1.6. Installing a Frontend over the Network

This section describes installing a Rocks frontend from a Central server over the wide area network.

1. Use a Rocks CD (see downloads) to boot the frontend, or alternatively a small bootdisk (also available on the downloads page). When the splash screen appears, type:

   frontend central=name.your.org

   at the boot: prompt, where "name.your.org" is the fully-qualified domain name of your central server, without http:// or any other prefix or suffix. If you use the special name "Rocks", you will attempt to contact central.rocksclusters.org, a central server at SDSC.

   You can also upgrade your frontend over the network, by adding the keyword upgrade boot command (in addition to frontend central=name). Advanced users may want to activate Rocks ekv service on the frontend during the install. Ekv allows you to interact with the install screens over the network. To do this, add the keyword ekv to the boot command. Once the install has begun you can ssh to the frontend. When connected, you will see the RedHat and Rocks install screens. Unfortunately, when ekv is activated, the screens on the physical console (the monitor that is physically connected to the frontend) will get mangled to some extent.

2. After the frontend boots off the central, you will see the roll choice screen:

   

   Choose your desired rolls, and press "Ok".

   If you need a roll for another architecture, choose your rolls for this arch first, press ok. Then say "yes" to another roll server, and choose the same one as before. You will see this screen again. Press the "arch" button, and choose rolls for the non-native architecture.

3. You will then see the option to choose another central server to get more rolls.

   

   When you are finished adding new network rolls (ones obtained over the network), answer "No" to the new central server question.

4. Now you can augment your frontend with rolls from a CD. The screens and process for installing CD-based rolls is described in Install Frontend.

5. When you are finished installing CD-based rolls, you will enter into the familiar Rocks installation windows. These may change depending on what rolls you have selected. Again the Install Frontend section has details for this process.

6. The contents of the Rocks Base CD will now be transferred to your frontend over the network. Keep in mind that this may involve over 650MB of transfers, which are done via http using standard wget. This phase will take some time, and is affected by network congestion and bandwidth between you and the central server.

   Anaconda will then install the base packages, followed by the retrieval of network rolls from each central server where they reside. Rocks will then install the rolls on your frontend, then proceed with the post-section and other elements of a normal frontend install.

Your frontend should now be installed and ready to initialize compute nodes (see section install compute nodes).

Advanced users should know that there exists another boot: option for frontend central. If you have multiple distributions on central (i.e. one for english, one for italian), you may specify dist=name, such as: "boot: frontend central=name.my.org dist=it-dist". This specifies the top-level distribution directory, that central will expect to find at "/home/install/external/it-dist". In addition, if you simply type frontend central (no equal sign), the frontend will attempt to obtain its kickstart file from any DHCP server that will answer. With such a dhcpd server, you can even PXE the frontend!