This chapter provides an introduction to SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 (SP1) and describes the CD contents, provides documentation information, and provides a brief overview of the installation process. It covers the following topics:
“Getting the Latest Bios for Your SGI Altix UV 1000 or Altix UV 100 System”
“Documentation Updated for This Release”
Note: SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 requires the SGI Foundation Software 2 Service Pack 1 release. For more information, see the SGI Foundation Software 2 Service Pack 1 Start Here available at http://docs.sgi.com .
The SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 product includes capabilities and performance improvements ideal for enabling technical and creative users to solve their big compute and data problems by using the Linux operating system and Intel processors. This product adds to or enhances features in the base SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 (SLES11 SP1) distribution. SGI ProPack 7 SP1 designed to run on any SGI Altix, SGI Altix UV, SGI Altix XE, or SGI Alitx ICE series systems, as well as, standalone systems, such as, SGI Origin 400 and SGI Octane III.
SGI hardware platforms and OS configuration settings supported by SGI in this release are documented at the following URL:
This section describes the main contents of the SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 CD, as follows:
Array Session Module
Linux Comprehensive System Accounting (CSA)
Linux jobs (Commands, init scripts, libraries and PAM module)
LSI Fusion-MPT host adapter management utility
NUMA tools to manage CPU placement of processes (bcfree, dplace, dlook utilities)
Performance Co-Pilot, system-level performance monitoring and performance management tool
SGI ProPack configuration recommendations
Flexible File I/O (FFIO) system
Cpuset Facility workload manager tool
Performance Co-Pilot visualization tools (pcp-sgi package, the SGI proprietary part of Performance Co-Pilot)
Array Services
Message-Passing Toolkit (MPT)
XVM Command line tools and graphical user interface (GUI) SLES only
SGI ProPack documentation
REACT Real-time for Linux libraries and documentation
Note: Not all SGI ProPack 7 SP1 features are available on x86_64 systems. For the list of supported products on the x86_64 architecture, see “SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP 1 Products” in Chapter 3.
The Scientific Computing Software Library (SCSL) software is no longer delivered with the SGI ProPack release. SCSL continues to be available via web release in courtesy mode. Login to Supportfolio Online at http://support.sgi.com. Click on the Downloads link under Supportfolio areas on the left. Enter scsl in the Enter a Product type or keywords search box and then select Linux OS in the Select the download type list.
SGI ProPack contains software packages released under a variety of licenses. The licensing terms for all proprietary software packages allow users to install the software only on SGI systems. See the PACKAGE_LICENSES.txt file that is available in the /docs directory of the SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 CD for more details.
The following CDs ship with each SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 release:
SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 for Intel Itanium CD
SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 for AMD64/EM64T CD
For a complete list of RPMs included in the SGI ProPack 7 SP1 release, see the file called RPMS.txt that is available in the /docs directory on the SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 CD.
For the latest information about software and documentation in this release, see the release notes that are in a file named README.TXT that is available in /docs directory on the SGI ProPack 7 SP1 CD.
The SGI ProPack 7 for Linux release notes get installed to the following location on a system running SGI ProPack 7:
/usr/share/doc/packages/sgi-propack-7/README.txt |
The System Controller software provides a system control platform for field service and system maintenance applications. For information on the system controller software, see the SGI Foundation Software 2 Service Pack 1 Start Here.
Get the latest BIOS for your SGI Altix UV 1000 or SGI Altix UV 100 series system at SGI Supporfolio: https://support.sgi.com/. For instructions on how to flash the BIOS, see the SGI Altix UV CMC Controller Software User's Guide at http://docs.sgi.com.
This section describes how to get software updates for SGI ProPack 7 for Linux system and covers these topics:
Detailed instructions for downloading and installing SGI ProPack 7 for Linux updates are available from the SGI ProPack 7 product pages on Supportfolio: https://support.sgi.com/ .
| Note: You must have a Supportfolio account to access this page and the SGI update server. |
SLES11 SP1 customers are encouraged to use the YaST Online Update tool to keep the software on their systems updated with the latest maintenance fixes.
