it building them
> or modifying, you should be able to mount them and view the contents.
> 
> Aaron
> 
> On 3/21/11 1:53 PM, John Ma wrote:
> > Hi Aaron,
> > 
> > I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What
> > imaging module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager
> > or other? I have this resource
> 
> 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-

> to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html ,
> 
> > but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> > To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date: 03/21/2011 12:33 PM
> > Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> > 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hello John,
> > 
> > Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
> > 
> > Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
> > 
> > Aaron
> > 
> > On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> >  > Hi community,
> >  > 
> >  > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for 
bare
> >  > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a
> 
> success
> 
> >  > story on this kind of setup yet?
> >  > 
> >  > Thanks,
> >  > John Ma
> >  > Marist College
> > 
> > --
> > Aaron Peeler
> > Program Manager
> > Virtual Computing Lab
> > NC State University
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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=Tv6U
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
Hi,

I am over this hurdle after reboot the management node.

Lesson Learned: xcatd will pickup newly inserted plugin at startup time.

Thanks,
John Ma
Marist College 

 



From:   John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   03/23/2011 10:45 AM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



Hi, 

Just to clarify that I didn't attempt to rebuild the three stateless 
images, only to use them as is. So I probably don't need to worry about 
choosing partimage or partimage-ng. 

I still stuck at  'Unable to identify plugin for this command, check 
relevant tables: nodetype.os', any help/hint/suggestion is appreciated. 


Thanks, 
John Ma 
Marist College 




From:        John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu> 
To:        vcl-user@incubator.apache.org 
Date:        03/22/2011 03:55 PM 
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter 



Josh, 

Thank you for the detailed instruction, I gave it a try to setup 
xCAT2.5/imaging by following 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html
. 

I cannot find partimage-ng anywhere, so I have partimage-0.6.9 compiled 
and installed, but it doesn't seem working. I got: 

[root@blade14 ~]# nodeset blade08 image 
blade08: Error: Unable to identify plugin for this command, check relevant 
tables: nodetype.os 

I have to handcraft several xcat tables, among them nodetype and osimage 
are the ones I have little confidence. Could you dump some relevant 
records in those two tables to illustrate your setup?  also, do I need to 
change anything to switch from partimage-ng to partimage? 

Thanks, 
John Ma 
Marist College 
Poughkeepsie, NY 
 



From:        Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu> 
To:        vcl-user@incubator.apache.org 
Date:        03/22/2011 12:15 PM 
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter 



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

The stateless parts are not actually black boxes.  They are gziped cpio 
files 
and are typical linux initrd and root filesystem images.  You can do the 
following to extract them:

mkdir /tmp/stateless
cd /tmp/stateless
mkdir initrd
mkdir rootimg
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/initrd.img
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/rootimg.gz
cd initrd
zcat ../initrd.img | cpio --extract
cd ../rootimg
zcat ../rootimg.gz | cpio --extract # if you do this last command as a 
non-
root user, you will get one error about not being able to create dev/null 
which is okay to ignore unless you want to modify and recreate the image

You would actually need to go through this process if you have hardware 
that 
is not supported in these images.  I only had the hardware at NCSU to 
develop 
on; so, they don't have a very big range of hardware support.  If you 
decide 
to go ahead with using this stuff for partimage and need support for 
different 
hardware, I can guide you through adding it in to initrd and rootimg.

If you wanted to modify and recreate the images after doing the above, you 

would do the following:

cd /tmp/stateless/initrd
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../initrd-new.img
cd /tmp/stateless/rootimg
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../rootimg-new.gz

The two images really don't do much.  Most of the work is done by the 
partimageng postscript.  They really just provide a small install of linux 
on 
which the other stuff can run.

As long as NCSU is using bare metal images, we'll still need a way to use 
xCAT 
and partimage to deploy images, and I don't see us moving completely away 
from 
bare metal images for many years.

I have been told that more recent versions of xCAT 2 do have partimage 
support, but that you have to download that part separately.  I have not 
looked in to this, but if it would be easy to switch VCL over to using 
that, 
it's possible we may do so in the future.

