Redhat Linux Cluster Construction

There were totally 16 nodes. Each node was an IBM-compatible PC with 1.6GHz Athlon CPU and 1GHz memory. The nodes were connected by 100MHz ethernet and hooked on an uplevel ethernet by a switch. Only the master node is directly accessible from outside network. The network inside the cluster is DHCP (clients get IP address dynamically from the server).

Gross procedure of building the cluster:

  1. Install Redhat Linux on each machine. Set superuser 'root' on each machine individually.
  2. While keep operating system on each individual node, Share /home directory on the master node by NFS.
  3. Setup NIS/YP system through the cluster. Note still keep 'root' on each individual machine in case client nodes can't get the user info from the master 'root' is always accessible locally.
  4. Setup DHCP but tie nodes with fixed IP addresses.
  5. Install the job submission scripts written by Dr. Thijs J. H. Vlugt.
I just found a more detailed cluster HOWTO. I wish I had found it before I built vespa!!!

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