These are notes for building the MBARI Beowulf cluster nodes.

Step 1.  Unpack system, plug in keyboard, mouse, and compatible monitor.

Step 2.  Turn on system and hit the DEL key to enter into BIOS.

Step 3.  Under SATA Options in BIOS, change from "Enhanced" to "Compatible" hard disk options. This allows the Fedora installation to proceed. Without this, the install fails.

Step 4.  Under Boot options in BIOS, change boot order to boot first from CD and then HD.

Step 5.  Insert Fedora Core 3 (FC3) installation disk and reboot system.

Step 6.  While system is booting, perform a CTL-S to view system information.  Write down the system MAC address. Hit F4 to continue.

Step 7.  Install FC3 in "Server" Mode from CD.   Erase all system partitions, disable SELinux and firewall, and only install default server applicatons.

Step 8.  Reboot again and change boot order to first boot from HD and then CD.

Step 9.  Copy and unzip  this  to a USB thumbdrive.

Step 10.  Install network driver from thumbdrive

The Beowulf cluster has two different nodes; each group was purchased at different times and each group has a different network driver, thus the need for different drivers noted below.

alias eth0 e1000
alias eth1 e1000

alias bond0 bonding
mount /media/usbdisk
cd  /media/usbdisk/e1000-7.4.27/src
install -D -m 6644 e1000.ko /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667smp/kernel/drivers/net/e1000/e1000.ko
/sbin/depmod

alias eth0 igb
alias eth1 igb

mount /media/usbdisk
cd  /media/usbdisk/igb-2.1.9/src
install -D -m 6644 igb.ko /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667smp/kernel/drivers/net/igb/igb.ko
/sbin/depmod

Step 11. Setup channel bonding, e.g. for node 1

1. Configure the following files to support LAN redundancy. Create a bond0 file, ifcfg-bond0 in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory. Include the following information in the ifcfg-bond0 file:

   DEVICE=bond0
   IPADDR=192.168.1.1
   NETMASK=255.255.255.0
   NETWORK=192.168.1.0
   BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
   ONBOOT=yes
   BOOTPROTO=none
   USERCTL=no
   

2. Create an ifcfg-ethn file for each interface in the bond. All interfaces should have SLAVE and MASTER definitions. Edit the ifcfg-eth0 file to appear as follows:

   DEVICE=eth0
   USERCTL=no
   ONBOOT=yes
   MASTER=bond0
   SLAVE=yes
   BOOTPROTO=none
   

3. Edit the ifcfg-eth1 file to appear as follows:

   DEVICE=eth1
   USERCTL=no
   ONBOOT=yes
   MASTER=bond0
   SLAVE=yes
   BOOTPROTO=none
   

4. Add the following lines to /etc/modprobe.conf:

   alias bond0 bonding
   options bond0 miimon=100 mode=1
   

5. Restarting Networking
   Restart the networking subsystem. From the console of either node in the cluster, execute the following command :

   /etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart 
   

Step 12. Change the hostname, e.g. for node 1

hostname node1.private.net

Step 13. Modify the fstab file to include mounts in the fstab file on the thumbdrive

Step 14. Replace the sshd_config with the file on the thumbdrive

cp -f /mount/usbdisk/sshd_config /etc/ssh

thumbdrive.zip (application/zip)
thumbdrive.zip (application/zip)