Full text: M$ PPT(155 KB)

Condor and DRBL Bruno Gonçalves & Stefan Boettcher Emory University

Motivation
Maximize computing power while minimizing costs
Optimize the use of the resources that are already available
Maximize resource availability
Permit peaceful coexistence with previously existing Operating Systems

Software
Fedora Core Linux http://fedora.redhat.com/
Other distributions can be used as well
Diskless Remote Book on Linux (DRBL) http://drbl.sourceforge.net
Condor clustering softweare http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/

Hardware
Server (complete machine)
Large HDD
Several network cards
Client (stripped down machine)
CPU
RAM
Network Card

DRBL
Uses PXE or Etherboot to let clients boot through the network
All files can be located at the server and accessed via NFS (clients don’t need harddrives!)
Server only provides file sharing and user authentication, all software uses the clients own resources to run

DRBL Installation (I)
# drblsrv -i
Updates the system (similarly to “up2date”, etc…)
Makes sure relevant services (dhcpd, NFS, NIS, tftpboot, etc..) are installed
Configures necessary services
Selects the kernel to be used by clients

DRBL Installation II
# drblpush -i
Which network interfaces to use
Client booting options (text/gui)
How many clients and hostnames
MAC address to IP/hostname binding (if any)
“ Pushes” all the configurations to the clients (creating new clients if necessary)
Needs to be run anytime we want to change the structure of the cluster

Structure Internet DRBL server/Firewall Central Manager Compute nodes 192.168.110.x 192.168.120.x

Condor Installation
# ./condor_install
All machines share the same password files
All filesystems are NFS mounted and shared between all the machines
Configure condor for all DRBL clients even nonexistent ones.

Dedicated Cluster
Number of configured clients can be larger than number of machines (easily add more machines)
Clients boot to text mode
Condor configured for dedicated resources

Windows Computer Lab
Number of nodes should correspond to number of machines
MAC address binding can be used for extra security
Nodes can PXEBoot when they’re available for computation (evening / holidays / vacations) and go back to windows when strictly necessary (morning)
Condor’s checkpointing (and flocking) utilities allow for jobs to be ran in whichever resources are available at a given time

Centralized Cluster management
drbl-doit
Run command on all clients
drbl-cp-host, drbl-rm-host
cp/rm file or directory to all clients
drbl-useradd, drbl-userdel
add/del user accounts
drbl-client-service
Control services on clients (drbl-client-service condor start)

Advantages
Flexible
Easily add and remove machines (plug and play)
Usable for both dedicated and opportunistic clustering
Stable
Running for months without problems even with nodes being added, removed and upgraded
Both clients and server can be rebooted without (too much) harm
Efficient
“ Biggest bang for your buck”

Disadvantages
Not ideal for IO intensive applications (NFS overhead)
Communication between nodes on different subnets are routed through server
All communication with outside world has to go through server

The End Questions? Suggestions?

Full text: M$ PPT(155 KB)

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