XCAT not processing driver update disk images correctly - IBM System Cluster 1350 (1410)

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H003756

Symptom

The Extreme Cluster Administration Toolkit (xCAT) supports the addition of Linux Driver Update Disks (DUDs) to provide updated device drivers while deploying a Linux installation.

The typical method is to place the DUD image in the /install/driverdisk/<os>/<architecture>/ directory on the management node.

When a node is set to deploy the OS and architecture in question, the contents of the DUD image are supposed to be incorporated into the installation.

Regarding the symptom in question, the contents are not added as expected.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

• IBM System Cluster 1350, type 1410, any model

This tip is not software specific.

This tip is not option specific.

The xCAT 2.9.2 utility is affected.

The system has the symptom described above.

Solution

This behavior will be corrected in a future release of xCAT.

The target date for this release is scheduled for second quarter 2016.

The file is or will be available by selecting the appropriate Product Group, type of System, Product name, Product machine type, and operating system on IBM Support's Fix Central web page, at the following URL:

     http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/

Workaround

The DUD contents can be added to the installation by modifying the Linux kernel command line used during installation. This can be done in xCAT by modifying the bootparams.addkcmdline parameter for the server in question, as in the example below:

In this example, server n100 will incorporate the contents of the file DUD.img from the management server into its installation.

Additional information

xCAT is failing to process the DUD contents correctly via the usual method. Specifying the value for bootparams.addkcmdline allows the contents to be incorporated.