[et-mgmt-tools] Cluster Provisioning

[Michael DeHaan]

Ronald Valente wrote:
> Our labs are set to run PXE boot by default in the BIOS and that 
> cannot change. Which is going to require some way to get the machines 
> with the small local install. I agree that the OS should be installed 
> on the machines but getting it there is the current issue. If the OS 
> is run locally then we do not need anything like a distributed file 
> system. This is because condor (the high performance computing app) 
> that we are using handles all that. We just need a way to get the 
> machines from there normal lab imaging environment to our modified 
> provisioning environment.
>
> Regards,
> Ron Valente

I guess the last line in your email is your question... if not, please 
ask one, and I'll try to answer it instead :)

Should you just want to use Cobbler to control PXE this block of 
machines, set the DHCP next-server information for the machines in 
question to point to your cobbler server. It is possible to specify 
different PXE servers for different machines based on their mac address 
information in /etc/dhcpd.conf.
Cobbler doesn't require that you run it on the dhcp server or that it's 
the only PXE server on your network.

Alternatively, you could convert your entire Linux provisioning 
environment over to cobbler and let it manage both environments as well 
as your dhcpd.conf configuration. This is what the cobbler 
"distro/profile/system" three-tiered concept is really intended for. You 
could have one or more profiles assigned to your regular machines, and a 
different profile (that does the condor setup, etc) assigned to your 
cluster machines.

--Michael


> On Jan 13, 2007, at 7:07 PM, Michael DeHaan wrote:
>
>> Ronald Valente wrote:
>>> Cobbler Community.
>>>
>>> I am currently working on an independent study to bring up a cluster 
>>> every night and tear it down before the labs re-open in the morning. 
>>> Here is a quick run down.
>>>
>>> The labs have PXE boot as the first option as the motherboard 
>>> because the students use it to select which OS they need to use.
>>>
>>> The lab has 80 computers 40 on each subnet.
>>>
>>> Two head nodes one for each subnet.
>>>
>>> It would be nice to use cobble in conjunction with a distributed 
>>> file system. Then each computer would boot via PXE on started, 
>>> install the OS and store the files on a distributed file system. 
>>> Then after the initial install sequence there would be no more boot 
>>> time other than booting from the distributed file system. We are 
>>> currently try Rocks clusters and its giving us more headaches then 
>>> if we just rolled our own distro. The only requirement is that we 
>>> run condor.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ron Valente
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> et-mgmt-tools mailing list
>>> et-mgmt-tools at redhat.com
>>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/et-mgmt-tools
>> In general, cobbler supports anything kickstart can do, so this might 
>> be an Anaconda question or one better suited for 
>> kickstart-list at redhat.com ...
>>
>> Offhand, it seems like it would be easier to provision each box with 
>> a minimal local OS every night (for simplicity), and then just have 
>> them mount the distributed filesystem as appropriate -- but then I'm 
>> really not a distributed filesystem expert. Just the base OS packages 
>> and whatever it takes to make the machine manageable...
>>
>> If anyone else has any other ideas and comments, feel free to chime in.
>>
>> --Michael
>