FP2: Password-less remote root login for GPFS

For new DB2® pureScale® installations, the new default for a DB2 managed GPFS™ file system no longer requires password-less remote root login as a prerequisite.

The DB2 pureScale Feature uses General Parallel File System (GPFS) as the shared-disk file system to provide data access across all members in a DB2 pureScale environment. GPFS requires certain commands to run as root on all hosts that are part of the GPFS domain.

Previously, password-less remote root login using standard SSH public key authentication method must be enabled for all hosts in the GPFS domain. In DB2 Version 10.1 Fix Pack 2 and later fix packs, if you are using a DB2 managed GPFS file system for new DB2 pureScale installations, password-less remote root login is no longer required as an operating prerequisite. The new non-root user ID (db2sshid) is required to use a secure shell (SSH) network protocol between hosts. If this SSH user ID is not specified, the instance owner user ID is used as the SSH user ID.

After instance creation, you can disable password-less root access. Password-less root access must still to be enabled for DB2 life cycle maintenance tasks, but after life cycle management tasks, you have the option to disable it as the DB2 managed GPFS installation no longer requires it to be enabled.