Ignite-LUX: Management and Integration of Ignite-UX Software on a Server Running Linux

The pctComplete and state values indicate progress. Step names, which indicate install phases, are

intended to be fairly human-readable. CMS software should not parse or be coded to recognize these state

values, but might display the last one as part of status.

While not recommended, you could directly access client files.

The client_status file indicates progress via listing the installation phases completed and the phase

currently in progress. The phase names are meaningful and can be reported along with percentage

progress.

Client Installation Status

The following command may be used to monitor installation status by using the state value to indicate

high-level status. The client-specific log file install.log should offer more details.

# ignite client list -m xml -l status <mac address>

Unfortunately, things sometimes go wrong. The install.log will report Ignite-UX NOTE, CAUTION,

WARNING, and ERROR messages. ERROR messages indicate installation failure.

CMS software could instruct the user to look in the log file, or could provide a way to browse or search the

file, but should not parse the log file content.

Certain Ignite-UX WARNING message can be expected (see Client-Specific File: install.log for details).

Other WARNING messages indicate a complete installation with issues that should be communicated. Other

message types are intended to be informative and do not indicate serious installation issues.

The install.log might include error message output from HP-UX programs run by Ignite-UX to perform

installation. It might be useful to perform a case-insensitive search of the install.log file.

Client Installation Timeout

You might want your CMS software to monitor installation progress for installations taking longer than some

period of time (timeout). These installations would be considered failures and the client system should be

reset. This requires deciding on an appropriate timeout.

The time required to complete an installation or recovery depends on many factors. For example, the

content to be installed, the performance of the client system, and the client system memory and I/O

configuration are some of the important characteristics that might influence installation or recovery time.

Successful installations can take as long as 20 hours in some very extreme situations with unsupported

configurations. Typical network installations take 20 to 60 minutes, assuming relatively fast networks, but

can easily require 2 hours.

It might be a best practice for CMS software to allow configurable timeouts.

Installing CMS Agent Software

If your CMS system management solution requires installation of client agent software to control HP-UX

systems after installation is completed, you will want to consider how the agent software should be installed.

If a golden image is used for install content, the agent software could be installed on the original system

and thus included in the golden archive. It might be necessary to have an iux_postload control script to

customize agent settings for the specific client system at the end of the installation process.

Ignite-UX command or script hooks may be used to perform special operations during the installation

process. Files required by the program or script may be included in archive content installed on the system.