Josh

On Tuesday March 22, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> My concerns to the pre-build images are
>   1. Security - It's a black box. Will need our security officer's
> approval for production use.
>   2. Support - Will it still be available when we need to expand to 
other
> hardware platform or next release of xCAT/partimage?
> 
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/22/2011 10:32 AM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> We like partimage-ng.
> 
> But, we still use both partimage and partimage-ng. Our case is a little
> unique, we started using xCAT1.3 with partimage, then added local
> support ourselves because xcat 2.0 did not include imaging.
> 
> Can you expand on what you feel uncomfortable about? Is it building them
> or modifying, you should be able to mount them and view the contents.
> 
> Aaron
> 
> On 3/21/11 1:53 PM, John Ma wrote:
> > Hi Aaron,
> > 
> > I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What
> > imaging module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager
> > or other? I have this resource
> 
> 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-

> to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html ,
> 
> > but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> > To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date: 03/21/2011 12:33 PM
> > Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> > 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hello John,
> > 
> > Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
> > 
> > Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
> > 
> > Aaron
> > 
> > On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> >  > Hi community,
> >  > 
> >  > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for 
bare
> >  > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a
> 
> success
> 
> >  > story on this kind of setup yet?
> >  > 
> >  > Thanks,
> >  > John Ma
> >  > Marist College
> > 
> > --
> > Aaron Peeler
> > Program Manager
> > Virtual Computing Lab
> > NC State University
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAk2IyvUACgkQV/LQcNdtPQMBgwCaApLT9Tla8NEwBDZNbJXSE3DN
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=Tv6U
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
Hi,

Just to clarify that I didn't attempt to rebuild the three stateless 
images, only to use them as is. So I probably don't need to worry about 
choosing partimage or partimage-ng.

I still stuck at  'Unable to identify plugin for this command, check 
relevant tables: nodetype.os', any help/hint/suggestion is appreciated.


Thanks,
John Ma
Marist College




From:   John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   03/22/2011 03:55 PM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



Josh, 

Thank you for the detailed instruction, I gave it a try to setup 
xCAT2.5/imaging by following 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html
. 

I cannot find partimage-ng anywhere, so I have partimage-0.6.9 compiled 
and installed, but it doesn't seem working. I got: 

[root@blade14 ~]# nodeset blade08 image 
blade08: Error: Unable to identify plugin for this command, check relevant 
tables: nodetype.os 

I have to handcraft several xcat tables, among them nodetype and osimage 
are the ones I have little confidence. Could you dump some relevant 
records in those two tables to illustrate your setup?  also, do I need to 
change anything to switch from partimage-ng to partimage? 

Thanks, 
John Ma 
Marist College 
Poughkeepsie, NY 
  



From:        Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu> 
To:        vcl-user@incubator.apache.org 
Date:        03/22/2011 12:15 PM 
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter 



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

The stateless parts are not actually black boxes.  They are gziped cpio 
files 
and are typical linux initrd and root filesystem images.  You can do the 
following to extract them:

mkdir /tmp/stateless
cd /tmp/stateless
mkdir initrd
mkdir rootimg
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/initrd.img
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/rootimg.gz
cd initrd
zcat ../initrd.img | cpio --extract
cd ../rootimg
zcat ../rootimg.gz | cpio --extract # if you do this last command as a 
non-
root user, you will get one error about not being able to create dev/null 
which is okay to ignore unless you want to modify and recreate the image

You would actually need to go through this process if you have hardware 
that 
is not supported in these images.  I only had the hardware at NCSU to 
develop 
on; so, they don't have a very big range of hardware support.  If you 
decide 
to go ahead with using this stuff for partimage and need support for 
different 
hardware, I can guide you through adding it in to initrd and rootimg.

If you wanted to modify and recreate the images after doing the above, you 

would do the following:

cd /tmp/stateless/initrd
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../initrd-new.img
cd /tmp/stateless/rootimg
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../rootimg-new.gz

The two images really don't do much.  Most of the work is done by the 
partimageng postscript.  They really just provide a small install of linux 
on 
which the other stuff can run.

As long as NCSU is using bare metal images, we'll still need a way to use 
xCAT 
and partimage to deploy images, and I don't see us moving completely away 
from 
bare metal images for many years.

I have been told that more recent versions of xCAT 2 do have partimage 
support, but that you have to download that part separately.  I have not 
looked in to this, but if it would be easy to switch VCL over to using 
that, 
it's possible we may do so in the future.

