[Beowulf] Building new cluster - estimate

[Joe Landman]

Matt Lawrence wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Aug 2008, Joe Landman wrote:
> 
>> Advantage of modules is you can upgrade them without upgrading the 
>> kernel. Go ahead, build in that e1000 driver.  I dare yah... :(
>>
>> More to the point it does give some good flexibility for end users 
>> with a need to keep the core "separate" from the drivers for maintenance.
>>
>> Initrd is subtle and quick to anger.  One must use burnt offerings to 
>> placate the spirits of initrd.
> 
> Ok, I am trying to follow your advice.  However, "make rpm" does not 
> generate a package that includes initrd or updates to /etc/grub.conf.  I

I update these by hand/script.  The mkinitrd isn't too painful.  I have 
it on a machine at the lab (which happens to be off now, and I am at 
home).  Will put that out in the morning.  The grub update is fairly simple.


> have started looking at how to make that work, but the 9K lines of spec 
> file for the CentOS kernel rpm are rather daunting.

Hmmm... I normally recommend avoiding their spec file unless you want to 
use only their kernel and do minor tweaks from there.

This said, I really recommend using

	make binrpm-pkg

to generate the kernel/modules RPM and SRPM.  Then the grub update and 
the mkinitrd can be scripted.  If you are daring, you can include those 
scripts in the %post sections of the generated spec file (the make 
binrpm-pkg will generate a spec file for you).

> 
> Since y'all have obviously been dealing with these sorts of problems 
> longer than I have, I could really use some help here.

I'll be in the office tomorrow with the machines, I can send you the 
exact mkinitrd line.  Bug me offline if you have a baseline kernel you 
want to get started with and we can walk our way through this.

Joe

> 
> -- Matt
> It's not what I know that counts.
> It's what I can remember in time to use.
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-- 
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
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Scalable Informatics LLC,
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