Preparing to use the installation toolkit

Before using the installation toolkit, complete the following preparatory steps on all the nodes on which you plan to use the installation toolkit.

  1. Ensure that the following requirements are met.
    Operating systems supported with the installation toolkit
    The installation toolkit is supported on the following operating systems.Start of change
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5,Start of change and 7.6End of change operating systems on x86_64, PPC64, PPC64LE, and s390x architectures.
    • SLES 12 operating system on x86_64 and s390x architectures.
    • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS operating systems on x86_64 and s390x architectures.
    End 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.

    Note:
    • The object protocol is not supported on SLES 12.
    • SMB, NFS, and object protocols are not supported on the s390x architecture.

    For latest information about supported operating systems, see IBM Spectrum Scale™ FAQ in IBM® Knowledge Center (www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/STXKQY/gpfsclustersfaq.html).

    Required packages for the installation toolkit
    The installation toolkit requires following package:
    • python-2.7
    • Start of changenet-toolsEnd of change
    Note: Start of changeYou might need to install Python 2.7 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS nodes because it is not included by default in the base Ubuntu 18.04 LTS operating system. This can be done by installing either the dependency package python or the minimal python 2.7 environment python-minimal.End of change
    Start of changeSupported Chef versions End of change
    Start of change

    The installation toolkit bundles Chef packages of following versions:

    Operating system and CPU architecture Chef package version
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x on x86_64, PPC64, PPC64LE, and s390x
    • Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 on x86_64 and s390x
    		 chef-13.6.4-1
    • SLES 12 on x86_64
    		 chef-12.1.2-1
    • SLES 12 on s390x
    		 chef-12.0.3-1
    The installation toolkit handles the Chef package as follows:
    • The installation toolkit displays informational messages during prechecks if the Chef version is different from the supported versions.
    • If the currently installed Chef version is the same as the version of Chef bundled in the previous version of the installation toolkit, then the Chef package is upgraded.
    • On SLES 12, if the version is different from the supported version, you must uninstall Chef before using the installation toolkit.
    • On Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu:
      • If the Chef version is earlier than the supported version, then the installation toolkit prompts users to confirm whether to upgrade the Chef package to the supported version, or continue with the existing version, or abort.
      • If the Chef version is later than the supported version, then the installation toolkit displays a warning message that a non-certified Chef version is being run and then prompts users to confirm whether to continue or abort.
    End of change
    Root access for the installation toolkit

    The installation toolkit must be run as the root user. On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS, root login is disabled by default. To use the installation toolkit on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS, you must enable the root login.

    Call home information required for the installation toolkit

    The installation toolkit requires call home data to work properly. You must have the customer name, the customer id, the customer email, and the customer country code available before installing and configuring call home with the installation toolkit.

    Disable auto updates on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS nodes

    On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS nodes, auto updates or unattended upgrades must be disabled, and kernel auto updates upon node reboot must also be disabled. This is to ensure that any updates that are not supported with the installation toolkit do not get installed.

    Uninstall RPM Package Manager (RPM) on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS nodes

    To use the installation toolkit on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS nodes, you must uninstall the RPM Package Manager (RPM) from these nodes.

    For information on prerequisites for protocols and performance monitoring, see Installation prerequisites.

  2. Set up passwordless SSH as follows.
    • From the admin node to the other nodes in the cluster.
    • From protocol nodes to other nodes in the cluster.
    • From every protocol node to rest of the protocol nodes in the cluster.
    The installation toolkit performs verification during the precheck phase to ensure that passwordless SSH is set up correctly. This verification includes:
    • Check whether passwordless SSH is set up between all admin nodes and all the other nodes in the cluster. If this check fails, a fatal error occurs.
    • Check whether passwordless SSH is set up between all protocol nodes and all the other nodes in the cluster. If this check fails, a warning is displayed.
    • Check whether passwordless SSH is set up between all protocol nodes in the cluster. If this check fails, a fatal error occurs.
  3. Set up repositories depending on your operating system.
    • These package managers must be set up depending on the operating system.
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5Start of change, 7.6End of change: yum repository must be set up on all nodes in the cluster
      • SLES 12: zypper repository must be set up on all nodes in the cluster
      • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS: apt repository must be set up on all nodes in the cluster
    • Configure repositories depending on whether you have internet connection or not. However, ensure that base operating system packages are available and EPEL repositories are disabled.
  4. Ensure that SELinux is disabled.
    Note: If you cannot disable SELinux for some reason, it must be in the permissive mode. However, there are a lot of log entries that are generated in the permissive mode. Therefore, disabling SELinux is recommended.
  5. Ensure that the ports required for installation are open.
    Note: The installation toolkit checks if the firewall daemon is running and displays a warning if it is running. If the required ports are open, you can ignore the warning.
    For information about the ports that need to be open, see Securing the IBM Spectrum Scale system using firewall.
  6. Ensure that the required kernel packages are installed.

    For more information, see Software requirements.

    Note: You might have to force the installation of a specific version of these packages because a package of a version newer than the corresponding kernel might get picked up by default.
  7. Ensure that networking is set up in one of the following ways.
    • DNS is configured such that all host names, either short or long, are resolvable.
    • All host names are resolvable in the /etc/hosts file. The host entries in the /etc/hosts file must be in the following order:

      <IP address> <Fully qualified domain name> <Short name>

  8. Obtain the IBM Spectrum Scale self-extracting protocols installation package.
Parent topic: Installing IBM Spectrum Scale on Linux nodes with the installation toolkit