[Beowulf] Software installation across cluster

[Chris Dagdigian]

Environment Modules (http://modules.sourceforge.net/) or the more modern 
derivatives are pretty darn universal in cluster environments where a 
shared filesystem can be used to host an application/tools tree. Do one 
install and one module file and it's instantly available across the 
cluster. Does a great job of allowing you to host and offer many 
different versions/permutations of the same application.

After that you get less universal and odder more DIY setups. Some groups 
will roll software into custom .rpm, .pkg or .deb packages depending on 
their OS and will do all of their custom/internal software as binary 
packages hosted on a central app repository server. Lots of hacks 
involving passwordless SSH scripts run on remote nodes to replicate 
files or dump/unpack a tarball representing a tool.

And finally the cool DevOps kids are using Puppet, Chef, SaltStack, 
Ansible, Cfengine, etc. configuration management / orchestration 
toolkits  -- those are often overkill for simple software installs but 
they *excel* at maintaining and managing configuration states across 
many different systems. If your entire cluster is Puppetized one could 
easily come up with a puppet-based method for installing or managing the 
installation of software

My $.02 of course



Trevor Gale wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I was wondering what solutions other use for easy software installation across clusters. Is there any method that is generally accepted to be the most effective for making sure that all the software is consistent across each node?
>
> Thanks,
> Trevor
> ___________