Table of Contents
xCAT 2.19.2 Release Notes
xCAT 2.19.2 is the second maintenance release of the 2.19 series. It carries two defect fixes and one opt-in feature for EL stateless images. It does not change the operating system support matrix introduced with xCAT 2.19.
Only the core packages are new. No dependency package changed, so 2.19.2 installs against the
xcat-dep repositories published with 2.19.0.
Highlighted Changes
Package signature checks for EL stateless images
genimage built every EL stateless image with gpgcheck=0 on every repository. The new
linuximage.gpgcheck attribute turns signature checks on for the base and otherpkgs
repositories. When it is set to 1 or yes, genimage exports the keys that the management node
trusts and writes gpgcheck=1 with a gpgkey= entry for each repository. When it is not set, the
image repositories are the same as in 2.19.1.
The management node must trust the signing key of every repository. Import the key of a
third-party repository, such as EPEL or OpenHPC, with rpm --import on the management node before
you build. genimage rejects an invalid value, and rejects the attribute for an image builder that
does not support it. See "Verify Package Signatures" in the genimage documentation and
#7954, a backport of
#7904.
The same change stops genimage from writing a baseurl=file:/// repository for an otherpkgdir
that holds only URLs. That repository logged "Failed to download metadata" on every build.
The configib postscript
On EL 9 and later, configib changed the existing NetworkManager connection of the InfiniBand
interface but did not turn on connection.autoconnect. On a diskful EL 10 node that connection is
the one the installer created with autoconnect off, so the IPoIB address was lost after the first
reboot. See #7951, a backport of
#7939.
genimage and /run
genimage bind-mounted the host /run into the image root before the directory existed there. The
first build of a new RPM image printed mount: .../rootimg/run: mount point does not exist. and
installed its packages without the host /run. See
#7955, a backport of
#7953.
Documentation title and release table
The published 2.19 documentation was titled "xCAT 2.17.0 documentation", because the documentation release string was not updated. The release information page now lists 2.18.2 and the 2.19 releases. See #7884.
Installation
EL (RHEL, AlmaLinux, Rocky 8, 9 and 10)
# /etc/yum.repos.d/xcat-core.repo
[xcat-core]
name=xCAT 2 Core packages
baseurl=https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/yum/2.19/xcat-core
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/yum/2.19/xcat-core/repodata/repomd.xml.key
The dependency repositories are unchanged from 2.19.0. Take the two published files, where <N> is
the EL major version:
curl -fsSo /etc/yum.repos.d/xcat-dep.repo \
https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/yum/2.19/xcat-dep/rh<N>/$(uname -m)/xcat-dep.repo
curl -fsSo /etc/yum.repos.d/xcat-dep-common.repo \
https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/yum/2.19/xcat-dep/common/xcat-dep-common.repo
Then:
dnf clean all
dnf makecache
dnf install xCAT
dnf makecache matters: a client that still holds the 2.19.1 metadata does not see 2.19.2.
Ubuntu (22.04, 24.04 and 26.04)
The core suites are focal, jammy, noble and resolute, each with one component, main.
curl -fsSL https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/apt/2.19/xcat-core/apt.key \
| gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/xcat-core.gpg
curl -fsSL https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/apt/2.19/xcat-dep/apt.key \
| gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/xcat-dep.gpg
codename=$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")
cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xcat.list <<EOF
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/xcat-core.gpg] https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/apt/2.19/xcat-core $codename main
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/xcat-dep.gpg] https://xcat.org/files/xcat/repos/apt/2.19/xcat-dep $codename main
EOF
apt-get update
apt-get install -y xcat
Offline tarball bundles
- EL core: https://xcat.org/files/xcat/xcat-core/2.19.x_Linux/xcat-core-2.19.2-linux.tar.bz2
- Ubuntu core: https://xcat.org/files/xcat/xcat-core/2.19.x_Ubuntu/xcat-core-2.19.2-ubuntu.tar.bz2
A core bundle holds the xCAT packages only, so an offline install needs the dependency bundle as well. Its contents are the ones published with 2.19.0:
- EL dep: https://xcat.org/files/xcat/xcat-dep/2.x_Linux/xcat-dep-2.19.1-linux.tar.bz2
- Ubuntu dep: https://xcat.org/files/xcat/xcat-dep/2.x_Ubuntu/xcat-dep-2.19.1-ubuntu.tar.bz2
Each bundle unpacks to a directory with mklocalrepo.sh, which points the package manager at the
unpacked tree.
Source
The signed tag and the GitHub source archives are on the xCAT 2.19.2 release page.
The complete change set is the 2.19.1...2.19.2 comparison.
Documentation
Complete documentation is hosted at https://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io/.
News
- Apr 22, 2016: xCAT 2.11.1 released.
- Mar 11, 2016: xCAT 2.9.3 (AIX only) released.
- Dec 11, 2015: xCAT 2.11 released.
- Nov 11, 2015: xCAT 2.9.2 (AIX only) released.
- Jul 30, 2015: xCAT 2.10 released.
- Jul 30, 2015: xCAT migrates from sourceforge to github
- Jun 26, 2015: xCAT 2.7.9 released.
- Mar 20, 2015: xCAT 2.9.1 released.
- Dec 12, 2014: xCAT 2.9 released.
- Sep 5, 2014: xCAT 2.8.5 released.
- May 23, 2014: xCAT 2.8.4 released.
- Jan 24, 2014: xCAT 2.7.8 released.
- Nov 15, 2013: xCAT 2.8.3 released.
- Jun 26, 2013: xCAT 2.8.2 released.
- May 17, 2013: xCAT 2.7.7 released.
- May 10, 2013: xCAT 2.8.1 released.
- Feb 28, 2013: xCAT 2.8 released.
- Nov 30, 2012: xCAT 2.7.6 released.
- Oct 29, 2012: xCAT 2.7.5 released.
- Aug 27, 2012: xCAT 2.7.4 released.
- Jun 22, 2012: xCAT 2.7.3 released.
- May 25, 2012: xCAT 2.7.2 released.
- Apr 20, 2012: xCAT 2.7.1 released.
- Mar 19, 2012: xCAT 2.7 released.
- Mar 15, 2012: xCAT 2.6.11 released.
- Jan 23, 2012: xCAT 2.6.10 released.
- Nov 15, 2011: xCAT 2.6.9 released.
- Sep 30, 2011: xCAT 2.6.8 released.
- Aug 26, 2011: xCAT 2.6.6 released.
- May 20, 2011: xCAT 2.6 released.
- Feb 14, 2011: Watson plays on Jeopardy and is managed by xCAT!
- xCAT Release Notes Summary
- xCAT OS And Hw Support Matrix
- xCAT Test Environment Summary
History
- Oct 22, 2010: xCAT 2.5 released.
- Apr 30, 2010: xCAT 2.4 is released.
- Oct 31, 2009: xCAT 2.3 released.
xCAT's 10 year anniversary! - Apr 16, 2009: xCAT 2.2 released.
- Oct 31, 2008: xCAT 2.1 released.
- Sep 12, 2008: Support for xCAT 2
can now be purchased! - June 9, 2008: xCAT breaths life into
(at the time) the fastest
supercomputer on the planet - May 30, 2008: xCAT 2.0 for Linux
officially released! - Oct 31, 2007: IBM open sources
xCAT 2.0 to allow collaboration
among all of the xCAT users. - Oct 31, 1999: xCAT 1.0 is born!
xCAT started out as a project in
IBM developed by Egan Ford. It
was quickly adopted by customers
and IBM manufacturing sites to
rapidly deploy clusters.