Josh

On Tuesday March 22, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> My concerns to the pre-build images are
>   1. Security - It's a black box. Will need our security officer's
> approval for production use.
>   2. Support - Will it still be available when we need to expand to 
other
> hardware platform or next release of xCAT/partimage?
> 
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/22/2011 10:32 AM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> We like partimage-ng.
> 
> But, we still use both partimage and partimage-ng. Our case is a little
> unique, we started using xCAT1.3 with partimage, then added local
> support ourselves because xcat 2.0 did not include imaging.
> 
> Can you expand on what you feel uncomfortable about? Is it building them
> or modifying, you should be able to mount them and view the contents.
> 
> Aaron
> 
> On 3/21/11 1:53 PM, John Ma wrote:
> > Hi Aaron,
> > 
> > I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What
> > imaging module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager
> > or other? I have this resource
> 
> 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-

> to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html ,
> 
> > but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> > To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date: 03/21/2011 12:33 PM
> > Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> > 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hello John,
> > 
> > Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
> > 
> > Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
> > 
> > Aaron
> > 
> > On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> >  > Hi community,
> >  > 
> >  > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for 
bare
> >  > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a
> 
> success
> 
> >  > story on this kind of setup yet?
> >  > 
> >  > Thanks,
> >  > John Ma
> >  > Marist College
> > 
> > --
> > Aaron Peeler
> > Program Manager
> > Virtual Computing Lab
> > NC State University
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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=Tv6U
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
Josh,

Thank you for the detailed instruction, I gave it a try to setup 
xCAT2.5/imaging by following 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html
.

I cannot find partimage-ng anywhere, so I have partimage-0.6.9 compiled 
and installed, but it doesn't seem working. I got:

[root@blade14 ~]# nodeset blade08 image
blade08: Error: Unable to identify plugin for this command, check relevant 
tables: nodetype.os

I have to handcraft several xcat tables, among them nodetype and osimage 
are the ones I have little confidence. Could you dump some relevant 
records in those two tables to illustrate your setup?  also, do I need to 
change anything to switch from partimage-ng to partimage?

Thanks,
John Ma
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY
 



From:   Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   03/22/2011 12:15 PM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

The stateless parts are not actually black boxes.  They are gziped cpio 
files 
and are typical linux initrd and root filesystem images.  You can do the 
following to extract them:

mkdir /tmp/stateless
cd /tmp/stateless
mkdir initrd
mkdir rootimg
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/initrd.img
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/rootimg.gz
cd initrd
zcat ../initrd.img | cpio --extract
cd ../rootimg
zcat ../rootimg.gz | cpio --extract # if you do this last command as a 
non-
root user, you will get one error about not being able to create dev/null 
which is okay to ignore unless you want to modify and recreate the image

You would actually need to go through this process if you have hardware 
that 
is not supported in these images.  I only had the hardware at NCSU to 
develop 
on; so, they don't have a very big range of hardware support.  If you 
decide 
to go ahead with using this stuff for partimage and need support for 
different 
hardware, I can guide you through adding it in to initrd and rootimg.

If you wanted to modify and recreate the images after doing the above, you 

would do the following:

cd /tmp/stateless/initrd
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../initrd-new.img
cd /tmp/stateless/rootimg
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../rootimg-new.gz

The two images really don't do much.  Most of the work is done by the 
partimageng postscript.  They really just provide a small install of linux 
on 
which the other stuff can run.

As long as NCSU is using bare metal images, we'll still need a way to use 
xCAT 
and partimage to deploy images, and I don't see us moving completely away 
from 
bare metal images for many years.

I have been told that more recent versions of xCAT 2 do have partimage 
support, but that you have to download that part separately.  I have not 
looked in to this, but if it would be easy to switch VCL over to using 
that, 
it's possible we may do so in the future.

Josh

On Tuesday March 22, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> My concerns to the pre-build images are
>   1. Security - It's a black box. Will need our security officer's
> approval for production use.
>   2. Support - Will it still be available when we need to expand to 
other
> hardware platform or next release of xCAT/partimage?
> 
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/22/2011 10:32 AM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> We like partimage-ng.
> 
> But, we still use both partimage and partimage-ng. Our case is a little
> unique, we started using xCAT1.3 with partimage, then added local
> support ourselves because xcat 2.0 did not include imaging.
> 
> Can you expand on what you feel uncomfortable about? Is it building them
> or modifying, you should be able to mount them and view the contents.
> 
> Aaron
> 
> On 3/21/11 1:53 PM, John Ma wrote:
> > Hi Aaron,
> > 
> > I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What
> > imaging module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager
> > or other? I have this resource
> 
> 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-

