Re: [Oscar-users] Building a Beowulf Cluster with Obsolete Hardware

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Thanks so much for the helpful information, Olivier.  I had never even 
heard of docker, until you mentioned it.  I'll definitely have to check 
it out.

On 08/02/2016 06:04 AM, LAHAYE Olivier wrote:
> Hi Steven,
>
> To be honest, I can't tell if older versions of OSCAR still work as I did only work on oscar 6 on CentOS-6 and CentOS-7.
> 32 bit hardware is pretty old and I doubt you can find a mantained linux distro the runs in 32bit mode.
> At the time being, only the testing version is "maintained" and unfortunately, it's only built on x86_64 hardware (http://svn.oscar.openclustergroup.org/repos/unstable/).
> If you're familiar with docker, you can try to build a 32 bit version (not tested though) for your own purpose.
> The docker files are available here: http://svn.oscar.openclustergroup.org/pkgs/downloads/docker/
> The quick start guide is available here: http://svn.oscar.openclustergroup.org/trac/oscar/wiki/quick_start_guide_for_rhel
> But before starting the guide, you should build the 32 bits packages and setup a repository on your network.
> Then in the step 4 of the guide, you'll have to update the epel package. for OSCAR, you can install the noarch oscar-release package and there after edit the /etc/yum.repos/d/OSCAR.repo to point to your repository.
> As your hardware is "weak", I would suggest to install a minimalistic cluster (no ganglia, naemon and other stuffs. only the basics and the batch queuing system (I would recommand slurm)
>
> how to use docker to build oscar packages:
> HOWTO use it:
> Chose wich distro you want to play with and then:
>
> 0/ Install docker on your linux host.
> yum -y install docker
> dnf -y install docker
> urpmi --auto docker
> apt-get -y install docker
> or what ever is suitable for your distro.
>
> 1/ Build the docker image:
> sudo docker build -t <yourname>/oscar_<distro>:<version> -f Dockerfile.<distro> .
> example:
> sudo docker build -t john/oscar_co7:1.0 -f Dockerfile.centos7 .
>
> 2/ Run interactively the docker image you've built:
> sudo docker run -it <yourname>/oscar_<distro>:<version>
> example:
> sudo docker run -it john/oscar_co7:1.0
>
> 3/ Now that you're running your image, start playing with oscar-packager.
> oscar-packager --all oda
>
> => Result will end into /tftpboot/oscar/<oscar-distro-tag>/
>
> To build all packages:
> oscar-packager --all unstable
> you can add --verbose or even --debug for more output.
>
> Now you can stop/quit your docker image by exitting the bash (exit / ^D)
> 4/ Once done playing, you can choose to keep your track of the state of the docker image you've just quit.
> To do so:
> sudo docker ps -a
> Note the container id that you want to keep track (the most recent)
> sudo docker commit <contained_id> john/oscar_co7:1.1
>
> Note that the version has increased. This is to avoid overriding the 1.0 version. Though, you could have used 1.0 to store the current image status if you don't mind keeping the 1.0 version.
>
> More infos on how to use docker here:
> https://training.docker.com/self-paced-training
>
> cheers,
>
> Olivier.
>
> --
>     Olivier LAHAYE
>
> ________________________________________
> De : Steven Evans [steven.evans@BoolEngine.com]
> Envoyé : lundi 1 août 2016 19:20
> À : osc...@li...
> Objet : [Oscar-users] Building a Beowulf Cluster with Obsolete Hardware
>
> Oscar Users,
>       I'm interested in building a Beowulf cluster by using a bunch of
> old IBM desktops that I own.  The machines are far too old to meet the
> minimum system requirements of the latest version of Oscar, so I'm
> trying to use an older version that fits the generation of my computers
> (Oscar 4.2).  Is this a feasible endeavor, or is Oscar not suitable for
> something like this?
>       As you know, using an older version of Oscar also means using an
> old/obsolete operating system.  I suspect that support for both will be
> nonexistent, so I'm interested in getting the advice of those who have
> built clusters.  Is this something that lots of people do (build a
> cluster with obsolete software), or is it rare?
>       These computers have Pentium II processors with clock speeds of
> around 350 MHz.  The maximum RAM for each machine is 768 MB.  Most of my
> hard drives are 4.2 GB IDE drives, although I have a few 6 GB drives and
> one that's 40 GB.
>       I've never built a cluster, but have noticed that most books on the
> subject are at least 10 years old.  They also rarely give enough detail
> to actually build a cluster.  That's why I've started looking at Oscar.
>       I'm mostly trying to find out whether or not this is practical
> before potentially pursuing a fool's errand.  Any advice from
> experienced cluster builders is greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks for your attention,
>
> Steven Evans
>
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