Chapter 4. Initial Installation

Table of Contents

1. Installation Overview
1.1. Requirements
1.2. Installation Variants
1.2.1. Live Installation
1.2.2. Non-GUI Installation
1.3. System installation overview
1.4. Installation Result
2. Software Installation
2.1. Overview
2.2. Starting the Software Installation
2.3. Post installation
2.4. Working with the Dolphin Network Configurator, dis_netconfig
2.4.1. Cluster Edit
2.4.2. Node Arrangement
2.4.3. Cabling Instructions
2.5. Cluster Cabling
2.5.1. Connecting the PCI Express cables
2.5.2. Verifying the Cabling
2.6. Finalising the Software Installation
2.6.1. Static Connectivity Test
2.6.2. SuperSockets Configuration Test
2.6.3. SuperSockets Performance Test
2.7. Handling Installation Problems
2.8. Interconnect Validation using the management GUI
2.8.1. Installing dis_admin
2.8.2. Starting dis_admin
2.8.3. Cluster Overview
2.8.4. PCIe connection Test
2.9. Interconnect Validation using the command line
2.10. Making Cluster Application use PCI Express
2.10.1. Generic Socket Applications
2.10.2. Kernel Socket Services
2.10.3. IPoPCIe
2.10.4. Native SISCI Applications

This chapter guides you through the initial hardware and software installation of eXpressWare. This means that no Dolphin software is installed on the Cluster Nodes or the Cluster Management Node prior to these instructions. To update an existing installation, please refer to Chapter 5, Update Installation.

To add new Cluster Nodes to a cluster, please refer to Chapter 7, Interconnect Maintenance,“Adding Nodes”.

The recommended installation procedure, which is described in this chapter, uses the Self-Installing Archive (SIA) distribution of the Dolphin eXpressWare software stack which can be used for all Linux distributions that support the RPM/DEB package formats. Installation on other Linux platforms is covered in Chapter 6, Manual Installation.