The information in this section is optional. Read this section if you want to understand the details of the network installation described in Install PSSP on the nodes (externals).
A site may have more than one NIM master, but these NIM masters and their clients are considered to be separate NIM environments. NIM does not provide any services to share information across these separate environments.
As a default, the control workstation is the NIM master for a single frame system. If you have more than one frame, the default configuration is different: the control workstation installs the first node in each frame and defines it as a NIM master. Then, each NIM master installs the rest of the nodes in its frame. You can change the default by using SMIT changevg_dialog or the spchvgobj command.
Whether you use the default configuration or define your own, you use the spchvgobj command to define the boot/install server. The spchvgobj command updates the SDR with the information specified with the command. The setup_server command can be invoked on the boot/install servers to define them as NIM masters.
The setup_server command configures and defines the NIM master, resources, and clients that allow the nodes to be installed using the NIM environment.
NIM stores information about the NIM environment as objects in the NIM database. The types of objects defined for the SP system are:
Network objects represent information about the network interfaces required for installing a client. The SP system uses the |SP Ethernet administrative local area network (LAN) adapter interface on the client for the NIM installation.
Although the SP system may support multiple Ethernet networks depending upon the physical and defined subnets for your system, only the client's |SP Ethernet administrative LAN adapter interface is supported for the NIM installation.
Machine objects represent the machine configuration for a NIM client. Each machine object contains attributes which define it. Examples of machine attributes are:
Resource objects represent available resources in the NIM environment. All operations on a client in a NIM environment require one or more resources to be allocated. Examples of resources available in a NIM environment are:
See IBM AIX Network Installation Management Guide and Reference for a complete list and descriptions of the resource objects.
The SP system supports installation of mksysb images only through NIM mksysb resource objects.
When a node boots over the network, it issues a bootp request on that network specifying its network device hardware address. (For the RS/6000 SP, this is the node's |SP Ethernet administrative LAN adapter). The boot/install server has a list of nodes it boots and their associated hardware Ethernet addresses.
The bootp daemon on the boot/install server gets the request and looks in its table (/etc/bootptab) for this node's hardware Ethernet address. If it finds the address in its table, it responds by sending the node's IP address.
The node's IPL Read-Only Storage (ROS) requests a boot image transferred to the node using tftp. The boot image is run, the rootvg gets created, and NIM performs the installation of the mksysb image. After the mksysb installation is complete, NIM invokes the pssp_script script resource which transfers the install information files from the boot/install server to the node and performs the customization. These install files contain information necessary to successfully complete the netinstall.
pssp_script transfers the following netinstall information files from the boot/install server to the node and then performs the customization:
Fields in the install_info file contain the following information:
Fields in the config_info file contain the following information:
After a node is installed, pssp_script gets a copy of the config_info file from its master. The information in the config_info file is used to define the adapters, set the hostname, define the default route, and to customize the adapters with information such as host name and default route. This file is transferred from the server to the node during customization. The file is read at this time and the node is configured.
The PSSP file sets ssp.basic, ssp.perlpkg, ssp.sysctl, ssp.ha, ssp.clients, and ssp.sysman are installed if they are not already installed. The ssp.css file set is always installed on systems with a switch. The ssp.st option is installed if the node's boot/install server has it installed.
As part of completing the network install, NIM modifies the boot/install server's /etc/bootptab file so that the node does not perform a netinstall again on the next boot. PSSP changes the SDR node object bootp_response attribute to disk.
After customization, a bootable image is written to the node's disk. The node is then shut down and rebooted. When it is rebooted, PSSP checks the SDR to determine if any of the PSSP Site Environment options were chosen. If an option is selected, the node configuration for that system management option is performed now. When the node reboots, if it is a boot/install server, setup_server is run.
When you run /usr/lpp/ssp/bin/setup_server to configure a boot/install server, it does the following: