Announce: Clubmask Cluster Tools

[henken]

What is clubmask
----------------
Clubmask is a set of open source Beowulf Cluster management 
tools being developed at the University of Pennsylvania. These tools
are unique in that the aim of the project is to provide a 
"Physicist Proof", completely turnkey set of tools for installing and mangagig clusters.

Links
--------------------------------
Home page: http://grove.cis.upenn.edu/~henken/clubmask

What's available presently (alpha1)
---------------------------------
Installation and rudimentry administration via cfenfine
Extensibility via python classes but not database

Current Support
---------------------------------
 The current state of the Clubmask software allows the user to install an
entire cluster by creating kickstart configuration files through the use of a
web page. The web page steps the user through all of the neccesary steps in
the install procedure that are prudent to a cluster install. There have been
options in RedHat's kickstart method that have been removed or been used as
default settings. For example, the option to configure Xwindows has been
removed due to the fact that one does not need X on the remote nodes. The
auto-reboot after install function has been set to 'on' all of the time due to
a small python script that communicates with the clubmask server during the
install and halts the install until the user removes the floppy and presses a
key to signal that he/she has done so. The software will also generate the
/etc/hosts, /etc/hosts.equiv/ and /root/.rhosts file each time a machine is
installed using the Clubmask software. This allows the user to use a short
naming scheme for each of the machines, such as eio6, fileserver1, etc. Also
installed by default is the rsh service. Rsh is a standard way to communicate
inside the cluster without the need to log in each time. These service are set
through cfengine files generated by the Clubmask software.

Nicholas Henke
University of Pennsylvania 
Engineeriing '02