Re: [Moosefs-users] moosefs distro

[JV <ja...@da...>]

We actually use NFS root, allowing us to have single read only base FS 
for every chunkserver.
We can upgrade, if needed chrooting to base on master and then 
restarting all chunkservers.
Also this system allows using different mfshdd.cfg for each 
chunkserver, allowing us to remove/add disks if they get hardware 
errors.


On 06.01.2012 15:46, Giovanni Toraldo wrote:
> Hi,
>
> 2012/1/6  <jan...@da...>:
>> On a related note - we were using USB sticks to boot chunkservers, 
>> but
>> now we are using network boot for that. On chunkservers themselves 
>> is
>> only data. This allows us to very quickly add new servers - just add 
>> new
>> node in configs and plug the server in.
>> In our experience using network boot is faster and safer than USB
>> sticks (and also cheaper).
>
> PXE netboot is a great choice when managing a bunch of identical
> machines, especially MooseFS chunk-servers that don't need any
> particular variation in the config files, and you can use the entire
> disks for the volume!
>
> I had a good experience with Debian Live
> http://live.debian.net/devel/live-boot/ (unfortunately this isn't in
> production but not for technical reasons): every machine bootstrap 
> via
> PXE, download from a TFTP server the generic kernel and initrd with
> live-boot scripts, that downloads a squashed rootfs via HTTP and 
> mount
> it. The last init.d script will mount the available machine disks on
> know locations and mfs-chunkserver is started.
>
> When a software upgrade is required, we simply generate a new 
> squashed
> rootfs with updated software, test it under a virtual machine, and
> when you are sure it's working, reboot every node in sequence.