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Posted to common-user@hadoop.apache.org by Paul Ingles <pa...@oobaloo.co.uk> on 2010/03/02 18:40:35 UTC
Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Hi,
We've got a new batch of servers that we're looking to configure our new cluster with. We're anticipating this will be about 5-10 nodes to start and potentially another 15 or so fairly soon after (pending necessity).
I've not come across it before, but, one of our systems guys has recommended using a PXE boot image? Are there any other similar tools that people could recommend?
Thanks,
Paul
Re: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Posted by Steve Loughran <st...@apache.org>.
Edward Capriolo wrote:
>
> In a redhat environment PXE+ KICKSTART is a great way to go. You can
> get nice fast consistent builds automatically. The post section of a
> kickstart allows you to run scripts or install RPM's.
>
> There are some tools Kobbler that give you some nice PXE install
> management, and tools like CFEngine can manage your system after that.
There's some stuff to make pxe/kickstart easier, like :
http://linuxcoe.sourceforge.net/
I don't have any config in the installation, so can use the same machine
image for any node type; push out config later so that they become the
node they are told to, bonded to the other bits of the cluster
Re: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Posted by Edward Capriolo <ed...@gmail.com>.
Also you could utilize a pxe boot and serve a shared root / file
system over nfs, swap can be a local or remote disk.
I think that may be more of what you are asking about?
On 3/2/10, sagar_shukla <sa...@persistent.co.in> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> Alternative to PXE boot is - do the installation on a single box, create
> a ghost image of that setup and then replicate ghost image on new servers.
>
> PXE boot is mainly used when you do not have physical access to the servers
> and installation needs to be done remotely. If you have physical access to
> the servers then images can be created through ghost.
>
> Regards,
> Sagar
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Edward Capriolo [mailto:edlinuxguru@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 11:23 PM
> To: common-user@hadoop.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
>
> On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Jones, Nick <ni...@amd.com> wrote:
>> Hi Paul,
>> PXE with scripted installs is probably your best bet.
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Paul Ingles [mailto:paul@oobaloo.co.uk]
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 11:41 AM
>> To: common-user@hadoop.apache.org
>> Subject: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> We've got a new batch of servers that we're looking to configure our new
>> cluster with. We're anticipating this will be about 5-10 nodes to start
>> and
>> potentially another 15 or so fairly soon after (pending necessity).
>>
>> I've not come across it before, but, one of our systems guys has
>> recommended
>> using a PXE boot image? Are there any other similar tools that people
>> could
>> recommend?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Paul
>>
>
> In a redhat environment PXE+ KICKSTART is a great way to go. You can
> get nice fast consistent builds automatically. The post section of a
> kickstart allows you to run scripts or install RPM's.
>
> There are some tools Kobbler that give you some nice PXE install
> management, and tools like CFEngine can manage your system after that.
>
> Normally the tools in place take care of the heavy lifting and then
> you can apply your "glue" code to handle your specific needs.
>
> DISCLAIMER
> ==========
> This e-mail may contain privileged and confidential information which is the
> property of Persistent Systems Ltd. It is intended only for the use of the
> individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended
> recipient, you are not authorized to read, retain, copy, print, distribute
> or use this message. If you have received this communication in error,
> please notify the sender and delete all copies of this message. Persistent
> Systems Ltd. does not accept any liability for virus infected mails.
>
Re: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Posted by Steve Loughran <st...@apache.org>.
sagar_shukla wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> Alternative to PXE boot is - do the installation on a single box, create a ghost image of that setup and then replicate ghost image on new servers.
>
> PXE boot is mainly used when you do not have physical access to the servers and installation needs to be done remotely. If you have physical access to the servers then images can be created through ghost.
No, that way leads to madness.
With PXE and Config Management tools then you can go from clean metal to
managed machine in a period of time, sure that the state of your machine
is a function of (packages, config-changes). You can also be sure that
the state of all the machine's root filesystems is defined by your
tooling. The big problem becomes the network load when you restart 2000
nodes due to a UPS failure, for which workarounds exist.
Initial costs are high, but the cost of adding new machines should be 0,
diagnosing problems fairly simple as each node will look the same.
Whenever you ghost a machine, you fork that machine image, The state of
every machine will vary, and is a function of (original state,
ghosting-changes, time). How do you keep them up to date? By hand? Do
you tell them to auto update? But on what schedule? What if a reboot is
required?
