I've recently installed FreeBSD 6.1 on a 12 node diskless cluster. I've got a couple of observations to share for those who might be interested...
I've installed it such that all of the compute nodes boot from the same system image as the boot server (also the head node). It works flawlessly and is the easiest pxeboot setup I have ever done. It boots the default FreeBSD kernel (generic) with no changes, and there was nothing to do to configure pxeboot other than creating a directory with pxebot in it...(aside from setting up dhcp). I'm a bit impressed with it, as I had been experimenting with Fedora Core 5 along the same lines. I abandoned core 5 after spending considerable time wrestling with half-broken tools meant to configure a diskless system, only to discover that the initrd fabricated by these tools was not working correctly. After working around that problem I discovered the kernel was not working correctly with my hardware, and had to resort to an older kernel which still needed additional work. At that point I stopped working with it in disgust. I don't mind doing a little work, but RedHat needs to get its act together on their low level tools and documentation. Conversely, the FreeBSD installation worked exactly as advertised. I was surprised at how simple it was to setup as compared to Fedora. The remarkable thing I notice about the FreeBSD setup is that with all nodes booting the same image (including the head node), system maintenance is really simple. It also makes me think that a single system image using freeware operating systems is a worthy and practical goal with FreeBSD, but that Fedora Core is not even close to being an out of the box solution for anything but a workstation. Glen _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
