scyld / SCSI

[Donald Becker]

On Mon, 21 May 2001 Jim.Morton at aventis.com wrote:

> I am interested in installing Scyld Beowulf on a cluster including VALinux
> 501 computers with SCSI drives.
> It seems that the bootable kernel on the CD does not support the SCSI
> controller on ther 501 mobo,  has
> anyone worked through the patches/hacks to make this work?

The slave node boot does not need to support SCSI (or even IDE) drives.
It only exists to contact the master over the network and download the
desired cluster kernel.

Once the proper kernel is downloaded, the master node may optionally
provide additional driver modules to support e.g. new filesystems or
SCSI adapters.  Thus only the master's needs a copy of the driver modules,
even if you store the boot kernel on the slave node's disk or flash.

> It seems to me that I should be able to compile a kernel with the
> appropriate SCSI support and burn a new CD with the new kernel in
> place of the old one, but otherwise basically the same as the Scyld
> distribution CD.

It's easier than that.  You should be able to build the new SCSI driver
without updating the kernel.  You then have the master load the correct
driver onto the slave nodes.  If you need a new or updated driver, just
add it to the module directory on the master.  If it's a new module, the
beosetup program lets you update the PCI to driver name table.


Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993