Rocks v5.0 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures.

Downloads

ISO images for i386 and x86_64 architectures can be found here.

New Features

1. Xen Support

You can use the Xen Roll to create ‘VM Containers’: physical machines that are used to hold Xen-based virtual machines. The Rocks Command Line was expanded to help build and maintain VMs (e.g., “rocks create host vm compute-0-0-0″ is used to install a VM).

2. Fully-Programmable Partitioning

The partitioning of client nodes (e.g., compute nodes and tile nodes) has been retooled. You can supply Red Hat partitioning directives to any node by writing a program in the “pre” section which populates the file “/tmp/user_partitioning_info”. The program can be as simple as small bash script that echos Red Hat partitioning directives or as complex as a python program that outputs partitioning info based on: the node’s name, the node’s membership, the number of disks in the node or the type of disks in the node. See the Base Roll documentation for details.

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Rocks v5.0 Beta is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures.

Downloads

• Jumbo Roll (Base, Bio, Condor, Ganglia, HPC, Java, Kernel, OS disk 1 and 2, SGE, Web Server) i386 (dvd)
• Jumbo Roll (Base, Bio, Condor, Ganglia, HPC, Java, Kernel, OS disk 1 and 2, SGE, Web Server) x86_64 (dvd)
• OS Jumbo Roll (All 6 OS Rolls) i386 (dvd)
• OS Jumbo Roll (All 7 OS Rolls) x86_64 (dvd)
• Individual Rolls
• MD5 checksums

Caveat

For compute nodes, ALL disks will be repartitioned and reformatted.

To only format the root disk, before you install any compute nodes, execute:

• cd /home/install/site-profiles/5.0/nodes/
• wget http://www.rocksclusters.org/ftp-site/pub/rocks/beta/5.0/replace-partition.xml
• cd /home/install
• rocks-dist dist

Notes on Some of the New Features

• Xen Support

If you include the Xen roll, you will now be able to configure Xen images using Rocks.

After you bring up the frontend, you will want to configure a “VM Container”. A VM Container is a physical node that hosts Xen VMs. Execute “insert-ethers”, then select “VM Container” as the appliance type. Then PXE boot the physical node.

After the VM Container is installed, you can create VMs inside the VM Container. To configure your first VM, on the frontend execute:

# rocks add host vm vm-container-0-0 membership=compute

Where “vm-container-0-0″ is the name of the physical VM Container and “membership=compute” associates a compute appliance with the newly added VM. By default, Rocks will assign the name “compute-0-0-0″ to the new VM.

Then, you’ll need to reconfigure and restart all Rocks services by executing:

# rocks sync config

Now, let’s install the VM:

# rocks create host vm compute-0-0-0

You can monitor the installation by executing:

# rocks-console compute-0-0-0

After the installation completes, boot the VM by executing:

# rocks start host vm compute-0-0-0

After the VM boots, you will be able to login to the compute VM just like a physical compute node. Also, if you installed SGE, you will be schedule jobs on the compute VM.

To see all the new Rocks VM commands, execute:

# rocks | grep vm