How to Deal with file_tree issues in Intel® Cluster Checker 1.3

Note: this article describes behavior in Intel® Cluster Checker version 1.3 Update 2 or earlier.

The file_tree Intel® Cluster Checker test module verifies that a consistent set of files is present on all cluster nodes. This consistency is a requirement of the Intel® Cluster Ready Specification. However, some files are expected to contain data unique to each node, such as hostname and IP address. While the file_tree test automatically excludes many common examples of such files from its consistency check, special cases exist that are not automatically handled (see the end of this article for a list).

If the file_tree test identifies files that are not consistent across the cluster, you should manually determine whether the reported difference must be resolved by applying the following rules:

Does the reported file contain unique information to each node, such as a time stamp or network configuration? If so, manually verify that other than than the node unique data, the file is identical on all nodes.
Does the file name itself or the path to the file contain node unique information? If so, are similar files present on all the nodes?
Is the file dynamically generated or modified, e.g., a log file, compiled from source on each node, or modified by the prelink utility, on each node? If so, a time stamp or other node unique information may be embedded.

If you can determine why the file is different on each node and verify that the differences are not material, then you may ignore the reported errors. If you are certifying a cluster design as Intel® Cluster Ready, you should include a brief description of why you believe the reported errors are immaterial with your submitted Intel® Cluster Checker output logs. You should document the files you manually resolved with your cluster design so that other engineers and technicians at your company understand that they can ignore file_tree errors with these files, but should not ignore errors reported for other files.

Forthcoming versions of Intel® Cluster Checker will have the capability to configure which files should be automatically excluded.

Files that are known to differ from node to node not automatically handled by Intel® Cluster Checker 1.3