[ale] Partial Remote Boot

[Jeff Hubbs]

<FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff 
size=2>Thanks, Chris, this gets me well on my 
way...
<FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff 
size=2>Â 
- 
Jeff
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr 
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  <FONT face=Tahoma 
  size=2>-----Original Message-----From: Chris Fowler 
  [mailto:ChrisF at computone.com]Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 
  4:20 PMTo: 'Jeff Hubbs'Cc: 
  'ale at ale.org'Subject: RE: [ale] Partial Remote 
  Boot
  <A target=_blank 
  href="http://etherboot.sourceforge.net">http://etherboot.sourceforge.net 
  
  Check it out.  
  -----Original Message----- From: Jeff 
  Hubbs [mailto:Jhubbs at niit.com] 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 4:19 PM <FONT 
  size=2>To: ale at ale.org Subject: [ale] Partial Remote 
  Boot 
  I'm taking a stab at setting up a MOSIX cluster and I'm going 
  to want the compute nodes to get some of their OS from 
  a central point (probably via NFS).  I don't have 
  any boot PROMs, so I expect that the nodes will, at the <FONT 
  size=2>very least, boot from floppy or a small HD.  I've read the 
  remote-boot and diskless HOWTOs but they don't quite 
  tell me what I need. 
  Specifically, what parts of the filesystem tree should be 
  local and which could/should be imported, and how can 
  this be set up at install-time given that I will 
  probably need to use RH 6.2?  I seem to recall that at install 
  time, I can give an exported file system from another machine 
  a read/writable mount point (say, /usr) on the target 
  machine and the install process will fill /usr with 
  files, but what do I do with the SECOND machine? Do I 
  let it overwrite the exported system, or is there some other trickery? 
  
  Let me try to answer my own questions and you can tell me if 
  I'm FOS. 
  I get the feeling that /lib, /sbin, /bin, and /usr (except for 
  /usr/local) could be centralized via NFS.  
  Although I will want every machine to run the same 
  MOSIX-patched kernel, I know that for some machines the kernel image 
  should be different (for instance, one of my compute nodes 
  has the buggy CMD640, so I'll want to have the 
  workaround enabled when I make config for that 
  particular machine's kernel).  
  Going one step further, what if I'm trying to go with a node 
  that's diskless but boots only from a floppy?  
  Can I start with tomsrtbt or something even more 
  cut-down? 
  - Jeff 
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