FW: xCAT Cluster Management SW?

[Egan Ford]

> Is this still going to happen? I have spent the last 3 days trying to
> get the latest release of xcat working. Here are the problems we ran
> into ( BTW -- we have installed 2 eariler versions of xcat 
> with minimal
> problems. ) It would seem that the latest xcat.org debauchle 
> has really
> screwed the pooch.

Since I had to break out the OSS, IBM, and xCAT parts in to different
tarballs it has lead to some confusion and undocumented missing
commands.  xCAT 1.2.0 fixes that.

> 1) there is no updated Howto to be found. Everythink included in the
> tarballs seems to point to xcat.org. Some updated documentation can
> really help.

xCAT 1.2.0 has many changes and a new mini HOWTO with links to the other
detail updated documentation.  xCAT 1.2.0 HOWTO will be written by Matt
after 1.2.0 releases.

> 2) There are several files/programs missing, with no 
> instructions on how
> to find them or build them. Examples: fping, mpcli, etc.

xCAT is 3 tarballs now.  You need all three and need to extract all 3 in
the same directory.  IBM will not host the OSS parts.  Get parts 1 and 2
from http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xCAT/ and the 3 from
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~garrick/xcat-dist-oss-1.1.7.tgz

> 3) VERY lacking documentation on any of the hardware shipped with the
> IBM clusters. Can you _please_ include information on the ESP/ELP
> terminal servers? We had to spend 2 days on the phone with Equinox to
> just get the IP address reset on an ESP. It is not that tough 
> to do, but
> again some documentation would be nice.

That is fully documented in the xCAT 1.1.0 redbook and there is a new
terminal server HOWTO in the xCAT 1.2.0 release.

> 4) The IBM RSA/ASMA adapter sucks. Sorry guys, but a piece of hardware
> that is supposed to provide remote administration should 
> _not_ fail 25%
> of the time. It is really tiresome to have to dump power on and RSA
> adapter just to get it to work.

Many of the problems with the RSA firmware have been resolved, please
upgrade the firmware.    If you have a specific list of issues please
send them directly to me.  The most common problems are related to
improper cabling.  That is fully documented on
http://www.pc.ibm.com/support.

1.1.7 is stable and has been in production for 3 months.  Upgrading to
1.2.0 is strongly recommmended and if you can wait for 1.2.0, please do.

xcat.org and the mailing list with archives should be back up this week.