HP XC System Software Administration Guide Version 4.0
Table Of Contents
- XC Administration Guide
- Table of Contents
- About This Document
- 1 HP XC Administration Environment
- 1.1 Understanding Nodes, Services, and Roles
- 1.2 File System
- 1.3 HP XC Command Environment
- 1.4 Configuration and Management Database
- 1.5 HP XC Configuration File Guidelines
- 1.6 Installation and Software Distribution
- 1.7 Improved Availability
- 1.8 Networking
- 1.9 Modulefiles
- 1.10 Security
- 1.11 Recommended Administrative Tasks
- 2 Improved Availability
- 3 Starting Up and Shutting Down the HP XC System
- 4 Managing and Customizing System Services
- 4.1 HP XC System Services
- 4.2 Displaying Services Information
- 4.3 Restarting a Service
- 4.4 Stopping a Service
- 4.5 Global System Services
- 4.6 Customizing Services and Roles
- 4.6.1 Overview of the HP XC Services Configuration
- 4.6.2 Service Configuration Sequence of Operation
- 4.6.3 Assigning Roles with the cluster_config Utility
- 4.6.4 The *config.d Directories
- 4.6.5 Configuration Scripts
- 4.6.6 Understanding Global Configuration Scripts
- 4.6.7 Advance Planning
- 4.6.8 Editing the roles_services.ini File
- 4.6.9 Creating a service.ini File
- 4.6.10 Adding a New Service
- 4.6.11 Verifying a New Service
- 5 Managing Licenses
- 6 Managing the Configuration and Management Database
- 6.1 Accessing the Configuration and Management Database
- 6.2 Querying the Configuration and Management Database
- 6.3 Finding and Setting System Attribute Values
- 6.4 Backing Up the Configuration Database
- 6.5 Restoring the Configuration Database from a Backup File
- 6.6 Archiving Sensor Data from the Configuration Database
- 6.7 Restoring the Sensor Data from an Archive File
- 6.8 Purging Sensor Data from the Configuration and Management Database
- 6.9 Dumping the Configuration and Management Database
- 7 Monitoring the System
- 7.1 Monitoring Tools
- 7.2 Monitoring Strategy
- 7.3 Displaying System Environment Data
- 7.4 Monitoring Disks
- 7.5 Displaying System Statistics
- 7.6 Logging Node Events
- 7.7 The collectl Utility
- 7.8 Using HP Graph To Display Network Bandwidth and System Use
- 7.9 The resmon Utility
- 7.10 The kdump Mechanism and the crash Utility
- 8 Monitoring the System with Nagios
- 8.1 Nagios Overview
- 8.2 Using the Nagios Web Interface
- 8.3 Adjusting the Nagios Configuration
- 8.4 Configuring Nagios on HP XC Systems
- 8.5 Using the Nan Notification Aggregator and Delimiter To Control Nagios Messages
- 8.6 Nagios Report Generator Utility
- 8.7 Modifying Nagios To Effect Changes
- 9 Network Administration
- 10 Managing Patches and RPM Updates
- 11 Distributing Software Throughout the System
- 11.1 Overview of the Image Replication and Distribution Environment
- 11.2 Installing and Distributing Software Patches
- 11.3 Adding Software or Modifying Files on the Golden Client
- 11.4 Determining Which Nodes Will Be Imaged
- 11.5 Updating the Golden Image
- 11.6 Propagating the Golden Image to All Nodes
- 11.7 Maintaining a Global Service Configuration
- 12 Opening an IP Port in the Firewall
- 13 Connecting to a Remote Console
- 14 Managing Local User Accounts and Passwords
- 14.1 HP XC User and Group Accounts
- 14.2 General Procedures for Administering Local User Accounts
- 14.3 Adding a Local User Account
- 14.4 Modifying a Local User Account
- 14.5 Deleting a Local User Account
- 14.6 Configuring the ssh Keys for a User
- 14.7 Synchronizing the NIS Database
- 14.8 Changing Administrative Passwords
- 14.8.1 Changing the Superuser Password
- 14.8.2 Changing the CMDB Password
- 14.8.3 Changing the Interconnect Password
- 14.8.4 Changing the Console Port Password
- 14.8.5 Synchronizing the BMC/IPMI Password for CP6000 Systems
- 14.8.6 Changing the Nagios Administrator Password
- 14.8.7 Changing the LSF Administrator Password
- 15 Managing SLURM
- 16 Managing LSF
- 16.1 Standard LSF
- 16.2 LSF with SLURM
- 16.3 Switching the Type of LSF Installed
- 16.4 LSF with SLURM Installation
- 16.5 LSF with SLURM Startup and Shutdown
- 16.6 Controlling the LSF with SLURM Service
- 16.7 Launching Jobs with LSF with SLURM
- 16.8 Monitoring and Controlling LSF with SLURM Jobs
- 16.9 Maintaining Shell Prompts in LSF Interactive Shells
- 16.10 Job Accounting
- 16.11 LSF Daemon Log Maintenance
- 16.12 Load Indexes and Resource Information
- 16.13 LSF with SLURM Monitoring
- 16.14 LSF with SLURM Failover
- 16.15 Moving SLURM and LSF Daemons to Their Backup Nodes
- 16.16 Enhancing LSF with SLURM
- 16.17 Configuring an External Virtual Host Name for LSF with SLURM on HP XC Systems
- 17 Managing Modulefiles
- 18 Mounting File Systems
