Building Cluster with Beowulf Builder

Overview

BB - Beowulf Builder is a utility that help you build a diskless beowulf cluster easily.

Features

• Support remote booting using Etherboot package.
• Definable kernel localtion
• Easy to use menu-based user interface
• Configurable system services for all nodes
• Load and save configuration
• Automatically generate all configuration file
• Support up to 254 diskless nodes

Requirements

1. DHCP
2. NFS
3. TFTP
4. Newt library

Installation

1. Download the package from http://prg.cpe.ku.ac.th/

2. Extract the archive.

   
   # gzip -cd beowulfbuilder-x.x.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
   

3. Compile

   
   # make
   

4. Install

   
   # make PREFIX=/usr install
   

Manual

Running

To run Beowulf Builder, simply run beowulfbuilder

# beowulfbuilder

Configuration

Beowulf Builder configuration consists of 3 parts:

1. Cluster
   • Name The name of the whole cluster.

2. Server
   • IP IP of the server.
   • Netmask
   • Network

3. Client
   • Network ID The first 3-byte of client IP; e.g. 192.168.1
   • Start IP A number in range 0-255.
   • Stop IP A number in range Start IP-255.
   • Gateway
   • Netmask
   • Network
   • Broadcast
   • Basename Prefix name for each client to produce hostname in form base\#\#, while ## is client IP.
   • Domain
   • DNS

Beowulf Builder allows user to load/save configuration through GUI.

Generating Server

Since there are many step to build the cluster, Beowulf Builder separate them as the following:

• Generate DHCPd configuration
• Make a copy of /usr
• Generate client's root directory
• Generate NFS configuration
• Generate client configuration

To generate server, click on server button on the left panel. Administrator may choose to do only some steps, in case of he/she have done it before.

Editing client system services

Beowulf Builder allows administrator to edit system services of some/all client nodes easily by clicking on client button.

Creating bootdisk

To boot each node in the system, you need at least one bootdisk. Beowulf Builder let administrator to create bootdisk easily using GUI tool by clicking on boot button.

You have to choose where kernel is:

• floppy
• server (need Boot ROM)

And network interface driver also, since it depends on network interface card.

Upgrade bootimage

1. Compile customize kernel as you need

   
   # cd /usr/src/linux
   # make menuconfig
   # make dep;make clean;make bzImage
   

2. Mount $prefix/share/beowulfbuilder-1.0/image/bootImage via loop device

   
   # cd /usr/share/beowulfbuilder/image
   # mkdir tmp
   # mount -o loop bootImage tmp
   

3. Copy your kernel image to overwrite vmlinuz

   
   # cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage bootImage
   

4. Unmount

   
   # cd ../..
   # umount tmp
   

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