Install operating system

Here we assume you already have the necessary hardware for a cluster, as described in Acquire and deploy hardware. This article is part of a series called So you want to set up a lab. To begin, you will either need 6 computers to host the central services, or you will need a hypervisor to host 6 VMs, or some mixture of the above. We recommend the hypervisor if you can bear it and the 6 physical computers if you can afford the space and energy.

Hypervisor

We use (xxx), but any should do, including virtualbox, vmware, among many others. Hypervisor

Foreman

Foreman is the provisioning server. We recommend using Centos 6.3. Here is how to set one up: Foreman

DHCP and Cluster DNS

This requires planning. Please see our Cluster IP planning worksheet

Set up provisioning services

• Create local repositories
• Automatic Provision (PXE)

Authentication server

Set up authentication (389) server. Other authentication systems, such as kerberos, are fine, but are beyond the scope of this tutorial.

• create users. If you interoperate with another cluster, you may have to pay attention to name and/or UID collisions.

NFS and Public DNS

We use XFS over NFS. We tend to hang several enclosures off a head node. We recommend SAS, which has finally come down in price, and RAID6 formatting. We tend to use enclosures that host 12 disks of 4TB each.

• Public DNS
• Set up NFS Servers

Setup NAS with 389 and cluster Create/export NFS mounts Depending on your local environment, you may need to coordinate the use of public IP names and addresses with your ISP or department.

All of the above can all be be set up on a single machine in your office without any other hardware being present. Thus you can defer the physical installation to this point, if you like. If you have more than a few machines, physical installation requires planning.

Set up queuing system

We recommend free versions of Sun Grid Engine SGE. See our guidelines to get a queuing system working.

• Create SGE master
• Setup SGE
• Provision sgehead
• Configure SGE hosts/groups

Provision nodes

We can provide guidance, based on our experience.

Set up other middleware

• Python - 2.7 series

Set up lab software

• get DOCK 3.7 running

Portal and Security

We recommend setting up a portal and blocking all inbound access to all other computers. Use two portals at distinct geographical locations for added robustness.

Add a new node to the cluster

How to spin up a new virtual machine

Add new disk to the cluster

Configure new disk

Deploy a workstation

Workstation Install

Document

Document the system configuration, licenses, access codes.

Return to So you want to set up a lab.