Non-Compute Nodes

This page gives a high-level overview of the environment present on the non-compute nodes (NCNs).

Pre-Install Toolkit

The Pre-Install Toolkit (PIT) is a framework for deploying NCNs from an “NCN-like” environment. The PIT can be used for:

  • bare-metal discovery and deployment
  • fresh installations and reinstallation of Cray System Management (CSM)
  • recovery of one or more NCNs

Certificate authority

For information pertaining to the NCN certificate authority (CA), see Certificate Authority.

Hardware

The hardware requirements are flexible, and outlined in the NCN Plan of Record page.

Firmware

For information about firmware, such as minimum firmware requirements, see NCN Firmware.

BIOS

BIOS setting information can be found in NCN BIOS.

Boot workflow

Boot workflow information can be found in NCN Boot Workflow.

Mounts and filesystem

Mount and filesystem information can be found in NCN Mounts and Filesystems

Networking

Networking information can be found in NCN Networking.

Operating system

A general overview of the operating system for the non-compute nodes is given in NCN Operating System Releases.

Kernel

Information about the kernel, such as its version and parameters, can be found in NCN Kernel.

Kernel dumps

Information about kernel dumps can be found in Kernel Dumps.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is installed on all management NCNs with some variation.

  • kubeadm and kubelet are only installed on Kubernetes nodes
  • kubectl is installed on all NCNs (Kubernetes and Ceph storage), as well as the PIT

Python

The NCN and PIT come with multiple versions of Python.

  • The default Python version provided by SUSE (e.g. python3-base)
  • The new/upcoming Python version provided by SUSE’s (e.g. python3X-base where X is the latest version offered)

The defined versions are as follows (this list will update as the NCN adopts/replaces new versions):

  • Python 3.6.15 (/usr/bin/python3)
  • Python 3.9.13 (/usr/local/bin/python3)

Each Python installation contains these packages (at a minimum) for building and/or running virtual environments:

build
pip
setuptools
virtualenv
wheel

Images

Information about the images used for NCNs can be found in NCN Images.