- 19 Managing Software RAID Arrays
- 20 Using Diagnostic Tools
- 20.1 Using the sys_check Utility
- 20.2 Using the ovp Utility for System Verification
- 20.3 Using the dgemm Utility to Analyze Performance
- 20.4 Using the System Interconnect Diagnostic Tools
- 21 Troubleshooting
- 21.1 General Troubleshooting
- 21.2 Nagios Troubleshooting
- 21.3 Messages Reported by Nagios
- 21.4 System Interconnect Troubleshooting
- 21.5 Improved Availability Issues
- 21.5.1 How To Start HP Serviceguard When Only the Head Node is Running
- 21.5.2 Restart Serviceguard Quorum Server if Quorum Server Node is Re-imaged
- 21.5.3 Known Limitation if Nagios is Configured for Improved Availability
- 21.5.4 Network Restart Command Negatively Affects Serviceguard
- 21.5.5 Problem Failing Over Database Package Under Serviceguard
- 21.6 SLURM Troubleshooting
- 21.7 LSF Troubleshooting
- 22 Servicing the HP XC System
- 22.1 Adding a Node
- 22.2 Replacing a Client Node
- 22.3 Actualizing Planned Nodes
- 22.4 Replacing a Server Blade Enclosure OnBoard Administrator
- 22.5 Replacing a System Interconnect Board in an HP CP6000 System
- 22.6 Software RAID Disk Replacement
- 22.7 Incorporating External Network Interface Cards
- 22.7.1 Gathering Information
- 22.7.2 Editing the platform_vars.ini File
- 22.7.3 Using the device_config Command
- 22.7.4 Updating the Database for the External Network Card
- 22.7.5 Updating the Firewall Custom Configuration
- 22.7.6 Reconfiguring the Nodes
- 22.7.7 Verifying Success
- 22.7.8 Updating the Golden Image
- A Installing LSF with SLURM into an Existing Standard LSF Cluster
- B Setting Up MPICH
- C HP MCS Monitoring
- D CPU Frequency-Based Power-Saving Feature
- Glossary
- Index

21.1.2 Mismatched Secure Shell Keys
If a node on your system has a mismatched Secure Shell (ssh) key, review the following list for
the source of the problem:
• The node was not imaged, and was booted an old image, which had older ssh keys. In this
instance, it is the image, not the keys, that is out of synchronization.
You can solve this problem by imaging the node properly and rebooting.
• The keys were regenerated on the head node. Typically, the cluster_config utlity was
run with the option to regenerate the keys.
If you absolutely must synchronize keys, enter the following command:
# /opt/hptc/nagios/libexec/check_keys --update
This command uses the Nagios nrpe plug-in executor to create a checksum for the keys
with the superuser. If a node has a key is out of synchronization, the node requests and
receives a new copy of the key.
This method offers a means of recovery if the root ssh keys are somehow damaged or
corrupted.
21.1.3 NFS Mount Failure (Permission Denied)
It is possible to experience a mount failure when nodes image, boot, and attempt to NFS mount
the /hptc_cluster file system. The nodes receive a Permission denied error message from
the attempt to mount the /hptc_cluster file system.
If nodes receive a Permission denied error, run the following commands on the head node
to restart nfs and re-run node configuration scripts and restart services on all other nodes:
# service nfs restart
# pdsh -a touch /var/hptc/nconfig.1st
# stopsys
# startsys
21.1.4 NFS Attribute Caching on Large-Scale Systems
On large-scale HP XC systems, NFS attribute caching can cause inconsistencies when large
numbers of client nodes are asked to access files that have been updated recently and the attribute
caching data on the client has not expired. Disabling attribute caching eliminates the problem
but may degrade performance for frequent file operations requiring file attribute data.
You can disable attribute caching using the noac mount option on all external NFS mounts.
21.1.5 Stale Metrics Data
On systems with the administration network on a 10.x.x.x subnet, it is possible that the database
permissions are not set correctly for logging metrics data. The symptom is that several Nagios
services, such as NodeInfo and System Free Space report WARNING: Data is stale alerts.
Enter the following command to determine whether this is occurring:
# /opt/hptc/nagios/libexec/check_metrics -d 0 btime
If the command output reports an error similar to Cannot connect to server: Access
denied for user 'logger', it is likely that the database permissions are not set correctly.
Contact the HP XC support team at xc_support@hp.com and request the fixpriv script. This
script updates the permissions in the MySQL database.
After running the script, run the check_metrics command again to confirm the fix.
21.2 Nagios Troubleshooting
This section contains general troubleshooting information for Nagios application.
248 Troubleshooting