Rocks v4.1 is released for i386, x86_64 and ia64 CPU architectures.

New Features

  • Avalanche Installer

    • The Avalanche Installer uses a BitTorrent tracker to support highly-scalable concurrent compute node installation.

    For example, let's say compute node A and compute node B are installing. If compute node A has already downloaded a package that compute node B needs, then compute node B will retrieve the package from compute node A, not from the frontend.

    The Avalanche Installer drastically reduces the pressure on the frontend when many compute nodes are concurrently installed.

  • Creation of the "Rocks Foundation Class"

    • We've started moving "critical" tools (e.g., python and MySQL) under /opt/rocks.

    The idea is to protect the tools that Rocks relies upon from updates that are applied by automated OS update programs (e.g., up2date and yum).

  • New blog-based frontend homepage

    • The default frontend homepage is now based on WordPress.

Enhancements

  • OS Roll based on CentOS release 4/update 2 and all updates as of October 18 2005
  • Updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 6
  • "rocks-mirror" modified to build Roll CD sets for any RPM repository
  • For example, you could direct "rocks-mirror" at the BU Linux repository and it will produce 4 ISOs that are compatible with Rocks.
  • Updated MyPhpAdmin to address security issues

Bug Fixes

  • Improved support for partitioning, especially in NAS and Compute appliances with multiple controllers
  • Removal of ganglia metrics that cause SCSI error on Adaptec, 3Ware, and other controllers
  • Fix to allow backtick (`) in root password
  • Support for multi-level device naming of Compaq (CCISS) and other RAID controllers
  • Support for per-cluster, per-appliance, and per-node static routing definitions
  • ATLAS/HPL now runs on EM64T machines in 64-bit mode.