> to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html ,
> 
> > but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> > To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date: 03/21/2011 12:33 PM
> > Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> > 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hello John,
> > 
> > Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
> > 
> > Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
> > 
> > Aaron
> > 
> > On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> >  > Hi community,
> >  > 
> >  > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for 
bare
> >  > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a
> 
> success
> 
> >  > story on this kind of setup yet?
> >  > 
> >  > Thanks,
> >  > John Ma
> >  > Marist College
> > 
> > --
> > Aaron Peeler
> > Program Manager
> > Virtual Computing Lab
> > NC State University
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by Josh Thompson <jo...@ncsu.edu>.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

John,

The stateless parts are not actually black boxes.  They are gziped cpio files 
and are typical linux initrd and root filesystem images.  You can do the 
following to extract them:

mkdir /tmp/stateless
cd /tmp/stateless
mkdir initrd
mkdir rootimg
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/initrd.img
wget http://people.apache.org/~jfthomps/partimageng_xCAT2x/rootimg.gz
cd initrd
zcat ../initrd.img | cpio --extract
cd ../rootimg
zcat ../rootimg.gz | cpio --extract # if you do this last command as a non-
root user, you will get one error about not being able to create dev/null 
which is okay to ignore unless you want to modify and recreate the image

You would actually need to go through this process if you have hardware that 
is not supported in these images.  I only had the hardware at NCSU to develop 
on; so, they don't have a very big range of hardware support.  If you decide 
to go ahead with using this stuff for partimage and need support for different 
hardware, I can guide you through adding it in to initrd and rootimg.

If you wanted to modify and recreate the images after doing the above, you 
would do the following:

cd /tmp/stateless/initrd
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../initrd-new.img
cd /tmp/stateless/rootimg
find . | cpio -oc | gzip -c -9 > ../rootimg-new.gz

The two images really don't do much.  Most of the work is done by the 
partimageng postscript.  They really just provide a small install of linux on 
which the other stuff can run.

As long as NCSU is using bare metal images, we'll still need a way to use xCAT 
and partimage to deploy images, and I don't see us moving completely away from 
bare metal images for many years.

I have been told that more recent versions of xCAT 2 do have partimage 
support, but that you have to download that part separately.  I have not 
looked in to this, but if it would be easy to switch VCL over to using that, 
it's possible we may do so in the future.

Josh

On Tuesday March 22, 2011, John Ma wrote:
> My concerns to the pre-build images are
>   1. Security - It's a black box. Will need our security officer's
> approval for production use.
>   2. Support - Will it still be available when we need to expand to other
> hardware platform or next release of xCAT/partimage?
> 
> John Ma
> Marist College
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:   Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date:   03/22/2011 10:32 AM
> Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> 
> 
> We like partimage-ng.
> 
> But, we still use both partimage and partimage-ng. Our case is a little
> unique, we started using xCAT1.3 with partimage, then added local
> support ourselves because xcat 2.0 did not include imaging.
> 
> Can you expand on what you feel uncomfortable about? Is it building them
> or modifying, you should be able to mount them and view the contents.
> 
> Aaron
> 
> On 3/21/11 1:53 PM, John Ma wrote:
> > Hi Aaron,
> > 
> > I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What
> > imaging module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager
> > or other? I have this resource
> 
> https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-
> to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html ,
> 
> > but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> > To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> > Date: 03/21/2011 12:33 PM
> > Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hello John,
> > 
> > Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
> > 
> > Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
> > 
> > Aaron
> > 
> > On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> >  > Hi community,
> >  > 
> >  > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for bare
> >  > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a
> 
> success
> 
> >  > story on this kind of setup yet?
> >  > 
> >  > Thanks,
> >  > John Ma
> >  > Marist College
> > 
> > --
> > Aaron Peeler
> > Program Manager
> > Virtual Computing Lab
> > NC State University
- -- 
- -------------------------------
Josh Thompson
VCL Developer
North Carolina State University

my GPG/PGP key can be found at pgp.mit.edu
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=Tv6U
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
My concerns to the pre-build images are
  1. Security - It's a black box. Will need our security officer's 
approval for production use.
  2. Support - Will it still be available when we need to expand to other 
hardware platform or next release of xCAT/partimage?

John Ma
Marist College




From:   Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   03/22/2011 10:32 AM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



We like partimage-ng.

