HP XC System Software Installation Guide Version 3.1

from root (/). The golden image is stored on the image server, which is also resident on the head node in
this release.
When nodes are instructed to PXE or network boot from their network adapter attached to the
administration network, the nodes automatically go through an installation process that replicates the
golden client and does the following:
• Partitions the local disk
By default, the first disk is partitioned because in this release, disks other than the first disk are not
supported because of restrictions in the image replication environment.
• Creates file systems
• Downloads the golden image
• Installs the appropriate boot loader
When the automatic installation process completes, each node is rebooted and continues its configuration
process, eventually ending with the login prompt.
3.1.3 System Configuration and Imaging Log Files
A record of the configuration process is stored in the /var/log/nconfig.log file.
Logging of the system imaging process is stored in the following files:
• /hptc_cluster/adm/logs/imaging.log
• /var/log/systemimager/rsyncd
• /hptc_cluster/adm/logs/startsys.log
The /hptc_cluster/adm/logs/imaging.log file contains log information produced during the
imaging and node configuration processes.
Use the information in this file to diagnose imaging issues such as nodes not booting correctly or failing
during the imaging operation. The node configuration portion of the log file provides useful information
during the first boot after a node has been imaged. If a node configuration fails, the node is put into
single-user mode with network access. The node is not allowed to join the HP XC system without user
intervention. The node or nodes that are put into single-user mode are listed in the imaging.log file.
Two system services that are based on syslog-ng log the UDP based information sent by each client during
installation and the node configuration phase (which is called the nconfigure phase). The
hptc-ire-serverlog service runs persistently on the imaging server. It is responsible for accepting
UDP messages from the imaging client and from the hptc-ire-clientlog service running when a
node is running through its nconfigure phase. The hptc-ire-clientlog service is managed by autoinstall
and the nconfig process. It is only started during these processes and turned off after the processes have
been completed.
The rsync log daemon is responsible for logging start and completion time stamps for imaging and golden
image updates in the /var/log/systemimager/rsyncd file. The information is sent through TCP for
reliability. This is a required service because imaging completion timestamps are used to generate the per
node entries in the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg file that denote a system has imaged successfully.
3.2 Task 1: Prepare for the System Configuration
Use the following list to prepare for the system configuration phase.
1. Know where you stored the XC.lic license key file because you will copy or move it to the head
node.
2. Be prepared to supply the information listed in Table 3-1, which is required by the cluster_prep
command.
44 Configuring and Imaging the System