Installation prerequisites

There are several prerequisites for installing IBM Spectrum Scale™.

Required packages for supported Linux distributions

For the list of packages that must be installed on the system before you can install IBM Spectrum Scale, see Software requirements.

Required packages for the spectrumscale installation toolkit

The spectrumscale installation toolkit requires the following package:

python-2.7

Operating systems supported with the spectrumscale installation toolkit

The spectrumscale installation toolkit is supported on the following operating systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x (7.0. 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8, and SLES 12 operating systems on the Intel x86_64 architecture.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x (7.0. 7.1, and 7.2) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 operating systems on the PPC64 architecture.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 and 7.2 operating systems on the PPC64LE architecture.

Start of change For information about how the installation toolkit can be used in a cluster that has nodes with mixed operating systems, see Mixed operating system support with the installation toolkit. End of change

For latest information about supported operating systems, see IBM Spectrum Scale FAQ in IBM® Knowledge Center.

SELinux mode supported with the spectrumscale installation toolkit

SELinux must be disabled or in the permissive mode for the spectrumscale installation toolkit to work.

Required packages for IBM Spectrum Scale NFS

dbus
nfs-utils
python
dbus-python
pygobject2

Requirements for file authentication

Before configuring file authentication, ensure that prerequisites are met to avoid installation failure. For information on prerequisites for configuring file authentication, see Configuring authentication and ID mapping for file access. For Active Directory (AD) authentication considerations, see Integrating with AD server.

Required packages for IBM Spectrum Scale for object storage

IBM Spectrum Scale for object storage requires the following SELinux packages to be installed:

selinux-policy-base at 3.13.1-23 or higher
selinux-policy-targeted at 3.12.1-153 or higher

Attention: If SELinux is disabled during installation of IBM Spectrum Scale for object storage, enabling SELinux after installation is not supported.

Cleanup required if you previously used the Object Redpaper™ configuration process

If you have already configured the system with Openstack software to use GPFS (following instructions from the Object Red paper) be sure to follow the Object cleanup steps in Cleanup procedures required if reinstalling with the spectrumscale installation toolkit before you start any installation activity.

Requirements for the management GUI

PostgreSQL server of the Linux distribution must be installed on the node on which the GUI is to be installed.
IBM Spectrum Scale Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) must be installed (gpfs.java RPM) on the node on which the GUI is to be installed.
IBM Spectrum Scale performance collector (gpfs.pmcollector RPM) must be installed on the node on which the GUI is to be installed.

GPFS 4.2.0 or later required on protocol and quorum nodes

If you want to run protocols in a mixed-version cluster, the protocol nodes and all of the quorum nodes must run 4.2.0 or later; other nodes can run an older version.

Note: For the Object protocol, the GPFS software is not required on the node that hosts the Keystone identity service if it is deployed on a separate node from the GPFS protocol nodes.

Additional GPFS requirements

If you want to run protocols, Cluster Configuration Repository (CCR) must be available.
mmchconfig release=LATEST must be run.
A GPFS cluster and a file system are required. If this infrastructure does not already exist, you must install the GPFS software, create a GPFS cluster and create a file system. You can use the spectrumscale installation toolkit to do these tasks. For more information, see Using the spectrumscale installation toolkit to perform installation tasks: Explanations and examples.
The GPFS file system must be mounted on all GPFS protocol nodes.
It is strongly recommended to configure the file system to only support NFSv4 ACLs. You can use the spectrumscale installation toolkit to do this task also if you use the installation toolkit to install GPFS. For more information, see Using the spectrumscale installation toolkit to perform installation tasks: Explanations and examples.
Alternatively, you can use the -k nfs4 parameter for mmcrfs. NFSv4 ACLs are a requirement for ACL usage with the SMB and NFS protocols. For more information, see examples in mmcrfs command.
Quotas are not enabled by default in GPFS file systems but are recommended for use with SMB and NFS protocols. For more information about quota management, see Enabling and disabling GPFS quota management.

Creation of a file system or fileset or path for a shared root, and creation of an object fileset

The installation toolkit uses a shared root storage area to install the protocols on each node. This storage is also used by NFS and object protocols to maintain system data associated with the cluster integration we provide. This storage can be a subdirectory in an existing file system or it can be a file system on its own. Once this option is set, changing it will requires a restart of GPFS.

You can use the spectrumscale installation toolkit to set up this shared root storage area if you use the toolkit for GPFS installation and file system creation. For more information, see Using the spectrumscale installation toolkit to perform installation tasks: Explanations and examples.

However, if you want to set up shared root before launching the installation toolkit, the following steps can be used:

Create a file system or fileset for shared root. Size must be at least 4 GB.
Use the following command:
mmchconfig cesSharedRoot=path_to_the_filesystem/fileset_created_in_step_1

For Object, the installation toolkit creates an independent fileset in the GPFS file system that you name.

SSH and network setup

This is a general GPFS prerequisite, not specific to protocols other than protocol-specific ports that need to be open on the firewall.

