[Beowulf] PXE boot with X7DWT-INF IB onboard card

[Beat Rubischon]

Hi Duke!

On 13.11.12 04:45, Duke Nguyen wrote:
> Not to mention that this 
> solution is cheaper than putting disks onto nodes, I prefer this option 
> so that we do not have to manually configure and install each node (with 
> disks inside or a usb or an external CD drive).

I usually use the PXE mechanism to boot the standard installer image of
my distribution of choice. Every recent distribution brings you the
needed files on your installation media - have a look in images/pxeboot/
of your RHEL / CentOS / Scientfic DVD, boot/*/loader of your SuSE DVD,
the pxe subdirectory of the Ubuntu boot image directory... Once bootet,
you deliver the packages using http, nfs etc. Just copy the content of
the DVD or FTP directory to your headnode and make it available.

To automate the installation by itself every distrbution accepts
automatic installation instructions. RedHat calls it Kickstart, SuSE
AutoYaST, Debian / Ubuntu Preseed. You'll find plenty of examples in the
web. And you'll find plenty of tools automatic this stuff.

No need to use CDs oder DVDs. No need to answer any questions. Only need
to learn a little bit of systems management :-)

Or to pay somebody delivering you support and / or software (-:

Beat

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