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

[Michael Will]

Look at www.scyld.com who do it with diskless lightweight compute nodes where /root is a local ramdisk populated at boottime through the headnode(s).  It solves a lot of the issues you where mentioning.

Michael
Ps: I work for penguincomputing who owns scyld.

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	isplist at logicore.net [mailto:isplist at logicore.net]
Sent:	Wed Jan 31 11:34:34 2007
To:	linux-cluster
Subject:	Re: [Linux-cluster] Diskless Shared-Root GFS/Cluster

I'm thinking for application servers/cluster only, not workstation users.


On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:10:55 -0800, Tom Mornini wrote:
> We boot from flash drives, then pivot root to SAN storage.
> 
> I agree with no drives in servers, but shared root is a
> whole different ball game if you mean everyone using a
> single filesystem for root.
> 
> --
> -- Tom Mornini, CTO
> -- Engine Yard, Ruby on Rails Hosting
> -- Reliability, Ease of Use, Scalability
> -- (866) 518-YARD (9273)
> 
> 
> On Jan 31, 2007, at 8:38 AM, isplist at logicore.net wrote:
> 
>> Did you ever give it a try at all? I mean, isn't anything potentially
>> devastating if it becomes broken?
>> 
>> In my case, it's silly to have drives running on every server and
>> then also
>> having centralized storage. It would save power, heat and another
>> level of
>> failure if I could use a sharedroot system.
>> 
>> Of course, along the same lines, if it's too complex or finicky
>> then it might
>> not be worth the trouble... for now.
>> 
>> Mike
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:26:02 -0800, Tom Mornini wrote:
>>> We strongly considered this when implementing our cluster
>>> 
>>> infrastructure,
>>> but decided against it when we realized just how devastating *any*
>>> problem
>>> with that shared root would be...
>>> 
>>> --
>>> -- Tom Mornini, CTO
>>> -- Engine Yard, Ruby on Rails Hosting
>>> -- Reliability, Ease of Use, Scalability
>>> -- (866) 518-YARD (9273)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jan 30, 2007, at 11:39 PM, Marc Grimme wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Mike,
>>>> On Tuesday 30 January 2007 17:50, isplist at logicore.net wrote:
>>>>> I saw a few posts from some working on this. Has anyone gotten
>>>>> this to work
>>>>> properly? My nodes simply do not need their hard drives, it's a
>>>>> waste of
>>>>> power and hardware since I have plenty of central storage. I would
>>>>> like to
>>>>> remove drives from nodes and boot the cluster diskless.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I've seen the open shared-root project and such but those seem to
>>>>> be about
>>>>> building the entire cluster. Since I have the cluster going, I'm
>>>>> looking
>>>>> for information on how I can convert my nodes to diskless.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks for any information you can provide.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Mike
>>>> There are quite a some people (increasing every day) using open-
>>>> sharedroot
>>>> clusters in productive environments with loads of different
>>>> applications. I
>>>> also wrote a MiniHowto and some other docs (have a look at
>>>> www.open-sharedroot.org) to give assistance.
>>>> 
>>>> As Mike Hagmann already stated it is not a trivial task to build up
>>>> such a
>>>> cluster (as it's not a trivialtask to build up any type of
>>>> productive
>>>> clusters, but isn't that a reason why we are doing all that ;-) )
>>>> but the
>>>> MiniHowto should help you on the one hand and on the other hand you
>>>> can get
>>>> more help from open-sharedroot or us at ATIX (www.atix.de). If you
>>>> like.
>>>> Feel free to ask.
>>>> Regards and have fun
>>>> Marc.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Linux-cluster mailing list
>>>>> Linux-cluster at redhat.com
>>>>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-cluster
>>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Gruss / Regards,
>>>> 
>>>> ** Visit us at CeBIT 2007 in Hannover/Germany **
>>>> ** in Hall 5, Booth G48/2  (15.-21. of March) **
>>>> 
>>>> Marc Grimme
>>>> Phone: +49-89 452 3538-14
>>>> http://www.atix.de/               http://www.open-sharedroot.org/
>>>> 
>>>> **
>>>> ATIX - Ges. fuer Informationstechnologie und Consulting mbH
>>>> Einsteinstr. 10 - 85716 Unterschleissheim - Germany
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Linux-cluster mailing list
>>>> Linux-cluster at redhat.com
>>>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-cluster
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Linux-cluster mailing list
>> Linux-cluster at redhat.com
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