[Bioclusters] Setting up a small cluster

[Humberto Ortiz-Zuazaga]

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> Malay Kumar Basu <curiouser@ccmb.res.in> writes:
> 
> > The cluster will have 7 nodes with this config:
> > 
> > #2. ASUS motherboard with onboard video RAM (8 MB)
> > #4. Gigabit ethernet
> 
> It's a good thing if the machines can do PXE boot and wake-on-lan. It
> enables you to do a unattended installation. It good thing to learn how to do
>  if your going to build a bigger cluster later.

I second this, and have to point out that we learnt the hard way that some 
onboard gigabit ethernet can't boot over the network. And motherboard PXE 
implementations soemtimes don't work with gigabit ethernet.

Our cluster has 1 FE, 1GE, and network booting them is *fun*. We're testing 
the clusterknoppix CD now. PXE boots over the FE, then knoppix comes up and 
assigns IP addresses to the GE, and mounts NFS over it. If both ports aren't 
plugged in, the machine fails to boot.

We have a bunch of Dell PowerConnect 5224 24 port gigabit, and have to network 
boot one node at a time to get them to mount NFS. We're not sure if it's a 
knoppix problem or a switch problem or a motherboard problem.

Aren't clusters fun?

-- 
Humberto Ortiz Zuazaga
Programmer-Archaeologist
High Performance Computing facility
University of Puerto Rico
http://www.hpcf.upr.edu/~humberto/



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> Malay Kumar Basu <curiouser@ccmb.res.in> writes:
> 
> > The cluster will have 7 nodes with this config:
> > 
> > #2. ASUS motherboard with onboard video RAM (8 MB)
> > #4. Gigabit ethernet
> 
> It's a good thing if the machines can do PXE boot and wake-on-lan. It
> enables you to do a unattended installation. It good thing to learn how to do
>  if your going to build a bigger cluster later.

I second this, and have to point out that we learnt the hard way that some 
onboard gigabit ethernet can't boot over the network. And motherboard PXE 
implementations soemtimes don't work with gigabit ethernet.

Our cluster has 1 FE, 1GE, and network booting them is *fun*. We're testing 
the clusterknoppix CD now. PXE boots over the FE, then knoppix comes up and 
assigns IP addresses to the GE, and mounts NFS over it. If both ports aren't 
plugged in, the machine fails to boot.

We have a bunch of Dell PowerConnect 5224 24 port gigabit, and have to network 
boot one node at a time to get them to mount NFS. We're not sure if it's a 
knoppix problem or a switch problem or a motherboard problem.

Aren't clusters fun?

- -- 
Humberto Ortiz Zuazaga
Programmer-Archaeologist
High Performance Computing facility
University of Puerto Rico
http://www.hpcf.upr.edu/~humberto/


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