XCAT_2.5_Release_Notes

New Function and Changes in Behavior

• New OS support:
  • RHEL6 beta support
  • Scientific Linux 5 support
  • Fedora 12/13 support
  • Support for AIX 7.1 and AIX 6.1.6. AIX 5.3 is no longer officially supported with xCAT 2.5 and above.
• New commands. See the corresponding man pages for details.
  • lsflexnod/mkflexnod/rmflexnode - manage flexible nodes that contain more than one physical server.
  • makeroutes - add routes to connect the MN to the nodes via the service nodes.
  • snmove - move nodes from one service node to another
  • lslite - Display a summary of the xCAT statelite information stored in the xCAT database.
  • chkosimage - For AIX osimages verify if the NIM lpp_source directories contain the required software.
  • xcatchroot - Use this xCAT command to modify an xCAT AIX diskless operating system image. (Simplifies the use of the AIX chroot command.)
  • rmimage - Removes the Linux stateless or statelite image from the file system.
• New optional ddns plugin:
  • ddns plugin available for dynamic dns support
  • Enhanced Active Directory integration (requires use of ddns plugin)
  • No longer absolutely need a static ip address assigned ahead of time, nodes may live entirely in dynamic scope. (Requires use of ddns plugin and xnba netboot method)
• VMWare support enhancements:
  • vSphere 4.1 support
  • Improved ESXi 4.1 stateless images (fixup authorized_keys, etc)
• KVM plugin enhancements
  • nfs:// uri syntax supported for vm.storage, will appear on hypervisor as /var/lib/xcat/pools/<uuid>
  • chvm allows online modification of virtio storage (add/delete) and offline modification of IDE drives
  • BIOS bootorder of disks in a vm is now better preserved on power off in complicated virtual disk configurations
  • rinv command for listing information about a VM
  • lsvm on KVM hypervisors to list all VMs, regardless of whether xCAT manages them or not
  • rmvm -p to purge all storage associated with a VM
  • Compatibility with RHEL6 virtualization stack
  • Present a consistent UUID to guest OSes across reboots
  • Default to 'vga' adapter where available for enhanced guest video capability.
• vm.storagemodel and vm.nicmodel available to specify default model of respective virtualized devices. The =model syntax is still supported. (VMWare and KVM)
• clonevm command to create masters from VMs and instantiate VMs from masters (VMware and KVM)
• Expanded support for provisioning, managing, and monitoring of Linux on s390x:
  • Control the power of virtual servers
  • Create, edit, and delete virtual servers
  • Clone Linux virtual servers
  • Provision Linux based on a autoyast or kickstart template
  • Collect software and hardware inventories of virtual servers
  • Compare software inventory
  • Monitor Linux virtual servers using Ganglia
  • Create diskfull or diskless (Statelite) virtual servers
  • Run commands in parallel
  • Check out what xCAT can do on youtube
• AIX enhancements:
  • The mknimimage command has been enhanced to:
  • improve support for updating AIX diskless images, (You can now specify options to use when installing rpm and emgr packages.)
  • improve support for copying AIX diskless images.
  • Added statelite support for AIX diskless-stateless deployments. This provides the ability to “overlay” specific persistent files or directories over the standard stateless support. (This support is included as "beta" support in this release.)
  • Provide a sample AIX postscript(createFS) that may be used to create additional local file systems on the nodes.
  • Added prescripts support for AIX.
• Statelite and stateless enhancements:
  • Statelite: the options for the entries in litefile table are up-to-date, please refer to the manpage of litefile table.
  • genimage wrapper takes image definition from the osimage table.
  • Enhancements to image import/export to support postscripts, profiles, copying image etc.
• Enhanced xdcp and updatenode rsync file syntax support. Allow wild cards, entire directory transfers. See man page for xdcp and updatenode and the document [Sync-ing_Config_Files_to_Nodes].
• SNMP monitoring enhancements: supports running different cmds for different traps, supports "contains" for trap filter.
• makedhcp takes site.disjointdhcps, if it is set, the .leases files on the sn will only contain the nodes that are managed by the sn.
• Many DHCPv6 client behaviors changed to use UUID for DUID (ESXi/Windows/...)
• updatenode command on Linux supports installing additional rpms or updating rpms on the node that are from the OS distro.
• noderes.primarynic/noderes.installnic may be left blank for autodetection based on boot interface (RH/SLES/ESXi)
• DB2 9.7 support on AIX 6.1 and Redhat 5, and DB2 9.7.0.3 support on AIX 7.1.
• Enhanced interface for user tables. See [Granting_Users_xCAT_privileges]
• renergy command supports the energy management for blade server
• chdef command supports to change the object name
• Added the new feature of supporting Driver Update Disk for Linux deployment. The Driver Update Disk can be loaded automatically during the diskfull installation and diskless netboot
• Documentation on how to setup management node high availability. See [Highly_Available_Management_Node].
• Enhancement to rpower command to perform coordinated cluster bringup and shutdown, using the information in the deps table

Limitations and Known Issues

• The lsslp command in xCAT 2.5 on AIX runs more slowly than in xCAT 2.4. We are still investigating the cause. See the Tracker bug for details.
• If the "all" group is not defined, mkdsklsnode on AIX will fail. See the Tracker bug for details.

For additional issues, see Tracker Bugs .