xCAT is a very versatile cluster management tool, but it can be too much for your requirements. It does support a feature that every AIX administrator would love to have: Power and console access from the command line. The good news is that xCAT can do this with hardly any customization. Even better news is that xCAT is completely free of charge. There is no bad news.
Perform these seven steps to setup your xCAT server, and you're ready to roll!
- Download and unpack the latest xCAT "dep" and "core" files from http://sourceforge.net/projects/xcat/files/
- Run the instoss script (contained in the dep tar file) to install the OSS packages
- Run the instxcat script (contained in the core tar file) to install the xCAT RPMs
- Execute the system profile file to set the xCAT paths: . /etc/profile
- Define your HMCs: mkdef -t node -o my_hmc groups=hmcs nodetype=hmc mgt=hmc username=hscroot password=abc123
- Scan the HMCs and fill the node database: rscan -w hmcs
- Update the console server configuration (always run after rscan): makeconservercf
Test the HMC access: rpower all stat
Test a console: rcons my_lpar
If your partition definitions change, just run rscan again, and it will collect and store (overwrite) all new definitions.
This example uses an HMC, but an IVM works just as well. Substitute "hmc" with "ivm" in the above example, and use padmin instead of hscroot.
NB: rpower uses a specified partition profile for an LPAR, which may sometimes be different from what you want.
Check which one is used with: # nodels my_lpar ppc
Change the profile with: # chtab my_lpar ppc.pprofile=my_profile
Man pages are installed on the system, and full documentation is available on http://xcat.sourceforge.net/
For xCAT server on AIX setup: https://xcat.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xcat/xcat-core/trunk/xCAT-client/share/doc/xCAT2onAIX.pdf
For xCAT AIX nodes setup: https://xcat.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xcat/xcat-core/trunk/xCAT-client/share/doc/xCAT2onAIXinstall.pdf
