Install operating system
Here we assume you already have the necessary hardware for a cluster.
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 it (space, energy, money).
Hypervisor
We use (xxx), but any should do, including virtualbox, vmware, among many others.
Foreman
Foreman is the node creation and provisioning server. We recommend Centos 6.3. Here is how to set one up: Foreman
Authentication server
We use 389, but other authentication systems will work fine, including kerberos.
- DNS
Fileservers and NFS
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.
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.
- Perimeter security
Queuing system
We recommend free versions of Sun Grid Engine SGE. See our guidelines to get a queuing system working.
Set up a database server
Add a new node to the cluster
How to spin up a new virtual machine
Add new disk to the cluster
Deploy a workstation
Return to So you want to set up a lab.