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This section provides a summary of the software installation process, a description of the software stack, information about the Kickstart installation file, and a description of the default file system layout that is applied to the installation disk. Kickstart Installation Process | |
The XC software installation process begins on the head node and is based on the Kickstart automated installation process. The XC Kickstart process uses a predefined configuration file that contains the answers to many of the questions required to install the base operating system for an HP XC system. The single XC DVD software distribution contains a bootable installation image and an embedded Kickstart file. When you issue the command to initiate a Kickstart installation, the Kickstart file is found on the DVD, and it is used to automatically control the base operating system installation after you provide a few required responses. After the head node is installed, it eventually also becomes the golden client, which is the node that represents the configuration from which all other nodes are replicated. Log Files A record of the HP XC installation process and the installed XC RPMs is stored in the /var/log/postinstall.log file. A record of the Anaconda installation (Anaconda is the Linux installation program) is stored in the /root/install.log file. HP XC Software Stack | |
The XC software stack consists of a combination of HP proprietary, third-party, and open source software. Table 3-1 alphabetically lists the products that are contained in the HP XC software stack. These products are contained on a single DVD and are installed automatically by the XC software installation process. Table 3-1 HP XC Software Stack | Software Product Name | Description |
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HP MPI | HP MPI provides optimized libraries for message passing designed specifically to make high-performance use of the system interconnect. HP MPI complies fully with the MPI-1.2 standard. HP MPI also complies with the MPI-2 standard, with restrictions. | HP XC System Software Version 3.0 | HP XC System Software provides the installation, configuration, administration, and management tools to support HP XC systems on HP Cluster Platforms 3000, 4000, and 6000. | HPC Linux for High Performance Computing | HPC Linux provides Linux ABI (Application Binary Interface) compatibility, which provides: The ability to run binary serial codes from compatible Linux systems Access to community-developed software and to a large application catalog
| Linux Virtual Server (LVS) | LVS provides a system alias that enables user logins to be distributed across multiple login nodes and single system sign-on for both users and administrators. | LSF-HPC with SLURM on XC or Standard LSF | The Load Sharing Facility with SLURM on XC (LSF-HPC with SLURM) is developed by Platform Computing, Inc. that provides both direct job allocation and policy-scheduled interactive and batch queue management on an HP XC system. LSF-HPC with SLURM provides a rich set of policies for scheduling and prioritizing jobs based on combinations of static and dynamic system attributes. LSF-HPC with SLURM is especially intended for running MPI workloads on super computers and other high performance computing (HPC) environments, such as HP XC systems. It supports all major MPI parallel job launchers. It features topology-aware scheduling and support for high-speed interconnects. It also allows special task-based workload management policies (for example, enforcement of limits on individual parallel tasks). LSF-HPC is layered on top of the Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management (SLURM) to provide high-level job scheduling services. Standard LSF is used for workload management of any kind of batch job. It features comprehensive workload management policies in addition to simple first-come, first-serve scheduling (fairshare, preemption, backfill, advance reservation, service-level agreement, and so on). Standard LSF is suited for jobs that do not have complex parallel computational needs and is ideal for processing serial, single-process jobs. Standard LSF is not integrated with SLURM. | MySQL database | The MySQL database stores information about the HP XC system configuration. | Nagios | Nagios is a system and network monitoring application. It watches hosts and services that you specify and alerts you when problems occur or are resolved. On the HP XC system, Nagios is integrated with SuperMon for monitoring capabilities. | Parallel Distributed Shell (pdsh) | The pdsh shell is a multithreaded remote shell that executes commands on multiple remote hosts in parallel. | SLURM | SLURM was developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Linux Networks. SLURM is a resource manager for Linux clusters. It manages the key resource on an HP XC system: the compute nodes. | SuperMon | SuperMon is a highly scalable, high-speed cluster monitoring system. SuperMon provides all required node statistics to the Nagios subsystem. System statistics are tiered, aggregated, and stored in the HP XC database. | syslog-ng | The syslog-ng logging tool improves upon traditional syslog functionality. It supplies more flexibility to handle logs, adds better filters, and contains a better forwarding mechanism. | SystemImager | The SystemImager tool synchronizes the configuration of nodes across the system using image propagation. This facilitates ease of installation of the initial software and ease of upgrading software and configuration files. |
See the Preface (at the beginning of this document) for links and pointers to more information about the open source and third-party software components that are integrated into the XC core technology. Kickstart Installation File | |
The ks.cfg Kickstart installation file is supplied on the HP XC System Software DVD. It contains default values supplied by HP to reduce the number of answers you have to provide during the installation session. The Kickstart file differs depending on your cluster platform architecture, and the appropriate version of the file is included on your distribution media. Table 3-2 lists the default values defined in the Kickstart file, regardless of the cluster platform. These default values reduce the number of answers you have to provide during the installation session. Table 3-2 Default Values in the ks.cfg File | Item | Default Value |
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| Keyboard type | United States (U.S.) | | Mouse | Generic three button mouse emulation | | Language used by the installation process | U.S. English | | Language installed on the system | U.S. English | | Desktop manager | GNOME |
You can modify these values after the installation process is complete by using standard Linux system administration procedures. Default File System Layout and Disk Partition Sizes | |
Table 3-3 lists the default file system layout that is applied to the head node system disk. Because total disk size may vary, partition sizes are shown as a percentage of total disk size. The HP XC System Software Administration Guide describes the purpose and content of each file system. Table 3-3 Default Disk Partition Layout on the Head Node | File System Name | Partition Size With /hptc_cluster File System | Partition Size Without /hptc_cluster File System |
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3 swap partitions | 2 GB * 3 = 6 GB total swap space[1] | 2 GB * 3 = 6 GB total swap space[1] | /boot (AMD Opteron™ and Intel® Xeon™ systems) or /boot/efi (Itanium® systems) | 1 percent of remaining disk space | 1 percent of remaining disk space | / (root) | 50 percent of remaining disk space | 60 percent of remaining disk space | /var | 29 percent of remaining disk space | 39 percent of remaining disk space | /hptc_cluster (on head node only) | 20 percent of remaining disk space | N/A |
The default disk partition layout for client nodes (that is, nodes other than the head node) is listed in Table 4-4. |
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