Vinícius Ferrão
033b16d522
mknb only knew how to publish a discovery boot configuration for x86 (PXELINUX and xNBA) and POWER (petitboot). Any other architecture got a Genesis kernel and initramfs under /tftpboot/xcat and nothing that would make a firmware boot them, so riscv64 discovery could not start. riscv64 nodes boot through UEFI and grub2. Write one grub2 configuration per network, /tftpboot/boot/grub2/grub.cfg-<network hex prefix>, using the same network keys as the PXELINUX files. A net-booted grub2.riscv64 searches grub.cfg-01-<mac>, grub.cfg-<8 hex ip> and then shorter prefixes of the ip, so the per-node files that nodeset writes keep priority and the network file is only reached by clients without a node configuration. The file is regenerated from the published Genesis artifacts (lzma preferred over gzip), guarded by $grub_cpu so other grub2 architectures can share it later, carries the xcatd endpoint, the serial console and BOOTIF=$net_default_mac, and is dropped for networks served by a :noboot interface. It is written by name rather than into an existing file, because on a /32 network nodeset's hard link for the node carries the same name. Publishing a Genesis image now also drops the other compression variant of that architecture, so a leftover genesis.fs.<arch>.lzma can no longer be paired with a freshly published kernel by this configuration or by --configfileonly. And since these configurations are only reachable through grub2.<arch>, which xCAT does not build, a missing boot loader is reported instead of leaving the nodes to time out in firmware. xcatconfig now also runs mknb riscv64 when xCAT-genesis-base-riscv64 is installed, and the usage text lists the architecture.
xCAT
xCAT is a toolkit for deployment and administration of clusters of all sizes.
The xCAT sunset was only a quick eclipse
Dear xCAT Community,
The xCAT sunset has changed course. VersatusHPC has been invited to join the xCAT Consortium, and future development will move toward direct upstream contributions coordinated with the Consortium and its existing member companies.
That matters most for Enterprise Linux 10 (EL10). EL10 support is coming to xCAT, restoring a future operating-system path for sites that still rely on xCAT. This is an important change from the previous sunset guidance, where the lack of an EL10 path was one of the strongest reasons to move away from xCAT.
The xCAT Consortium continues to recommend Confluent as the long-term successor to xCAT, and that remains the Consortium position. Users planning new cluster-management deployments should evaluate Confluent and its xCAT comparison documentation.
At the same time, xCAT is no longer sunsetted. The Consortium and participating companies will continue updating xCAT while there is community and user demand for it.
In summary:
- xCAT development is continuing upstream through the Consortium and participating companies.
- Enterprise Linux 10 support is coming.
- Confluent remains the Consortium-recommended successor and migration path.
- xCAT updates will continue while there is community and user demand.
We want to thank the xCAT Consortium and community for keeping this project moving. The sun went behind the moon for a moment, but xCAT is still here.
For more information on Confluent and how to get started, please visit the Confluent: Project Page, Documentation or Confluent vs xCAT comparison.
With thanks,
The xCAT Consortium
Documentation
xCAT Documentation is hosted on Read The Docs: https://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io
Status
| xCAT Version | Build Status |
|---|---|
| Latest (master branch) | |
| Stable (latest release) |
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Open Source License
xCAT is made available under the EPL license: https://opensource.org/licenses/eclipse-1.0.php
Developers
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