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3.4.6 xCAT operating system installation types: Disks and state
The xCAT management node can support different methods for provisioning an operating
system (OS) and providing persistent state (data) to the compute nodes according to
availability of disks and persistency requirements:
򐂰 “Diskful” and Stateful: The operating system is installed to disk and loaded from disk;
changes are written to disk (persistent).
򐂰 Diskless and Stateless: The operating system is installed by using a different and
contained method in the management node and loaded from the network; changes are
written to memory and discarded (not persistent).
򐂰 Diskless and “Statelite”: An intermediary state between stateless and stateful. The
operating system is installed by using a different and contained method in the
management node and loaded from the network either through the network file system
(NFS) or initial RAM disk. Changes are written to memory and can be stored (persistent)
or discarded (not persistent).
For more information about operating system provisioning and state persistency, see the
xCAT online documentation at the following website:
http://sourceforge.net/p/xcat/wiki/XCAT_Linux_Statelite
Note: The availability of a particular installation type for an operating system or version is
subject to support by the xCAT release.
3.4.7 xCAT network adapters: Primary and secondary or additional
In xCAT terminology, a network adapter or interface7 in a node can be either primary or
secondary (also known as additional). Only one primary network adapter exists, and zero or
more secondary or additional network adapters.
The primary network interface of a node connects to the xCAT management network (that is,
to the management node) and therefore is used to provision, boot, and manage that node.
An additional or secondary network interface connects to an xCAT network other than the
xCAT management network and xCAT service network. Therefore, it is used by xCAT
application networks, xCAT site networks or public networks, or for other purposes.
For more information, see the xCAT online documentation at the following website:
http://sourceforge.net/p/xcat/wiki/Configuring_Secondary_Adapters
3.4.8 xCAT Software Kits
xCAT provides support to a software package format that is called xCAT Software Kits (also
known as xCAT kits or kits) that is tailored for installing software in xCAT clusters. Kit is used
with products of the IBM Cluster Software stack.
An xCAT software kit can include a software product’s distribution packages, configuration
information, scripts, and other files. It also includes xCAT-specific information for installing the
appropriate product pieces, which are referred to as the kit components, to a particular node
according to its environment and role in the xCAT cluster.
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The term xCAT Network Interface is more precise and unambiguous in that a single network adapter with multiple
ports provides multiple network interfaces (that is, one interface per port) to the operating system. However, the
term is not widely adopted in the documentation.
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