4.2 Quick installation procedures

All actions specified herein should be performed by the root user on the server node unless noted otherwise. Note that if you login as a regular user and use the su command to change to the root user, you must use ``su -'' to get the full root environment. Using ``su'' (with no arguments) may not be sufficient, and may cause obscure errors during an OSCAR installation.

  1. Install (or already have installed) Linux on your server machine. The only requirements for your Linux installation are:

    1. 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)

    2. An X windowing system such as GNOME or KDE must be installed.

    3. Ensure to assign a hostname that is not ``localhost'' or ``localhost.localdomain'', and does not contain any underscores.

    4. The network interface for the private cluster network must be installed and configured properly.

    5. 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)

  2. After the installation is complete, log on as root to the server node.

  3. 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 - $^\sim$root.

  4. 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)

  5. 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 $^{\sim}$/oscar-2.0b1/packages
    # tar zxf $^{\sim}$/ganglia-oscar-2.0b1.tar.gz



    (Detail: See Section 7.1.4)

  6. 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)

  7. 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)

  8. 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)

  9. Reboot the server node.

  10. After the reboot is complete, log on as root, and ensure that the private network interface came up properly.

  11. If X is not automatically launched upon root login, start an X windowing system such as GNOME or KDE.

  12. Change to the OSCAR top-level directory (assumedly, $^\sim$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)

  13. 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)

  14. 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)

  15. 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)

  16. 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)

  17. 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)

  18. Now you need to network boot your nodes. This is done in one of two ways:

    (Detail: See Section A)

  19. 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)

  20. 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)

  21. 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)

  22. Press $<$Close$>$ to dismiss the network setup window.

  23. 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)

  24. 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.

    (Detail: See Section 7.4.2)

  25. 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)

  26. 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)

root 2002-11-08