[Clusterusers] Re: cluster planning

[Wm. Josiah Erikson]

Duly noted. PHP is a bit of a security risk in certain cases, but there 
are some quick and easy tricks to make it less so (there is what I call 
the "make it insecure" switch, which is, unfortunately, on by default in 
debian, dunno in RedHat - I'll make sure it's set the way I like it, 
i.e. not allow execution of arbitrary web addresses - 
(allow_url_fopen).... kindof amazing)
    -Josiah



Chris Perry wrote:

>Quick addition on what to install: I like the idea of an externally-visible
>head node, myself, which then would make me want to have some form of web
>server available. Also PHP, SQL, etc.
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>- chris
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>on 5/15/06 10:32 AM, Wm. Josiah Erikson at wjerikson at hampshire.edu wrote:
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>>Hello all,
>>    For anybody who doesn't already know:
>>
>>    Right now, fly's head node is serving most of fly AND most of hex (a
>>couple of dead motherboards and hard drives is the only reason that
>>isn't ALL - hardware is on order to remedy this), proving that
>>non-identical hardware can coexist in the same cluster just fine with
>>ROCKS, the clustering software I'm currently using and have fallen in
>>love with.
>>   
>>    I'm going to go forward with cluster planning assuming that
>>everybody thinks it would be great if both clusters were permanently the
>>same, as that's the universal response I got from everybody when we
>>first started talking about getting fly back up and running. This is
>>possible and even relatively simple with ROCKS, as I have just proven :)
>>    I'm going to put new hard drives, in a RAID 1, in hex's current
>>master node - 250GB hard drives, an upgrade from the current 120GB hard
>>drives - the old ones are well past their life expectancy, which makes
>>me nervous. Hex's master node will serve all 40 compute nodes. The
>>question is: Should I put hex at fly's IP (directly acessible from the
>>outside world via SSH and HTTP), or hex's IP (only accessible directly
>>from inside Hampshire's network). I would argue for the former... I also
>>think fly is a cooler name than hex, but I don't actually care :) I can
>>keep fly up-to-date security-wise for those services that are available,
>>and the rest are firewalled at the kernel level as well as at the edge
>>of Hampshire's network, so I don't think we're exposing ourselves to
>>anything big and scary by giving outselves a globally valid IP.
>>
>>    In short: I plan on putting both clusters together into one, using
>>hex's current master node to be the head node, calling it fly, and
>>making it globally accessible. Does anybody have a problem with this?
>>
>>    Here are the services/programs that I know need to be installed.
>>Please add to this list:
>>
>>    -breve
>>    -Maya and Pixar license servers
>>    -Pixar stuff (RenderManProServer and rat)
>>    -MPI
>>    -build tools (gcc, etc - v4 as well as v3)
>>    -X on the head node
>>    -Maya
>>    -cmucl
>>    -All the standard ROCKS stuff that is now on fly. This means that
>>the new combined cluster will look very very much indeed like fly does
>>currently. Nearly identical, in fact, except for the addition of gcc 4.0
>>, license servers, and the head node will be faster and RAIDed. We're
>>working on a backup scheme for the homedirs, and until then, I would
>>continue to use the FireWire drive that is currently being used for backup.
>>
>>    I will take everything that people have on both their hex and their
>>fly homedirs and put them into the new cluster, if necessary. It would
>>be nice if people would clean up what isn't needed before then.
>>
>>    Also, please tell me when you next plan to use the cluster and for
>>what, so that I can plan what should be up and working and how at that
>>point.
>>
>>    Thanks - send any comments, concerns, or "what the hell do you think
>>you're doing"'s my way.
>>
>>    -Josiah
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