XCAT_2.10_Release_Notes

• New Functions and Changes in Behavior
• Test Environment
  • xCAT dependency package verified with this xCAT release:
  • Operating Systems which have been verified:
  • Hardware Platform which have been verified:
• Key Bug fixes
• Restrictions and Known Problems

New Functions and Changes in Behavior

• New Operating System Support

  • CentOS 7.1 support on x86_64, the CentOS 7.1 is also named as CentOS-7 (1503).
  • SLES11 SP4 support on x86_64 and ppc64.
  • RHELS 6.7 support on x86_64 and ppc64.

• Supported the Ubuntu LE -> RH 7.1 BE mixed cluster scenario. Mixed Cluster Matrix

• Supported to deploy Little-Endian operating systems on Power 8 PowerVM LPARs with the 830 firmware (01SV830):

  • RHEL 7.1 LE (Diskful and diskless)
  • SLES 12 LE (Diskful and diskless)
  • Ubuntu 15.04 LE (Diskful)

• Supported CUDA installation for ubuntu 14.04.2 on PowerNV (Nvidia GPU Support). CUDA Install

  • diskfull and diskless
  • Supported 2 CUDA package set, the cudaruntime package set(for compute node only) and cudafull package set.

• Supported to add additional kernel parameters for diskful deployment.

  • Supported on Ubuntu, Redhat and SLES.
  • The new added kernel parameters can be persistent during reboot.
  • See "set the kernel options which will be persistent the installed system" section of Installing_Stateful_Linux_Nodes for Details.

• Supported the customized disk partition file for Ubuntu diskful deployment, see customize-the-disk-partitioning-optional for details.

• Supported the feature to configure the disk raid for Power LE machine before the OS deployment. RAID Configuration

• Added command 'switchdiscover' to support the discovery of Enthernet and IB switches. Refer to the man page of switchdiscover command.

• Added command 'makentp' to set up ntp service on xCAT MN and SN. Setup NTP

• Supported the switch-based hardware discovery for Power LE machine. Switch-based hw discovery

• Added the '--noping' option for 'getmacs -D' command to avoid the ping test that just list all of the available network devices. (For PowerVM Lpar)

• Added a new debugging facility to ease the debugging of node provisioning and updatenode (Set site attribute "site.xcatdebugmode" to "1" to turn on). See Debugging_xCAT_Problems for more details. (Experimental)

• Added the feature that display warning message when the INVALID noderes.netboot attribute is used. A recommended value is offered.

• Rest API Enhancement

  • nbimage - create genesis image
  • bmcdiscovery - do bmc discovery
  • checkbmcauth - verify the user/password for a bmc
  • getbmcipsource - query the bmc ip source: static/dhcp

• Added the capability of building the xcat-core tarball from xcat-core git code repository on your own machine, see building xcat-core from xcat-core git repository for more details. Note: this only work on Linux, not on Ubuntu or AIX.

• Made the change that "copycds" only creates diskful and diskless osimages for compute and service nodes.

• non-osimage features have been deprecated in xCAT 2.10, you could not run nodeset <nodename> install|netboot|statelite for RHEL, SLES and Ubuntu nodes any more. See documentation Convert Non-osimage Based System To Osimage Based System for more details on how to convert to osimage based configuration.</nodename>

• AIX support is discontinued in xCAT 2.10, xCAT 2.9.x will be the last xCAT version that supports AIX.

Test Environment

xCAT dependency package verified with this xCAT release:

• Linux:xcat-dep-201506110324.tar.bz2 mirror linkxcat-dep

• Ubuntu:xcat-dep-ubuntu-snap20150611.tar.bz mirror linkxcat-dep

Operating Systems which have been verified:

• RHELS 6.7
• RHELS 7.0
• RHELS 7.1
• SLES 11.3
• SLES 11.4
• SLES 12
• Ubuntu 14.04.02

Hardware Platform which have been verified:

• POWER7 (HMC version: V7R7.4.0)
• POWER8 BE (HMC version: V8R8.2.0)
• POWER8 LE
• dx360m4

Key Bug fixes

• Changed the parameter name which used to pass REST API authentication account. The old parameter names: 'userName:password', the new parameter names: 'userName:userPW'. Refer to the bug 4671

• Fixed the bug that rerun 'mknb ppc64' or 'makedhcp -a' caused the ppc64le nodes could not reboot successfully.4622

• Fixed the bug that 'confignics -s' does not work when there is no entry for installnic in nics table. Refer to the bug 4637

• Fixed the bug that the failure of Ubuntu genimage which did not clean up dangerous mount. 4635

Restrictions and Known Problems

• When enabled site.xcatdebugmode=1, part of the debug messages of xCAT postscripts in ubuntu compute node can NOT be deliveried to xCAT MN. Since it's just debug messages, it does not impact any real functionality. Bug 4748

• Create image (run genimage) failed when /install is mounted from NFS server. The workaround is to use local disk for /install. Bug 4654

• Install kvm hypervisor failed when added 'xHRM' postscript in postscript and did not set installnic to specific nic name. The workaround is to run 'xHRM' in postbootscript. Bug 4761