Now, what happens when there's a problem? Do you know what state every
machine in the datacentre is in? How you diagnose faults if one machine
is playing up? How do you reset that one to the "gold" image and then
bring it up to date?
Next problem: updating your binaries. How? By hand? By creating a new
machine and ghosting it to every machine again?
Like I said, madness.
It's easier on virtualised systems if you only have one machine image
that is transient: you can bring it up by hand, update it, let the
infrastructure apply per-machine diffs (hostname, wierd things in
domained windows boxes). Even then, the word "by hand" is a warning
sign. Me, I have hudson creating RPMs, scp-ing them to machines that can
then copy them out to mounted virtual disk images that are then mounted
read-only on the various VMs, these disk images do the late binding
installation of my RPM-packaged JARS (including Hadoop) so I don't have
to worry about the fact that I may want to push out three updates in a
single day. Because once you move to an VM-on-demand infrastructure,
with an API, building machine images by hand is like typing LINK on the
command line as you build your C++ program.
-steve
RE: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Posted by sagar_shukla <sa...@persistent.co.in>.
Hi Paul,
Alternative to PXE boot is - do the installation on a single box, create a ghost image of that setup and then replicate ghost image on new servers.
PXE boot is mainly used when you do not have physical access to the servers and installation needs to be done remotely. If you have physical access to the servers then images can be created through ghost.
Regards,
Sagar
-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Capriolo [mailto:edlinuxguru@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 11:23 PM
To: common-user@hadoop.apache.org
Subject: Re: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Jones, Nick <ni...@amd.com> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> PXE with scripted installs is probably your best bet.
>
> Nick
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Ingles [mailto:paul@oobaloo.co.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 11:41 AM
> To: common-user@hadoop.apache.org
> Subject: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
>
> Hi,
>
> We've got a new batch of servers that we're looking to configure our new
> cluster with. We're anticipating this will be about 5-10 nodes to start and
> potentially another 15 or so fairly soon after (pending necessity).
>
> I've not come across it before, but, one of our systems guys has recommended
> using a PXE boot image? Are there any other similar tools that people could
> recommend?
>
> Thanks,
> Paul
>
In a redhat environment PXE+ KICKSTART is a great way to go. You can
get nice fast consistent builds automatically. The post section of a
kickstart allows you to run scripts or install RPM's.
There are some tools Kobbler that give you some nice PXE install
management, and tools like CFEngine can manage your system after that.
Normally the tools in place take care of the heavy lifting and then
you can apply your "glue" code to handle your specific needs.
DISCLAIMER
==========
This e-mail may contain privileged and confidential information which is the property of Persistent Systems Ltd. It is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are not authorized to read, retain, copy, print, distribute or use this message. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this message. Persistent Systems Ltd. does not accept any liability for virus infected mails.
Re: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Posted by Edward Capriolo <ed...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Jones, Nick <ni...@amd.com> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> PXE with scripted installs is probably your best bet.
>
> Nick
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Ingles [mailto:paul@oobaloo.co.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 11:41 AM
> To: common-user@hadoop.apache.org
> Subject: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
>
> Hi,
>
> We've got a new batch of servers that we're looking to configure our new
> cluster with. We're anticipating this will be about 5-10 nodes to start and
> potentially another 15 or so fairly soon after (pending necessity).
>
> I've not come across it before, but, one of our systems guys has recommended
> using a PXE boot image? Are there any other similar tools that people could
> recommend?
>
> Thanks,
> Paul
>
In a redhat environment PXE+ KICKSTART is a great way to go. You can
get nice fast consistent builds automatically. The post section of a
kickstart allows you to run scripts or install RPM's.
There are some tools Kobbler that give you some nice PXE install
management, and tools like CFEngine can manage your system after that.
Normally the tools in place take care of the heavy lifting and then
you can apply your "glue" code to handle your specific needs.
RE: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Posted by "Jones, Nick" <ni...@amd.com>.
Hi Paul,
PXE with scripted installs is probably your best bet.
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Ingles [mailto:paul@oobaloo.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 11:41 AM
To: common-user@hadoop.apache.org
Subject: Tools to automatically setup new slaves (PXE boot?)
Hi,
We've got a new batch of servers that we're looking to configure our new
cluster with. We're anticipating this will be about 5-10 nodes to start and
potentially another 15 or so fairly soon after (pending necessity).
I've not come across it before, but, one of our systems guys has recommended
using a PXE boot image? Are there any other similar tools that people could
recommend?
Thanks,
Paul