Incorporating External NICs HowTo

To perform the necessary tasks for this HowTo, you need:
To gather node-specific information
To determine NIC-specific information
To specify networking information
To understand the platform_vars.ini Configuration File
To understand how to use the device_config Command
3.1 Gathering Node-Specific Information
The following node-specific information is required to complete the tasks in this HowTo:
The node name. That is, how the node is known to the HP XC system.
If the nodes have been discovered, entering the nodename command on a node returns its
node name.
The model type of the node
Model numbers are displayed on the front of the node.
If the nodes of the HP XC system have been discovered, you can use the shownode config
command to determine the model numbers for the nodes in an HP XC system, as follows:
# shownode config | less
...
nodes:
...
n1:
...
server_type: server rx2600
...
IMPORTANT: The instructions to incorporate an NIC in an Integrity model type rx8620
server differs slightly from other model types.
The interconnect switch used
The configuration file you will update takes into consideration if Gigabit Ethernet or another
interconnect switch, such as Quadrics QSnet
II
, is used.
The firewall configuration
By default, the firewall is configured automatically to open all external physical Ethernet
ports the same way: that is, virtual ports 22 (ssh) and 443 (https) are open by default. The
firewall prototype files are capable of configuring up to five external physical Ethernet ports
per node automatically as shipped; you can easily extend these files for additional external
physical Ethernet ports.
It is possible, however, that you need to custom configure the firewall for the extra external
network connections. In this version of the HP XC system software, services may not have
been modified to use the external ports automatically and you may need to configure the
firewalls appropriately for them.
Complete the corresponding portions of Table 4 (page 14) with the information from this section.
3.2 Determining NIC-Specific Information
For most model types, the following Ethernet interface data for the NIC is required:
the PCI bus ID
8