[gpfsug-discuss] mmdsh rest api command

[Jonathan Buzzard]

On 10/07/2025 17:16, Steve Daniels wrote:
> All,
> 
> 
> Please review the idea below and vote if it is important to you. The 
> mmdsh command is currently based on ssh and will not have a replacement 
> unless development is convinced it will impact your ability to manage 
> your clusters effectively.
> 

I have been thinking about this and for what it's worth here's my 
tuppence on the subject :-)

Having only ever used GPFS in the context of an HPC system I have never 
ever used mmdsh in all the many years (nearly two decades now) I have 
been using GPFS.

My guess is in 2025 people are using the likes of Ansible, SaltStack, 
Puppet etc. to manage their GPFS cluster. If not what are you doing, 
rocking it like it's still the naught's is unprofessional IMHO.

For the ad hoc stuff they are likely going to be using the likes of xdsh 
(anything deployed via xCAT/Confluent will have that out the box) or 
pdsh etc. for running arbitrary commands on groups of nodes.

As such mmdsh is reinventing the wheel which is a *bad* thing. There are 
better tools for what mmdsh does so if someone actually needs that 
functionality then they can install xdsh/pdsh etc. if they have not 
already and get the functionality regardless of the existence of mmdsh.

I would note at this point that not every node I manage runs GPFS but 
every node I manage *can* respond to the multi node SSH setup I am using 
(xdsh because Confluent, because DSS-G). This probably explains why I 
have never used mmdsh, because it has never covered all the bases, and 
as it will never cover all the basis it's just another tool to learn and 
well I haven't got time or the brain space for that.


JAB.

-- 
Jonathan A. Buzzard                         Tel: +44141-5483420
HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt.
University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG