Month: June 2016

How to fix the autoboot issue with PowerLinux

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The Problem

I have configured petitboot to boot PowerKVM 3.1 installed on /dev/sda2, but even after rebooting, it will stays on the petitboot menu. I have to manually select the boot entry to boot into PowerKVM.

The environment

System type: 8284-22A     FW830.00 (SV830_023)

Petitboot Logs

cat /var/log/petitboot/pb-discover.log
--- pb-discover ---
Detected platform type: powerpc
Running command:
exe:  nvram
argv: 'nvram' '--print-config' '--partition' 'common'
configuration:
autoboot: enabled, 3 sec
network configuration:
  interface 6c:ae:8b:6a:74:14
   static:
    ip:  9.114.219.134/22
    gw:  9.114.219.254
  dns server 9.114.219.1
  boot device 070a7d69-b69d-4870-851f-3956ac94e41a
boot priority order:
    network: 0
        any: 1
  IPMI boot device 0x01 (persistent)
language: en_US.utf8
...

Root Cause

So the root cause is the boot configuration conflict. Someone has set it to boot from a network via IPMI command. And unfortunately when i configure it to boot from /dev/sda2, petitboot did not give me a warning. (This has been fixed in FW840)

Run the following ipmi command will prove the above analysis:

Get System Boot Options- NetFn = Chassis (0x00h), CMD = 0x09h

Response Data
0x00: No override
0x04: Force PXE
0x08: Force boot from default Hard-drive
0x14: Force boot from default CD/DVD
0x18: Force boot into BIOS setup

# ipmitool -I lanplus -H <fsp_ip> -P <passwd> raw 0x00 0x09 0x05 0x00 0x00

 01 05 c0 04 00 00 00

Here 0x04 indicates a boot override (Force PXE boot) . That is why it won’t auto boot to /dev/sda2.

Or we can use the following IPMI command for simplicity:

# ipmitool -I lanplus -H <fsp_ip> -P <passwd> chassis bootparam get 0x05
Boot parameter version: 1
Boot parameter 5 is valid/unlocked
Boot parameter data: c004000000
 Boot Flags :
 - Boot Flag Valid
 - Options apply to all future boots
 - BIOS PC Compatible (legacy) boot
 - Boot Device Selector : Force PXE
 - Console Redirection control : System Default
 - BIOS verbosity : Console redirection occurs per BIOS configuration setting (default)
 - BIOS Mux Control Override : BIOS uses recommended setting of the mux at the end of POST

The Fix

Set IPMI Boot Device to none:

# ipmitool -I lanplus -H <fsp_ip> -P <passwd> chassis bootdev none

After that, rebooting PowerLinux server will boot into /dev/sda2 automatically.

Update firmware to FW840

If the fw is updated to FW840, it will give you a warning on petitboot when you configure auto boot.

We can follow this link to update PowerLinux FW.

Reference

https://computercheese.blogspot.com/2013/04/ipmi-chassis-device-commands.html?view=sidebar

 

Deploy kubernetes on CentOS 7.x/ppc64le with Flannel

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If we want to deploy a multi-node kubernetes on CentOS 7.x with flannel on x86, then we can follow the steps in this blog.

Below are the steps to add a CentOS 7.x/ppc64le as a kubernetes node.

Installation Steps

1) Configure yum repo for the required packages

sudo vi /etc/yum.repos.d/docker.repo
[docker]
name=Docker
baseurl=http://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/ppc64el/rhel/7_1/docker-ppc64el/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

sudo vi /etc/yum.repos.d/docker-misc.repo
[docker-misc]
name=Docker
baseurl=http://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/ppc64el/rhel/7_1/misc_ppc64el/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

sudo vi /etc/yum.repos.d/at.repo
[at]
name=IBM Advanced Toolchain
baseurl=ftp://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/linuxpatch/toolchain/at/redhat/RHEL7/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

2) Update the system and install ntpd as well

sudo yum update -y
sudo yum install ntp -y
sudo systemctl start ntpd

3) Install docker

sudo yum install docker-io -y

sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d
sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d/override.conf
[Service] 
ExecStart= 
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker daemon --storage-driver=overlay $DOCKER_NETWORK_OPTIONS -H fd://

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable docker

4) Install flannel

sudo yum install advance-toolchain-at9.0-devel -y
sudo yum install flannel -y

sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/flanneld
 FLANNEL_ETCD="http://<k8s-master>:2379"

sudo systemctl enable flanneld
sudo systemctl start flanneld
sudo systemctl start docker

Here we must install advance-toolchain explicitly, otherwise flanneld won’t start.

5) Install kubernetes node

sudo yum install kubernetes-node -y
sudo vi /etc/kubernetes/config
 KUBE_MASTER="--master=http://<k8s-master>:8080"

sudo vi /etc/kubernetes/kubelet

# You may leave this blank to use the actual hostname
 KUBELET_HOSTNAME=""

# location of the api-server
 KUBELET_API_SERVERS="--api_servers=http://<k8s-master>:8080"

6) Start and enabled all the services.

for SERVICES in kube-proxy kubelet; do
    sudo systemctl restart $SERVICES
    sudo systemctl enable $SERVICES
done

Verify that kubernetes node is correctly installed on CentOS 7.x/ppc64le

From your kubernetes master node, run

kubectl get nodes

And check that your centos 7.x/ppc64le host is listed in Ready status.

Sample output:

[centos@mengxd-master ~]$ kubectl get nodes
NAME           STATUS     AGE
mengxd-node1   Ready      13d
mengxd-node2   Ready      43s

 

References

[1] http://sudhaker.com/41/multi-node-kubernetes-on-centos-7-x-with-flannel