About the provisioning process

The node provisioning process includes, installing the operating system and required files onto the compute node, and then adding the compute node to the cluster. IBM® Platform Cluster Manager Community Edition uses DHCP and the TFTP services to add or reinstall nodes.

View the status of a node from the Web Portal, form the Resources tab, go to Infrastructure > Nodes. The Provision Status column displays the current provisioning status for a node.

During provisioning, the node status has the following states: Defined > Provisioning > Provisioned

For Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the node status corresponds with the provisioning process. These services are automatically configured when you add a node. The provisioning process that occurs on a node includes the following steps:
  1. The node boots up.
  2. If there is a BMC device in the network profile, the node configures the BMC network interface. After the BMC is configured, the node automatically reboots.
  3. The node downloads the RHEL kernel and the initial ramdisk (initrd), and begins the full operating system installation. Extra software packages are also installed.
  4. The operating system installation is completed.
  5. The node runs the post-install scripts that are specified in the image profile.
  6. The node reboots automatically.
  7. The node boots up and runs the post-boot scripts that are specified in the image profile.
  8. After all post-scripts are finished running, the node is provisioned.

After a node is provisioned, you can select from the corresponding operating system packages that are installed on the node.