[CI] CI 0.5.5 is coming

[Brian J. W. <Bri...@co...>]

We'll release version 0.5.5 tommorrow or Wednesday. The primary change
is in how a node joins the cluster. Instead of passing the node
number, IP addrs, etc. through LILO, they'll be passed through a
system call sometime after mounting the root and starting process 1.
The system call itself will be undocumented, but we have a command
that reads a configuration file and makes the system call. We'll clean
this up a bit more in the future. ;)

How this would work for an SSI cluster is that the node would mount a
local ramdisk and start a modified linuxrc as process 1. In addition
to its usual stuff, linuxrc would run our command to join the cluster,
then it would pivot_root() the clusterwide shared root into place.
Finally, it would exec init if it's the first node in the cluster, or
exit otherwise. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, Dave)

For more loosely coupled clusters, the node could join at any time.
Updated documentation on how to do this will be provided.


Aneesh-

Can you adapt your Alpha patch to the new release? We'll then
double-check that it still works on Intel x86, and fold it into the
subsequent release.

Thanks for your efforts.


-- 
Brian Watson            |  "The common people of England... so jealous
Linux Kernel Developer  |  of their liberty, but like the common
Compaq Computer Corp    |  people of most other countries never
Los Angeles, CA         |  rightly considering wherein it consists..."
310-414-3119            |      -Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776