Preparing the environment on Linux nodes

Before proceeding with installation, prepare your environment by following the suggestions in the following sections.

Add the GPFS bin directory to your shell PATH

Ensure that the PATH environment variable for the root user on each node includes /usr/lpp/mmfs/bin. (This is not required for the operation of GPFS™, but it can simplify administration.)

Other suggestions for cluster administration

GPFS commands operate on all nodes required to perform tasks. When you are administering a cluster, it may be useful to have a more general form of running commands on all of the nodes. One suggested way to do this is to use an OS utility like dsh or pdsh that can execute commands on all nodes in the cluster. For example, you can use dsh to check the kernel version of each node in your cluster:

# dsh uname -opr
Node01: 2.6.18-128.1.14.e15 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Node02: 2.6.18-128.1.14.e15 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Once you have dsh set up, you can use it to install GPFS on a large cluster. For details about setting up dsh or a similar utility, review the documentation for the utility.

Verify that prerequisite software is installed

Before installing GPFS, it is necessary to verify that you have the correct levels of the prerequisite software installed on each node in the cluster. If the correct level of prerequisite software is not installed, see the appropriate installation manual before proceeding with your GPFS installation.

For the most up-to-date list of prerequisite software, see the GPFS FAQ in IBM® Knowledge Center.

The FAQ contains the latest information about the following:

Supported Linux distributions and kernel levels
Recommended or required RPM levels
Software recommendations
Configuration information

Before proceeding, see also GPFS and network communication.