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On 5/14/07, Alex Howells <astinus@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> > Thinking about other options, does anyone have any other tip for me? Am |
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> I |
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> > going in the right direction? For the obvious answer: I know it's better |
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> to |
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> > be closer to the datacenter, but that's not an option for me right now |
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> and I |
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> > know I'll have a remote-hands service, but it can be very time |
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> inefficient |
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> > sometimes and I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible. |
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> |
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> Tips: |
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> |
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> * Install decent PDUs in your racks, I'd highly recommend APC |
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> Masterswitch; you're going to want to power cycle various bits of |
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> hardware, and SNMP is an easy way to do it. |
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> |
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> * Some cheap kit (Cisco 2506s) from a distributor or eBay with 4 x |
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> 8-port console cards (32 total) can give you inexpensive access to the |
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> serial line of your nodes, buy a slightly more expensive one for if |
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> you wanna deploy 8 x 8-port or 12 x 8-port. |
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I'll look in to it... |
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* Have some kind of rescue environment available over network boot, |
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> it's invaluable for diagnosing H/W problems; you'll probably also want |
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> memtest86+ or equivalent too. |
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> |
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> * Invest in some IP cameras for the suite within the datacenter. |
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> Technicians are often rubbish and don't describe things clearly, it's |
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> a very good idea to be able to say, "Show me!" and also for security |
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> purposes! |
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Good ideia! |
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* Write a small database which knows where every node is located |
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> (physical location) and what it's connected to (switch port, PDU port, |
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> console server port); then a bit of software to wrap around that and |
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> you'll have a good level of control over all nodes. |
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I'll be doing this using a software called IRM (http://irm.stackworks.net/). |
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It seems to have a good server inventory system. |
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All of the above avoids complications with KVM-over-IP type devices, |
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> most of which come with evil Java applets :( If you go down the Cisco |
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> route, you'll be able to telnet to the 'console server' and access any |
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> of its serial lines, make sure to define ACLs. |
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> |
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> Cheers, |
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> Alex |
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> -- |
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> gentoo-cluster@g.o mailing list |
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> |
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> |
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Thanks man! |
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Best regards, |
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Daniel |
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