Software updates for SLES11 SP1 are provided by Novell. In order to configure your system to enable online updates, you must register with Novell. For more help with this, you can use the Novell Customer Center Configuration tool available in the Software section of the YaST Control Center.
Customers that received SGI ProPack 7 SP1 pre-installed on their new SGI Altix system may run the following command as root user to add the proper update source for SGI ProPack 7 SP1:
$ /usr/sbin/sgi-propack-update-source |
This script will prompt you for your Supportfolio login and then add the proper SGI update source for the given architecture.
For additional information on how to configure YaST Online Update to download updates for SGI ProPack 7, login to Supportfolio at http://support.sgi.com . Click on the Browse Collections link on the left. Click on SGI ProPack “SGI ProPack patch downloads and descriptions” on the right. Click on Supported Major Releases / Service Packs. Find SGI ProPack™ 7 for Linux® SP1 under the Description column. Click on the button under the File column. The SGI ProPack™ 7 for Linux® SP1 page appears.
Customers that received SGI Foundation Software 2 SP1 pre-installed on their new SGI Altix system may run the following command as root user to add the proper update source for SGI Foundation Software 2 Service Pack 1:
$ /usr/sbin/sgi-foundation-update-source |
This script will prompt you for your Supportfolio login and then add the proper SGI update source for the given architecture.
For additional information on how to configure YaST Online Update to download updates for SGI ProPack 7, login to Supportfolio at http://support.sgi.com . Click on the Browse Collections link on the left. Click on SGI ProPack “SGI ProPack patch downloads and descriptions” on the right. Click on Supported Major Releases / Service Packs. Click on SGI® Foundation Software 2 SP1 on the right. The SGI® Foundation Software 2 SP1 page appears.
SGI maintains the following website for open source information that describes projects related to its open source efforts:
You can also access open source information (such as LKCD) from the following website:
SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 will most likely come pre-installed on your SGI platform. Installation is described in Chapter 2, “Software Planning and Installation”.
This release also supports installing your Linux software over the network as described in “SLES and SGI ProPack Network Installation for Experts” in Chapter 2.
The following manuals are new or have been updated for this release:
REACT Real-Time for Linux Programmer's Guide, 007-4746-013
Adds support for SGI ProPack 7 SP1 and SLES 11 SP1 software and for SGI Altix UV systems.
SGI Tempo System Administrator's Guide, 007-4993-013
Updated for the SGI Tempo v2.1 release.
Updated "discover Command" in Chapter 2.
Added information about the DHCP option code in "Installing Software on the Rack Leader Controllers and Service Nodes" in Chapter 2.
Added cadmin --show-dhcp-option and --set-dhcp-option descriptions to "cadmin: SGI Tempo Administrative Interface" in Chapter 3.
Unified Parallel C (UPC) User's Guide, 007-5604-002
New for SGI ProPack 7 release, documents the SGI implementation of the Unified Parallel C (UPC) parallel extension to the C programming language standard.
SGI Altix UV GRU Development Kit Programmer's Guide
New for this release, documents the SGI Altix UV global reference unit (GRU) development kit. It describes the application program interface (API) that allows direct access to GRU functionality.
SGI Altix UV CMC Controller Software User's Guide, 007-5636-001
New for this release, documents the chassis manager controller (CMC) command line interface (CLI) controller software commands for the SGI Altix UV 100 and SGI Altix UV 1000 series systems.
SGI Altix UV Systems Linux Configuration and Operations Guide, 007-5629-001
New for this release, describes system configuration and operations under the Linux operating system for SGI Altix UV 100 and SGI UV 1000 servies systems.
SGI Foundation Software 2 Service Pack 1 Start Here, 007-5641-002
Not part of the SGI ProPack release but required for all systems running SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 release.