The cluster nodes are used for
message passing devlopment work.
The nodes are diskless, and boot off of a floppy containing 9load
and fetch the kernel from the fileserver. GigE nodes also have
100bT interface connected becuase 9load does not contain the GigE
driver.
In contrast to the powerwall nodes there
are no hard drives in the cluster nodes. Each node boots from a
floppy containing just 9load and plan9.ini
for 100bt attached nodes (ps1-ps8) the
plan9.ini is:
distname=plan9
partition=new
ether0=type=i82557
bootfile=ether0
bootargs=il
mouseport=ps2
console=0
baud=9600
for GigE attached nodes (p1-p18) the
plan9.ini is:
distname=plan9
partition=new
ether0=type=ga620
ether1=type=i82557
bootfile=ether1
bootargs=il
mouseport=ps2
console=0
baud=9600
the boot floppies are made with the command
pc/bootfloppy /dev/fd0disk /tmp/plan9.ini
As with the powerwall machines the
bootfile arg tells the machines that it will get it's kernel
using bootp/tftp over the network from the auth server. All
machines use the 100bt to fetch the kernel as 9load does not
contain the GigE driver.
The auth server knows which kernel to send based on the bootf
arg in /lib/ndb/local
/386/9p for machines p1-p18 and /386/9ps for machines ps1-ps8.
Actually both of these kernels are the same, largely default cpu server
kernels using the cpurc.
4th Ed. Upgrade
Upgrading to the 4th Ed. required updating the 9load on the floppies
as the pci detection code has changed. In the 3rd Ed. the second i82557
interface was detected first, with the 4th Ed. they are detected in the
correct order. This also meant that we had to change the ethernet cable
from the secondary to the primary interface on all nodes and update the
/lib/ndb/local file to reflect the new mac adresses.
Last Modified: May 27 2002
dpx@acl.lanl.gov