Manually installing IBM Spectrum Scale and deploying protocols on Linux nodes

Use this information to manually install IBM Spectrum Scale and deploying protocols on systems running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x, SLES 12, and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS.

These prerequisites must be met before installing IBM Spectrum Scale on Linux systems.
  • Repository must be set up.
    • For information on setting up repository on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide.
    • For information on setting up repository on SLES 12, see SLES 12 Deployment Guide.
    • For information on setting up repository on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS, see Ubuntu Server Guide.
  • All prerequisite packages must be installed. For a list of prerequisite packages, see Software requirements and Installation prerequisites.
  • Passwordless SSH must be set up between all nodes in the cluster. For more information, see Passwordless SSH setup.
  • Firewall configuration must be according to your requirements. It is recommended that firewalls are in place to secure all nodes. For more information, see Securing the IBM Spectrum Scale system using firewall.
    To check the status of the firewall on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x, issue the following command:
    systemctl status firewalld
    To check the status of the firewall on SLES 12, issue the following command:
    sudo /sbin/rcSuSEfirewall2 status
    To check the status of the firewall on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS, issue the following command:
    sudo ufw status

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

  • Every node must have a non-loopback IP address assigned. In some scenarios, a freshly installed node might have its host name pointing to 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts. 127.0.0.1 is a loopback IP address and it is not sufficient for multi-node IBM Spectrum Scale cluster creation. In these cases, each node needs a static IP with connectivity to the other nodes.
  • Optionally, the bash profile can be updated to allow easier access to IBM Spectrum Scale commands.
    • Verify that the PATH environment variable for the root user on each node includes /usr/lpp/mmfs/bin and the required tool directories. This allows a user to execute IBM Spectrum Scale commands without having to first change directory to /usr/lpp/mmfs/bin.
    • Export the WCOLL variable used by mmdsh. In the following example, /nodes is a manually created file, listing line by line, each node within the cluster using the nodes' FQDN. Once IBM Spectrum Scale is installed, this configuration allows the mmdsh command to execute commands on multiple nodes simultaneously.

    Example:

    # cat ~/.bash_profile
    # .bash_profile
    # Get the aliases and functions
    if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
      . ~/.bashrc
    fi
    
    ######
    # User specific environment and startup programs
    ######
    ######
    # Specifics for GPFS testing
    ######
    export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:/usr/lpp/mmfs/bin
    export WCOLL=/nodes

    Log out and then log in again for the changes in the bash profile to take effect.