Incorporating External NICs HowTo
3.3 Gathering Networking Information
The following information is required to configure the NIC:
• The external host name for the node
• The external IP address
• Optionally, the external IPv6 address
• The netmask
• The gateway, that is, the system that acts as a gateway to external communications
• Optionally, the largest packet size (MTU).
Complete the corresponding portions of Table 4 (page 14) with the information from this section.
3.4 Understanding the platform_vars.ini File
The /opt/hptc/config/platform_vars.ini file on the HP XC head node contains
configuration parameters and Ethernet port mappings for the various platforms.
There is a section with the following format for each supported model type:
[type modeltype]
type=modeltype
alias=server_type
modelmap = <<EOT
Ethernet expression Admin_value Interconnect_value External_value
!Ethernet expression Admin_value Interconnect_value External_value
EOT
Depending whether or not Gigabit Ethernet is used for the interconnect switch and depending
on the number of Ethernet ports that are detected, the values in the table are assigned to the
Administration Port, the Interconnect port, and the External port. These values can be stated as
Ethernet device names, PCI bus IDs, and the literal strings undef and offboard.
The following is an example of an entry for the Model rx2600 in the [type modeltype] section
of the platform_vars.ini file:
[type rx2600]
1
type=rx2600
2
alias=server rx2600
3
#interconnect #of eths AdminPort Interconnect External
#------------ -------- --------- ------------ --------
modelmap = <<EOT
Ethernet ==2 undef undef undef
4
Ethernet ==3 20:02.0 offboard 00:03.0
Ethernet >3 20:02.0 offboard offboard
!Ethernet ==2 20:02.0 undef 00:03.0
!Ethernet >2 20:02.0 undef offboard
EOT
The portions of the entry are:
1
This line begins the stanza for this model type.
2
This line specifies the model type.
3
This line specifies the alias for this model type; it is used during the discover process.
4
The modelmap variable is used to define the node connections.
Usually, there is more than one line, each with five columns, which are described in Table 3
(page 12). The first line whose first two columns match the following criteria is the only one
3 Before You Begin 11