7.1. Introduction to the Rocks Command Line

In Rocks 4.3 the Rocks command line was introduced to provide a more uniform interface to the underlying structures used to control system configuration and behaviour. Wherever possible, Rocks uses a SQL database (MySQL currently) to hold information about nodes, partitioning information, boot parameters and other information. Based on information in the database, various configuration files are rewritten. The re-generation of configuration files occurs everytime a node is added or deleted from the cluster. The re-generation of configuration files can also be forced. A large fraction of Rocks commands manipulate data held in the configuration database. In general, the process of changing configuration is a two-step process:

1. Use rocks commands to change configuration in the database (e.g. rocks set host)

2. Rewrite configuration files using rocks sync config

It should be noted that step 1 above is usually called several times to update in the database and then step 2 is called to write individual confiuration files in the format that the native OS tools understand.

Rocks commands have arguments and parameters. Parameters are of the form "param=<value>" and may appear anywhere. Arguments must appear in the order defined by the command. To get help on any rocks command type "help" for the argument to the command. For example rocks set host interface ip help