But, we still use both partimage and partimage-ng. Our case is a little 
unique, we started using xCAT1.3 with partimage, then added local 
support ourselves because xcat 2.0 did not include imaging.

Can you expand on what you feel uncomfortable about? Is it building them 
or modifying, you should be able to mount them and view the contents.

Aaron

On 3/21/11 1:53 PM, John Ma wrote:
> Hi Aaron,
>
> I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What
> imaging module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager
> or other? I have this resource
> 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html
,
> but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.
>
> Thanks,
> John Ma
> Marist College
>
>
>
>
> From: Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date: 03/21/2011 12:33 PM
> Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Hello John,
>
> Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
>
> Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
>
> Aaron
>
>
> On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
>  > Hi community,
>  >
>  > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for bare
>  > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a 
success
>  > story on this kind of setup yet?
>  >
>  > Thanks,
>  > John Ma
>  > Marist College
>
> --
> Aaron Peeler
> Program Manager
> Virtual Computing Lab
> NC State University
>

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


Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>.
We like partimage-ng.

But, we still use both partimage and partimage-ng. Our case is a little 
unique, we started using xCAT1.3 with partimage, then added local 
support ourselves because xcat 2.0 did not include imaging.

Can you expand on what you feel uncomfortable about? Is it building them 
or modifying, you should be able to mount them and view the contents.

Aaron

On 3/21/11 1:53 PM, John Ma wrote:
> Hi Aaron,
>
> I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What
> imaging module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager
> or other? I have this resource
> https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html,
> but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.
>
> Thanks,
> John Ma
> Marist College
>
>
>
>
> From: Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
> To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Date: 03/21/2011 12:33 PM
> Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Hello John,
>
> Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
>
> Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
>
> Aaron
>
>
> On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
>  > Hi community,
>  >
>  > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for bare
>  > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a success
>  > story on this kind of setup yet?
>  >
>  > Thanks,
>  > John Ma
>  > Marist College
>
> --
> Aaron Peeler
> Program Manager
> Virtual Computing Lab
> NC State University
>

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

Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by John Ma <Jo...@marist.edu>.
Hi Aaron,

I couldn't even finish configuring xCAT2.5 to capture image. What imaging 
module is in your setup, partimage, partimage-ng, systemimager or other? I 
have this resource 
https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html
, but feel uncomfortable with the three pre-build stateless images.

Thanks,
John Ma
Marist College




From:   Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>
To:     vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
Date:   03/21/2011 12:33 PM
Subject:        Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter



Hello John,

Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions

Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?

Aaron


On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> Hi community,
>
> I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for bare
> metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a success
> story on this kind of setup yet?
>
> Thanks,
> John Ma
> Marist College

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


RE: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by "Kumar, Amit H." <AH...@odu.edu>.
Hi All,

I just wanted to add to this and see if I was in the same pool as others: 
I was not able to get xCAT+VCL2.2 to work on a bladcenter where the Management node was a Virtual Machine in the bladecenter. 

I was told by the VMware that IPMI devices are masked by ESXi, and hence not available for the Guest OS to do IPMI. 

I am not sure if this is universally true for others? 

Best Regards,
Amit


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aaron Peeler [mailto:aaron_peeler@ncsu.edu]
> Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 12:33 PM
> To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org
> Subject: Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter
> 
> Hello John,
> 
> Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions
> 
> Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?
> 
> Aaron
> 
> 
> On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> > Hi community,
> >
> > I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for bare
> > metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a
> success
> > story on this kind of setup yet?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > John Ma
> > Marist College
> 
> --
> Aaron Peeler
> Program Manager
> Virtual Computing Lab
> NC State University
> 
> 
> --
> BEGIN-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS
> ------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Teach CanIt if this mail (ID 458005711) is spam:
> Spam:
> https://www.spamtrap.odu.edu/b.php?i=458005711&m=3adfd0a9415c&t=2011032
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> 1&c=f
> ------------------------------------------------------
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Re: VCL2.2 + xCAT2.5 on bladecenter

Posted by Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>.
Hello John,

Yes. We're using xcat 2.5.1 and older versions

Can you send your vcld.log file for the requestid it failed on?

Aaron


On 3/21/11 12:25 PM, John Ma wrote:
> Hi community,
>
> I attempted and failed to setup xCAT 2.5 to work with VCL2.2 for bare
> metal provisioning all within a bladecenter. Does anyone have a success
> story on this kind of setup yet?
>
> Thanks,
> John Ma
> Marist College

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