[LU-7641] I have no idea how to create a META file in lustre-2.7.64

• Status: Resolved
• Project: Lustre
• Type: Bug
• Priority: Blocker
• Reporter: Jeevan Patnaik
• Assignee: WC Triage
• Resolution: Not a Bug
• Epic/Theme: lustre-2.7.64, patch
• Severity: 3

Description

Lustre building rpms fails with the following error:

make \
top_distdir="lustre-2.7.64" distdir="lustre-2.7.64" \
module-dist-hook
make[2]: Entering directory `/root/lustre-release-9aebc6c'

• • • I have no idea how to create a META file in lustre-2.7.64.
    • Please file a bug at https://jira.hpdd.intel.com/

make[2]: *** [module-dist-hook] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/lustre-release-9aebc6c'
make[1]: *** [dist-hook] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/lustre-release-9aebc6c'
make: *** [distdir] Error 2

only 1 rpm is created:
kernel-2.6.32573.12.1.el6_lustre.x86_64-1.x86_64.rpm

I have followed the instructions given in here:
https://build.hpdd.intel.com/job/lustre-manual/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/lustre_manual.xhtml#installinglustrefromsourcecode

Comments

[Oleg Drokin]

Are you building not out of a git tree (with .git present)? If you build out of the git tree it should work and probably nobody tested it on a checkout with no git metadata.

[Christopher Morrone]

I have tested it without git and its definitely broken. It has been broken for many years, in fact.

Recently I fixed LLNL's local 2.5-llnl branch to get around that problem. The fix is a bit hackish, so I'm not going to push it in its current form. But that is one of the things on my mental list to get fixed in time for Lustre 2.9.

Jeevna, I would not recommend using the build instructions from the manual. They are terrible. For instance, it is downright silly to create a new user. It is also fairly nonsensical to start the lustre build, pause to go build the linux kernel and maybe other things, and then resume the lustre build. The order really should be: build lustre's prerequisites, install lustre's prerequisites, build lustre.

Maybe if my current crusade to make Lustre's build system a little more sensical in time for 2.9 suceeds, we'll also take some time to revise the manual. Maybe we'll just ditch that section of the manual and focus on wiki.lustre.org documentation.

In the mean time, make sure that you are in a git working directory when you build lustre, like Oleg said. Make sure your current user also has correct permissions for that working directory...if you followed the manual and tried to make a new user, maybe something got confused permission wise?

[Jeevan Patnaik]

Unfortunately, some firewall restrictions blocking for connecting to git. So, I have copied the snapshot and used it directly without git.
Also can you clarify one thing. According to my friend, he tried installing Lustre in kernel 2.6.32-573.12.1.el6 with rpm. And unable to reboot the kernel. So, he tought may be the lustre package doesn't support the kernel version and hand overed the task to me.

I have no idea what is lustre before, just started having brief idea after going through documentation.
What I understood is I can rebuild my kernel version by applying lustre patch and it worked, kernel rpms are created.
But building lustre rpms failed as I have mentioned already in the question. So, now my question is can we proceed installing rpms directly with out need to rebuild them again? Now I have again rebuilt kernel rpm using lustre 2.7.0 version. So, now I can just download the rpms for 2.7.0 and proceed right?

Also I need to go through these concepts: client, server etc. etc.

For now my task is to find out how to install the required packages.

[Christopher Morrone]

Do you need ldiskfs? If you can use the zfs backend instead, the build process is muuuuuch easier. You can just set up a yum repo and use yum to install zfs (no need to build it yourself), and there is no need to create a custom kernel.

Intel should really be posting the canonical (make dist'ed) tarball for releases somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment. Their build and packaging process leaves quite a bit to be desired.

You can perhaps use the .src.rpm file instead. Of course you'll need to use the binary zfs packages, not the DKMS ones with 2.7, because my fix for Lustre's build there just landed to master in the past week or so.

Sigh. All of this is much harder than it needs to be.

[Christopher Morrone]

FYI I created a separate ticket under my epic Lustre build system cleanup patch where I'll track my plan to allow Lustre to build without a git working directory on the first pass: LU-7642.

[Jeevan Patnaik]

wow thanks...frankly speaking..I don't know what I am doing. There is a demand to install lustre filesystem to improve performance on HPC. Today, someone asked me to check on the architecture and to install required rpms. First I am pointed to install this server and client packages. So, yes I think we are going to need ldiskfs, not zfs. I will go through the architecture first.

So, zfs is different from lustre??? We need this for grid environment and they want to use lustre mainly to have optimzed I/O throughput.

[Jeevan Patnaik]

And I couldn't find the proper rpms for the kernel: 2.6.32-573.12.1.el6 in the download repository: https://downloads.hpdd.intel.com/public/lustre/

So, I have chosen to go with building custom kernel.

[Peter Jones]

Seems like a workaround was found here