- Install (or already have installed) Linux on your server
machine. The only requirements for your Linux installation are:
- There should be approximately 2GB free space in both the
/ and /var filesystems. It may be simplest if you
just create one large partition on the entire drive containing at
least 4GB of free space
(Detail: See Section 7.1.2)
- An X windowing system such as GNOME or KDE must be installed.
- Ensure to assign a hostname that is not ``localhost'' or
``localhost.localdomain'', and does not contain any
underscores.
- The network interface for the private cluster network must be
installed and configured properly.
- If the server node is to be connected to a public network, the
network interface to the public network must be configured and
working properly (do yourself a favor and install some type of
network security if your system is exposed to the general
internet. OSCAR installs a firewall package called
pfilter that may be used for this).
(Detail: See Section 7.1.1)
- After the installation is complete, log on as root to the
server node.
- Download a ``Regular'' or ``Extra Crispy'' distribution of OSCAR
(see Section 2 on page
).
The rest of these instructions assume that the OSCAR distribution
file was downloaded into root's home directory -
root.
- Expand the OSCAR distribution:
# cd
# tar zxf <filename>
Where
filename
is either
oscar-2.0b1.tar.gz (regular distribution) or
oscar-including-srpms-2.0b1.tar.gz (extra crispy
distribution).
(Detail: See Section 7.1.3)
- Download any optional third party OSCAR packages and unpack
them in the OSCAR tree. For example, if you want OSCAR to install
the Ganglia package, download the Ganglia OSCAR tarball and expand
it into the packages/ directory in the OSCAR tree (assuming
that ganglia-oscar-2.0b1.tar.gz is in root's
home directory):
# cd
/oscar-2.0b1/packages
# tar zxf
/ganglia-oscar-2.0b1.tar.gz
(Detail: See Section 7.1.4)
- Copy all the RPMs from all of the distribution CD's to
/tftpboot/rpm using these, or similar, commands:
(insert cd)
# cp /mnt/cdrom/Redhat/RPMS/*.rpm /tftpboot/rpm
(Detail: See Section 7.1.6)
- Get all the relevant updates for your Linux distribution and
install them them on the server node. Additionally, copy the
updated RPM files to /tftpboot/rpm (along with the RPMs from
the installation CDs).
(Detail: See Section 7.1.7)
- Configure the second (private) cluster network adapter using a
command such as netcfg, neat, or your favorite editor.
Set the interface address to a relatively high IP address on the
private network (e.g., 10.0.0.250), set the interface configuration
protocol to ``none'', and set the interface to activate at boot
time.
(Detail: See Section 7.1.5)
- Reboot the server node.
- After the reboot is complete, log on as root, and ensure
that the private network interface came up properly.
- If X is not automatically launched upon root login, start
an X windowing system such as GNOME or KDE.
- Change to the OSCAR top-level directory (assumedly,
root/oscar-2.0b1), and run the following
command to start the OSCAR installation:
# ./install_cluster <device>
In the above command, substitute the device name (e.g., eth1)
in place of
device
for your server's private network
ethernet adapter. After install_cluster successfully
completes some initial setup, it will display the OSCAR wizard GUI.
(Detail: See Section 7.2.1)
- Press the
Prepare OSCAR Server for Install
button.
This will bring up a window for you to select which MPI
implementation you wish to use as the system default. This step
also installs and starts over necessary software, devices, and
services.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.1)
- Press the
Build OSCAR Client Image
button. This pops
up the ``Create a SystemImager Image'' window. Verify that the last
part of the filename in the Disk Partition File field
matches the type of drives that are in your clients. OSCAR ships
sample.disk.ide and sample.disk.scsi in the
oscarsamples directory. Press the
BuildImage
button
to build a SystemImager image for installation to the compute nodes.
You will see a progress bar across the bottom of the window as the
image is built. A dialog will pop up when the build is complete.
When it is successful, press the
Close
button on the pop up
window and then the
Close
button on the ``Build a
SystemImager Image'' window. You have just built an installation
image on the server node with the name oscarimage.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.2)
- Press the
Define OSCAR Clients
button on the OSCAR
Wizard. On the window that is opened, fill in the number of client
nodes that your cluster contains. This number must be greater
than zero. Verify that the IP information is correct and correct if
it is not. Pay special attention to the domain name. This is
absolutely required: ensure that a domain name is filled in.
Press the
Addclient
button to define the clients. Once that
is complete, a dialog will pop up. If it is successful, press the
Close
button on the pop up window and then the
Close
button on the ``Define OSCAR Clients'' window.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.3)
- Press the
Setup Networking
button on the OSCAR Wizard.
The window that is opened will help you collect MAC addresses and
configure the remote boot services. If your client nodes do not
support PXE booting, you will need to create a boot diskette. Put a
diskette in the floppy drive and press the
Build Autoinstall
Floppy
button. You may create multiple diskettes if you like.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.4)
- Press the
Collect MAC Addresses
button. The wizard will
start scanning the network as indicated in the message at the top of
the window.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.4)
- Now you need to network boot your nodes. This is done in one of
two ways:
- If your nodes support PXE booting, set the boot order in the
BIOS to have the network adapter first.
- If your nodes do not support PXE, insert the boot floppy
created in the previous step and boot off the floppy
(Detail: See Section A)
- As the nodes broadcast over the network, the MAC addresses
detected will show up on the left side of the window. Select a MAC
address and select its corresponding client. Press the
Assign Mac to Node
button to give the node that MAC
address. After the MAC is captured for each client node, power down
that client node.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.4)
- When you have assigned a MAC address to each node, press the
Stop Collecting
button to stop scanning the network. Then
press the
Configure DHCP Server
to setup the server to
answer the client requests.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.4)
- If your clients support PXE booting, press the
Setup
Network Boot
button to configure the server to answer PXE
requests.
(Detail: See Section 7.3.4)
- Press
Close
to dismiss the network setup window.
- Network boot the clients, as you did when collecting the MAC
addresses. This time, the clients will be answered by the server and
will perform the actual client installation. The install should only
take a few minutes depending on your hardware and your network. You
can install multiple clients simultaneously (note, however, that the
more simultaneous installs that you perform, the slower each
individual install may go).
(Detail: See Section 7.4)
- As each client finishes, it will start beeping and printing a
message to the console. You should now reboot them off of their
newly installed hard disks.
- If you are using PXE boot, reboot the clients and set the BIOS
boot order to boot to hard disk before the network.
- If you are using auto install diskettes, just remove the
diskette and reboot.
(Detail: See Section 7.4.2)
- Once all the clients have successfully booted, Press the
Complete Cluster Setup
button. Your OSCAR cluster is now
installed and configured.
(Detail: See Section 7.5.1)
- To verify proper installation, you should test the cluster.
OSCAR provides a test suite to verify the basic cluster functions.
All compute nodes must be fully booted and available before
attempting this step. Press the
Test Cluster Setup
button.
A window will pop up. Enter the number of cluster nodes and the
number of processors per node when prompted. The test will submit
simple jobs to the cluster and print the output. Any errors or
problems with the installation will show up in the output of the
test script.
(Detail: See Section 7.5.2)