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Bryan Green wrote: |
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> Hello all, |
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> |
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> I am looking for something of a survey of examples of Gentoo-driven clusters |
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> out there. If such a survey has been done, perhaps someone point me to it. |
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|
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http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/cluster/#doc_chap2 |
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> But I would like to hear from others on the list about their clusters. |
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> |
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> I am in the process of advocating for using Gentoo on a new cluster that we |
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> will be building. The cluster will be a "hyperwall", meaning that each node |
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> will have graphics, forming a grid of displays for multi-parameter, |
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> multi-dimensional scientific visualization. There will also be several disk |
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> servers which will run Suse in order to get Lustre support (Lustre support |
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> on the client side will be OS-neutral when the current beta is officially |
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> released). In addition to graphics, the nodes will also be used for compute |
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> jobs (scientific), and may serve as a testbed for a production scientific |
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> computing environment. |
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Joel Martin has previously posted Lustre ebuilds to the list (for both |
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client and server, I thinkg). You may be interested. We'll want to get |
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them into portage at some point, so there's no requirement that you use |
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Suse server-side. |
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|
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> I'd be grateful for any feedback I get from others on the list about the |
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> clusters they maintain or use, and perhaps some comments about the efficacy |
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> of Gentoo in an environment where stability is very important, and how |
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> system administration compares to administration of a Suse or Redhat cluster. |
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|
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The main difference is that, since we're "live," you need to consider |
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how you want to deal with upgrades. You may wish to pick a static |
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portage tree, import it into some sort of version control, and |
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selectively import changes you want (probably just security bumps, which |
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you can find using the wonderful glsa-check tool from gentoolkit). |
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I've got a glsa-check wrapper that I use to make things a little easier, |
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which shows and optionally applies applicable updates. I attached it. |
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Thanks, |
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Donnie |
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