[Linux-cluster] A home-grown cluster

[Gordan Bobic]

If you are running the cluster for purely test purposes, put all the nodes as VMs on one physical box and use the fencing agent for that vm solution.

If you really need physical fencing, you can go a number if ways:

1) Raritan eRIC remote console cards. I wrote a fencing agent for them, which you can find if you google for fence_eric, or look in RH bugzilla or in cluster-devel archives. It may have made it into FC upstream head, not sure.
Pros: OOB remote console
Cons: expensive

2) APC UPS with network control.
Pros: you get a UPS
Cons: still expensive

3) Network power bar
Pros: as cheap as it's likely to get without DIY-ing the hardware
Cons: you may have to write your own fencing agent

4) If you are _really_ on a budget, you can build your own for pennies by wiring a relay into the power switch connector on the motherboard and driving it off a something like a dtr line on a rs232 port (if your machines have such things).
Pros: Cost measured in pennies
Cons: Electronics DIY-ing required, plus writing a fencing agent.

It comes down to your budget vs. getting your hands dirty.

HTH

Gordan

-----Original Message-----
From: Branimir <branimirp at gmail.com>
Sent: 28 October 2009 21:08
To: linux-cluster at redhat.com
Subject: [Linux-cluster] A home-grown cluster

Hi list ;)

Well, here is my problem. I configured a few productions clusters myself
- mostly HP Proliant machines with ILO/ILO2. Now, I would like to do the
same thing but with ordinary PC hardware (the fact is my wife wants me
to reduce the number of my physical machines ;)). I have three more/less
same PCs, all running CentOS 5.4 with Xen hypervisor. One of them would
be a storage with tgt to handle iSCSI targets.

To be honest, and what bothers me the most is that I don't have a clue
what to use as a fence device? I took ILO for granted, but for me this
is completly new. Can you offer some advice?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers!

Branimir

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