Basic Cluster Box Operations and Commands

After installing the hardware of Cluster Box, you can operate Cluster Box or Blade 3 boards as required. This document describes how to perform these basic operations, including:

• Log in to Cluster Box
• List active Blade 3 nodes
• Power on one or all Blade 3 nodes
• Power off one or all Blade 3 nodes
• Restart one or all Blade 3 nodes
• Flash firmware of one or all Blade 3 nodes
• Flash firmware of the control board

Important: Before using Cluster Box, you must update the boot image and install a driver to Blade 3 nodes. For details, see Installing Drivers for Blade 3 Boards.

Log in to Cluster Box

You can log in to Cluster Box either via a web page or via SSH. Before login, you need to find the IP address of Cluster Box.

Find IP address

Find IP address through the router web page

Log in to the router configuration page and locate the IP address of Cluster Box from the router device list.

Find IP address through CLI

Start a terminal and input ifconfig. The IP address is displayed in the command output.

Login

Note: The default user name and password are mixtile. To log in to Cluster Box as user root, change user name and password to root.

Login via Web page

1. Enter the IP address of Cluster Box in your browser.
2. On the login page, retain the username mixtile and enter password mixtile. Then you are directed to the GUI of Cluster Box.

Login via SSH

1. Start a terminal window and type ssh mixtile@Cluster Box IP address, for example, ssh mixtile@192.168.1.146.
2. Type password mixtile and press Enter.
   The device page is displayed, as shown below.

mia@MiadeMBP ~ % ssh mixtile@192.168.1.146
mixtile@192.168.1.146's password: 
  ____ _           _              ____     Mixtile
 / ___| |_   _ ___| |_ ___ _ __  | __ )  _____  __
| |   | | | | / __| __/ _ \ '__| |  _ \ / _ \ \/ /
| |___| | |_| \__ \ ||  __/ |    | |_) | (_) >  < 
 \____|_|\__,_|___/\__\___|_|    |____/ \___/_/\_\
 -----------------------------------------------------
 https://www.mixtile.com/
 -----------------------------------------------------

List all Blade 3 nodes

To list all active Blade 3 nodes installed in Cluster Box, run the following command:

nodectl list

Power on Blade 3 nodes

You can power on one Blade 3 node or all Blade 3 nodes as required.

Power on one Blade 3 node

nodectl poweron -n N

N indicates the ID of the Blade 3 node and must be specified.

To check whether the target Blade 3 node is powered on, check whether its power indicator is on, or run the nodectl list command.

Power on all Blade 3 nodes

nodectl poweron --all

To check whether all Blade 3 nodes are powered on, check whether their power indicators are on, or run the nodectl list command.

Power off Blade 3 nodes

You can power off one Blade 3 node or all Blade 3 nodes as required.

Power off one Blade 3 node

nodectl poweroff -n N

N indicates the ID of the Blade 3 node and must be specified.

To check whether the target Blade 3 node is powered off, check whether its power indicator is off, or run the nodectl list command.

Power off all Blade 3 nodes

nodectl poweroff --all

To check whether all Blade 3 nodes are powered off, check whether their power indicators are off, or run the nodectl list command.

Restart Blade 3 nodes

You can restart one Blade 3 node or all Blade 3 nodes as required.

Restart one Blade 3 node

nodectl reboot -n N

N indicates the ID of the Blade 3 node and must be specified.

To check whether the target Blade 3 node is restarted, run the nodectl list command.

Restart all Blade 3 nodes

nodectl reboot --all

To check whether the target Blade 3 nodes are restarted, run the nodectl list command.

Enter Blade 3 console

nodectl console -n N 

N indicates the ID of the Blade 3 node and must be specified.

Flash firmware of Blade 3 nodes

Note: This function is currently under development.

To flash the firmware of Blade 3 nodes on Cluster Box, use the PCIe interface. You can flash the firmware of one Blade 3 node or all Blade 3 nodes as required.

Flash firmware of one Blade 3 node

nodectl flash -n N

N indicates the ID of the Blade 3 node and must be specified.

Flash firmware of all Blade 3 nodes

nodectl flash --all

Flash firmware of the control board

To flash firmware of the control board, enter the web page of Cluster Box and perform the following steps:

Step 1. On the Home page, choose System > Backup / Flash Firmware. 

Step 2. In the Flash new firmware image area, click Flash image….

Step 3. In the Uploading file… dialog box, click Browse and select the image file.

Step 4. Click Upload. On the confirmation page that is displayed, click Continue.

Wait for the process to complete.

Note: If you cannot access the web page of Cluster Box, you can flash the firmware to its factory settings (see this doc).