[Beowulf] KVM to a compute node - ssh

[Jerker Nyberg]

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Robert G. Brown wrote:

> The most important of these is WOL/network boot, which I think is likely
> the way to go for remote manageability.

Do also consider using IPMI for out-of-band management. Here is a small
HOWTO:

 1. Get a motherboard with IPMI. (For example the Intel SE7501HG2 which I
use, but I am aware of motherboards from Tyan and servers from Dell with
IPMI integrated.)
 2. Configure IP-networking for the BMC (Baseboard Management Controller)
with the bootable resource CD.
 3. Download the CLI-RPM from Intel and install it on your Linux
workstation. (Or use the Windows software.)
 4. Run "dpcproxy" (from the CLI-RPM) in the background (and configure
some kind of tool to restart it since it is quite unstable).
 5. Connect to your server with "dpccli" (from the CLI-RPM). Try these
commands:
    * power-on
    * power-off
    * reset
    * sensors
    * console
 6. With the console command you can enter BIOS, view Grub and the console
of the operating system.

No need for extra serial cables! (I know that they aren't needed for
WOL/network boot either.) Depending on your need for security you might
want the console traffic on a separate network.

I have found some problems with this, for example I cannot get ENTER-key
to work inside BIOS, which quite limits the use for entering BIOS. Only
functions keys from F1 to F10 seem to work and not F11 and F12, and F12 is
the one used to change boot-device... (It works changing boot-device from
the Windows-client with help of the service partition, reports a collegue
of mine.)

I am currently using console=/dev/ttyS0 to redirect the Linux kernel
console to the virtual serial port over ethernet which works ok, you can
login as root and all. But it makes the normal KVM-output depressingly
black. But as far as I know, it should be possible to also use the normal
VGA for console (it works with Grub) as long as the kernel does not mess
upp it's video mode.

(Here is somebody with the same problem running FreeBSD
http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/hackers/2003-12/0235.html)

I hope that updated software from Intel or maybe one of the open source
projects will fix some of these problems - I havn't had the time to look
into them yet. It currently works good enough for me.

Regards,
Jerker Nyberg.
Uppsala, Sweden.