Updating RSCT packages for PowerVM NovaLink

Resource Monitoring Control (RMC) connections between PowerVM® NovaLink and each logical partition are routed through a dedicated internal virtual network. For easier configuration of the internal virtual network, assign an IPv6 link-local address to the RMC virtual network interfaces. To assign IPv6 link-local addresses to the RMC virtual network interfaces on AIX® and Linux logical partitions, the Reliable Scalable Cluster Technology (RSCT) packages must be at version 3.2.1.0 or later.

RSCT packages at version 3.2.1.0 support an IPv6 Link Local addressed virtual Ethernet adapter on each AIX and Linux logical partition. The AIX or Linux logical partition uses the virtual Ethernet adapter to connect to the PowerVM NovaLink partition through a virtual switch (which is called MGMTSWITCH). The virtual switch is configured to communicate only with the trunk port. An AIX or Linux logical partition can use this virtual network only to connect with the PowerVM NovaLink partition. AIX or Linux logical partitions can connect with partitions other than the PowerVM NovaLink partition only if you configure a separate network for this purpose.

You must ensure that the RMC virtual Ethernet interfaces assigned to the logical partitions are configured with the IPv6 link local addresses. The RMC virtual Ethernet interfaces are those interfaces which are associated with the virtual switch MGMTSWITCH which is created on PowerVM NovaLink. To find the RMC virtual Ethernet interface (by using the MAC address of the virtual Ethernet interface) of a logical partition (by using the ID of the logical partition), you can enter the following command on the PowerVM NovaLink logical partition:

pvmctl eth list | grep -e MAC -e MGMTSWITCH

You can refer to the IP configuration of the RMC virtual Ethernet interface on the PowerVM NovaLink logical partition to configure the IP address of the RMC virtual Ethernet interface on other logical partitions.

For more information about how to verify the version of RSCT packages on AIX logical partitions and how to update RSCT packages from the AIX installation media, see Verifying RSCT installation on AIX nodes.
For more information about how to install or update the RSCT packages, see Verifying RSCT installation on Linux nodes.
- For logical partitions that run Ubuntu, you can obtain the RSCT packages from the following APT repository: https://launchpad.net/~ibmpackages/+archive/ubuntu/rsct.
- For RHEL based partitions, you can obtain the RSCT packages by enabling the YUM ibm-power-repo repository by completing the following steps:
  - Run the following command to obtain RPM files from RSCT:
```
rpm -vih --nodeps http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/server/POWER/Linux/yum/download/
          ibm-power-repo-latest.noarch.rpm 
```
  - Run the following command and accept the license statement to set up the repository:
```
/opt/ibm/lop/configure 
```
You must install the DynamicRM package to enable DLPAR and Mobility operations.

If you have updated RSCT packages manually on PowerVM NovaLink, the pvm-rest service must be restarted. Enter the following command to restart the service:

systemctl restart pvm-rest.service

After you update RSCT packages on a logical partition, capture an image of the operating system along with the updated RSCT package. You can then deploy the image that has the updated RSCT package, which eliminates the need to update RSCT for new logical partitions. For more information about how to use PowerVC to capture an image, see Capturing a virtual machine.

Last updated: Fri, December 06, 2019