[Linux-cluster] Alternative? Diskless Shared-Root GFS/Cluster

[Rainer Duffner]

Am Mi, 31.01.2007, 21:43, schrieb isplist at logicore.net:
> Ok, might as well ask this... since I can't seem to find anything on it.
> How
> about just a central storage that can be split up into many small segments
> so
> that blades can boot over the network, then joint the GFS cluster?
>
> I mean, all I want to do is to remove the drives since they really aren't
> being used. All of the work is being done on the GFS cluster once a
> machine is
> up and running. It barely does anything with it's drive other than the OS
> of
> course, even logging is all remote.
>
> Isn't there a simpler way of getting this done without having to get into
> whole new technologies? All of the blades have PXE boot capabilities,
> there
> must be some simple way of doing this?


Well, you can do SAN-boot only, of course.
Activate the BIOS in your HBA(s) and install on the SAN.
Might be a bit tricky, depending on your actual hardware, but it certainly
works (with some tricks).
Qlogic-cards need the QLA-failover option in the driver (deprecated in the
kernel.org vanilla driver, but the qlogic.com driver still does it).
I think I read the either RHEL5 or RHEL4U5 will enable DM-multipathing for
the boot-partition.



cheers,
Rainer