• Introduction to Validating xCAT Configuration
• Verifying Node List
• Reporting Node Status
• Verifying Hardware Management Configuration
• Verifying Provisioning Images
• Verifying VM Migration

Introduction to Validating xCAT Configuration

This document describes a series of steps to validate xCAT configuration prior to configuring Moab to manage hardware via xCAT. It is assumed the reader is familiar with xCAT and the xCAT configuration on the target site. This document does not provide xCAT configuration documentation or troubleshooting information; please refer to the xCAT documentation for such information.

Verifying Node List

Verify that all nodes that Moab will manage are known to xCAT with the xCAT nodels command. Ensure that all expected (and no unexpected) nodes are listed. You may find it useful to create new group names to identify Moab-managed nodes.

[root@h0 moab]# nodels hyper,compute 
h1 
h2
h3 
h4 
h5 
h7 
kvmm1 
kvmm10 
kvmm2 
kvmm3 
kvmm4 
kvmm5 
kvmm6 
kvmm7 
kvmm8
[root@h0 moab]#

Reporting Node Status

Verify that all nodes report their status correctly using the xCAT nodestat command. Ensure that all nodes show the correct status (sshd, installing, noping, and so forth); there should not be any timeouts or error messages.

[root@h0 moab]# nodestat hyper,compute |sort 
h1: pbs,sshd 
h2: pbs,sshd 
h3: pbs,sshd 
h4: pbs,sshd 
h5: pbs,sshd 
h7: noping 
kvmm10: noping 
kvmm1: pbs,sshd 
kvmm2: pbs,sshd 
kvmm3: pbs,sshd 
kvmm4: pbs,sshd 
kvmm5: pbs,sshd 
kvmm6: pbs,sshd 
kvmm7: pbs,sshd 
kvmm8: noping 
kvmm9: noping
[root@h0 moab]#

Verifying Hardware Management Configuration

Verify that all nodes that Moab will manage have hardware management interfaces correctly configured using the xCAT nodels and rpower commands. After each of the rpower commands, verify the requested state was achieved with rpower stat.

[root@h0 moab]# nodels h1,kvmm1 nodehm.mgt nodehm.power 
h1: nodehm.power: ilo 
h1: nodehm.mgt: ilo 
kvmm1: nodehm.power: kvm 
kvmm1: nodehm.mgt: kvm 
[root@h0 moab]# rpower h1,kvmm1 off
h1: off
kvmm1: off
[root@h0 moab]# rpower h1,kvmm1 stat
h1: off
kvmm1: off
[root@h0 moab]# rpower h1,kvmm1 boot
h1: on reset
kvmm1: on reset
[root@h0 moab]# rpower h1,kvmm1 stat
h1: on
kvmm1: on
[root@h0 moab]#

Verifying Provisioning Images

Verify that all operating system images that Moab uses are configured correctly in xCAT. For stateful images, test that all combinations of operating system, architecture, and profile install correctly.

[root@h0 moab]# rinstall -o centos5.3 -a x86_64 -p hyper h1
h1: install centos3.2-x86_64-hyper 
h1: on reset
[root@n100 ~]# sleep 15 && nodestat n05 
n05: ping install centos5.3-x86_64-hyper
[root@h0 moab]#

For stateless images, test that nodes are able to network boot the images.

[root@h0 moab]# nodech h5 nodetype.os=centos5.3 nodetype.arch=x86_64 nodetype.profile=hyper 
[root@h0 moab]# nodeset h5 netboot 
h5: netboot centos5.3-x86_64-hyper 
[root@h0 moab]# rpower h5 boot 
h5: on reset 
[root@h0 moab]# sleep 60 && nodestat h5 
h5: pbs, sshd
[root@h0 moab]#

Verifying VM Migration

If you use VM migration, verify that xCAT can successfully perform migrations using the rmigrate command.

[root@h0 moab]# rmigrate kvmm7 h1 
kvmm7: migrated to h1 
[root@h0 moab]# ssh h1 virsh list 
Id Name State 
---------------------------------- 
33 kvmm1 running 
34 kvmm2 running 
35 kvmm7 running

See Also

• Native Resource Manager Overview
• Resource Provisioning