NPACI Rocks Cluster Distribution: Users Guide: 
| ||
|---|---|---|
| Prev | Chapter 1. Installing a Rocks Cluster | Next |
A Central Server is a Rocks Frontend node that can kickstart other frontends and provide rolls over the network. By default, all Frontends are central servers. This section describes the steps required to prep a frontend for central service.
 | The Wide-Area Kickstarting process is a newly-introduced advanced feature. Its interface is not polished, and will likely change in future releases. |
Start with a frontend node, as described by Install Frontend, or upgrade frontend.
Make a central distribution.
# cd /home/install/external # ./makecentral.sh |
The makecentral.sh script simply runs the rocks-dist central command.
Open www access to the node (see Enable WWW access).
Open web access to the install/external web directory. Although the kickstart file given to external frontends is minimal and does not contain passwords, it is not advisable to open access to this directory without considering its security implications. When access to this directory is granted, your rocks distribution (and all its packages) is visible to external hosts on the Internet.
The access necessary is affected by Apache server directives. Apache provides advanced access control via ACL and other mechanisms. We recommend familiarizing yourself with these features. However, the commands below allow you to quickly open access to everyone for testing.
Edit the /etc/httpd/conf/rocks-central.conf file. Uncomment the line as indicated in the file.
<Directory /var/www/html/install/external>
Options FollowSymLinks Indexes ExecCGI
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Allow from 10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0
Allow from 127.0.0.1
# Uncomment the following line to activate this central (insecure).
#Allow from all
Deny from all
</Directory> |
| Ensure that the hostname on central is fully qualified. Specifically, the PublicHostname value in the app_globals table of the database must be correct and reachable from the outside world. |
Your Frontend node should now be ready to function as a central server.
To add a roll to a central server, you do not need to reinstall the central. To make additional rolls available for external frontend consumption, simply:
1. Insert roll CD in drive, mount it as /mnt/cdrom. 2. # rocks-dist copyroll |
Roll developers can install their roll on central directly. This process assumes you have built your roll on the central server.
# make roll # mount -o loop roll-*.iso /mnt/cdrom # rocks-dist copyroll |
From your /rocks/src/roll/[name] directory.