#4212 [FVT on Power 8 DFM]rnetboot -m can't work with !=

[Le Yin]

Rnetboot flag -m is described in man as below:
-m

Use one or multiple -m flags to specify the node attributes and the expected status for the
node installation monitoring and automatic retry mechanism. The operators ==, !=, =~ and !~ are
valid. This flag must be used with -t flag.

While != doesn't work well:
[root@p7hv16s32p01 ~]# chtab node=lpar1 nodelist.status=STOP
[root@p7hv16s32p01 ~]# rnetboot lpar1 -m nodelist.status!=START -t 600
Error: Invalid string "nodelist.status!=START" specified with -m flag
Usage: rnetboot <noderange> [-s net|hd] [-F] [-f] [-V|--verbose] [-m table.colum==expectedstatus] [-m table.colum==expectedstatus...] [-r <retrycount>]</retrycount> [-t <timeout>]</timeout>
rnetboot <noderange> [ipl= address]
rnetboot [-h|--help|-v|--version]
[root@p7hv16s32p01 ~]# rnetboot lpar1 -m nodelist.status==STOP -t 600
lpar1 nodelist.status: powering-off =></noderange></noderange>

[zhao er tao]

Hi, guang cheng, will you pls have a look at this defect?

[Guang Cheng Li]

Fixing this argument parsing error in 2.8.5 and 2.9.

2.8.5: commit a65455aafd4601932a6841f4d510ea6260507de7
2.9:commit e48e3b1c1a3155474c64070d7d9e58ad68fb4ce3

However, I am not confident with the function of rnetboot -m and rpower -m, it has been there for a long time but no one ever tested or used it. Or, do we really want to keep this feature at all?

[Le Yin]

It still can't work well.
[root@p5n02 ~]# rnetboot viosnode -m nodelist.status!=START -t 1200
Error: Open table failed
viosnode: Reinitializing the installation: 1 retry
Error: Open table failed
viosnode: Reinitializing the installation: 2 retry

Since it needs to be discussed that if it is really necessary, move it to 2.9.