If you are as impatient as me you will want to start right away, and read the following sections only when you get stuck. This section describes how to get it all working quickly. More details can be found in following sections.
Unpack and assemble all computers (nodes), switches, and all other hardware. You might have to configure BIOS on all of the nodes. If you only have one video card and one keyboard, you'll have to pull each node apart, connect the video card and keyboard, power the node up, and configure the BIOS. The most common settings which need to be configured are IDE hard disks and halt on keyboard and video errors. If your nodes do not have keyboards or video cards, they must not halt when these are not detected by the BIOS. Connect power to all nodes, and Ethernet cables between the nodes and the switch.
Install Red Hat Linux 5.2 on the server node. Please see section
Installing Red Hat Linux. Make
sure you leave enough space on the root partition for all the client
node NFS-root file systems (up to half a MB per client). Also
remember that all of the client nodes will write their logs to
server's syslogd log server, hence /var/log on the server will require
require additional disk space to store client logs as well as its own.
/var, /lib, /bin, /sbin, and
/etc must NOT be a separate mounts for disk-less client
configuration, that is must be installed on the same partition. If
you install any of the above on seperate partition, the
setup_template script used to create NFS-root file system
template, will not be able to make appropriate hard links. Make sure
all network devices and file systems are supported. You will need
RARP (CONFIG_INET_RARP) support for answering RARP requests.
You might have to recompile your kernel.
Run the setup_template [section
setup_template] script on the server to create a template
directory (normally /tftpboot/Template). This template will
be used for the clients' / file systems. You might have to
make few minor modifications to the template (after it is created) to
tailor it to your needs. You might even consider altering the script,
so you can reproduce the changes easily.
Compile a NFS-root boot floppy for the clients. The easiest way is to
make a monolithic kernel for your clients, making sure NFS, and
NFS-root file systems are compiled in (future versions of this HOWTO
might describe how to use modular kernels for net-booting). The
following options must be set to 'y' : CONFIG_ROOT_NFS,
CONFIG_RNFS_BOOTP, CONFIG_RNFS_RARP
While listening to the network (using tcpdump rarp -i eth1 if
eth1 is the interface connected to the cluster ) boot each client and
note its MAC address. Run the adcn script to add the new
node to the cluster. Reboot the node.