[Beowulf] SATA II - PXE+NFS - diskless compute nodes

[Eric Shook]

Excellent.  Thanks for the info.

Eric

Michael Will wrote:
> The standard pxe server code had issues with larger amounts of clients
> wanting to boot at the same time. Some of them would time out and not
> make it. Donald Becker reimplemented the server side of it to solve the
> issues. I don't know anything more specific than that, but if you are
> interested I am sure he would not mind if you where to contact him
> directly. 
> 
> Michael
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Shook [mailto:eric-shook at uiowa.edu] 
> Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 9:27 AM
> To: Michael Will
> Cc: Buccaneer for Hire.; beowulf at beowulf.org
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] SATA II - PXE+NFS - diskless compute nodes
> 
> Michael,
> 
> This should be sufficient enough to run our software stack as they are
> tested on rhel 4 variants.  I will most definitely look closer at scyld
> CW4 to see if it fits our needs.
> 
> What does reimplementing pxe boot mean specifically?
> 
> Thanks,
> Eric
> 
> Michael Will wrote:
>> Scyld CW4 is based on RHEL4 and also supported on Centos 4. That does 
>> not give you different operating systems though, just flexible 
>> deployment of RHEL4 based HPC compute nodes.
>>
>> Note that we had to reimplement the PXE boot part to allow reasonable 
>> scaling.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org]
>> On Behalf Of Eric Shook
>> Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 11:28 AM
>> To: Buccaneer for Hire.
>> Cc: beowulf at beowulf.org
>> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] SATA II - PXE+NFS - diskless compute nodes
>>
>> Not to diverge this conversation, but has anyone had any experience 
>> using this pxe boot / nfs model with a rhel variant?  I have been 
>> wanting to do a nfs root or ramdisk model for some-time but our 
>> software stack requires a rhel base so Scyld and Perceus most likely 
>> will not work (although I am still looking into both of them to make 
>> sure)
>>
>> Thanks for any help,
>> Eric Shook
>>
>> Buccaneer for Hire. wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>   
>>>> I agree with what Joe says about a few hundred nodes being the time 
>>>> you would start to look closer at this approach.
>>>>     
>>> I have started to explore the possibility of using this technology
>> because I would really like to see us with the ability to change OSs 
>> and OS Personalities as needed.  The question I have is with 2000+ 
>> compute nodes what kind of infrastructure do I need to support this?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  
>>> _____________________________________________________________________
>>> _
>>> ______________
>>> Do you Yahoo!?
>>> Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
>>> http://new.mail.yahoo.com
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org To change your subscription
> 
>>> (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit 
>>> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>>>   
>> _______________________________________________
>> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org To change your subscription 
>> (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit 
>> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
> 
> --
> Eric Shook (319) 335-6714
> Technical Lead, Systems and Operations - GROW http://grow.uiowa.edu

-- 
Eric Shook (319) 335-6714
Technical Lead, Systems and Operations - GROW
http://grow.uiowa.edu