The node used for initiating installation of SMB, NFS, and/or Object protocols using the installation toolkit must be able to communicate through an internal or external network with all protocol nodes to be installed. All nodes also require SSH keys to be set up so that the installation toolkit can run remote commands without any prompts. Examples of prompts include a prompt asking for a remote node's password or a prompt asking a yes-or-no question. No prompts should exist when using SSH among any cluster nodes to and from each other, and to and from the node designated for installation.

For information on ports required by IBM Spectrum Scale, see Securing the IBM Spectrum Scale system using firewall and GPFS port usage.

For examples of how to open firewall ports on different operating systems, see Examples of how to open firewall ports.

Repository setup

This is a general GPFS prerequisite, not specific to protocols.

The spectrumscale installation toolkit contains all necessary code for installation; however, there may be base operating system packages required as prerequisites. In order to satisfy any prerequisites, it might be necessary for your nodes to have access to a DVD repository or an external repository accessible by network. Repositories containing IBM Spectrum Scale dependencies include the following x86_64 example:

rhel-x86_64-server-7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server

For more information about Yum repositories, see Configuring Yum and Yum Repositories .

For information on setting up repositories on SLES nodes, see Managing Software Repositories and Services.

Important: You must disable all configured EPEL repositories on all nodes added to the spectrumscale installation toolkit before proceeding with installation, deployment, or upgrade.

NTP setup

It is recommended that Network Time Protocol (NTP) be configured on all nodes in your system to ensure that the clocks of all of the nodes are synchronized. Clocks that are not synchronized will cause debugging issues and authentication problems with the protocols.

If you are using the installation toolkit for IBM Spectrum Scale installation, then no prior NTP configuration is required other than that the NTP package is installed and the NTP daemon (ntpd) is not running on all nodes.

Before setting up NTP on a node running on SLES 12 SP1 or earlier, you must run the logprof command, save the updated local profiles, and then reboot the node. This step is not required for nodes running on SLES 12 SP2.
For example:

# logprof
Reading log entries from /var/log/messages.
Updating AppArmor profiles in /etc/apparmor.d.
Enforce-mode changes:

Profile:  /usr/sbin/avahi-daemon
Path:     /run/nscd/group
Mode:     r
Severity: unknown

[1 - /run/nscd/group]

(A)llow / [(D)eny] / (G)lob / Glob w/(E)xt / (N)ew / Abo(r)t / (F)inish / (O)pts
Adding /run/nscd/group r to profile.

Profile:  /usr/sbin/avahi-daemon
Path:     /run/nscd/passwd
Mode:     r
Severity: unknown

[1 - /run/nscd/passwd]

(A)llow / [(D)eny] / (G)lob / Glob w/(E)xt / (N)ew / Abo(r)t / (F)inish / (O)pts
Adding /run/nscd/passwd r to profile.

= Changed Local Profiles =

The following local profiles were changed.  Would you like to save them?
[1 - /usr/sbin/avahi-daemon]

(S)ave Changes / [(V)iew Changes] / Abo(r)t
Writing updated profile for /usr/sbin/avahi-daemon.

Reboot the node for the changes to take effect. End of change

Use the config ntp commands listed in Understanding the spectrumscale installation toolkit options, Table 1 to set NTP servers and then NTP will automatically be configured at install time. For example:

/usr/lpp/mmfs/4.2.2.0/installer/spectrumscale config ntp -e on -s 198.51.100.2,198.51.100.4
[ WARN ] The NTP package must already be installed and full bidirectional access to the UDP port 123 must be allowed.
[ WARN ] If NTP is already running on any of your nodes, NTP setup will be skipped. To stop NTP run 'service ntpd stop'.
[ INFO ] Setting NTP to on
[ INFO ] Setting Upstream NTP Servers to 198.51.100.2,198.51.100.4

However, if you are manually installing IBM Spectrum Scale or would prefer to manually configure NTP, see the following example of enabling NTP on a node.

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux nodes

# yum install -y ntp
# ntpdate <NTP_server_IP>
# systemctl enable ntpd
# systemctl start ntpd
# timedatectl list-timezones
# timedatectl set-timezone
# systemctl enable ntpd

On SLES nodes

# zypper install -y ntp
# ntpdate <NTP_server_IP>
# systemctl enable ntpd
# systemctl start ntpd
# timedatectl list-timezones
# timedatectl set-timezone
# systemctl enable ntpd

On SLES 12 nodes, if the systemctl start ntp command hangs, use the resolution documented in Novell Knowledgebase Document 7015867.

Performance Monitoring tool

This is a general GPFS prerequisite, not specific to protocols.

Ensure that the following package is installed on the system before installation of the Performance Monitoring tool:

boost-regex on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
libboost_regex on SLES
libboost-regex-dev on Debian and Ubuntu Linux

Required packages for mmprotocoltrace

Some of the advanced tracing components of the mmprotocoltrace command require specific packages to be installed on all nodes that need to participate in tracing related operations.

To enable network tracing with mmprotocoltrace, you need to install the wireshark package.
To enable the syscalls-tracing for SMB, you need to install the strace package.

Collection of core dump data

For information about changing configuration to enable collection of core dump data from protocol nodes, see Configuration changes required on protocol nodes to collect core dump data.