[Gluster-users] Netboot / PXE-Boot from glusterfs?

[Daniel Maher]

On 06/17/2010 12:00 PM, Jan wrote:

> I could easily setup netboot the traditional way using NFS, but I would
> not have any failover/ha for that. As I understand, NFS on the gluster
> storage platform (gsp) does not provide failover in case the first
> server crashes. Failover-functionality for some data being on glusterfs
> won't help when the root directory is "gone".

> It is a kind of stupid to have a separate nfs-server just for serving a
> total of 1gb of files for some diskless servers to be able too boot
> (actually, it would have to be 2 servers again, with failover etc..
> doesn't make sense that all diskless servers hang/crash when the nfs
> server crashes...). and I only need very few iscsi-luns with a total of
> 10-15gb, not doing much io.

I think you might be confusing the concept of network booting with the 
concept of a networked file system.  The fact that a given machine can 
use a network card to download a boot image is one thing, and the fact 
that an operating system can share data over a network via a 
POSIX-compatible mechanism is entirely another.

> for NFS-netboot, I think there should be a way to use glusterfs instead.
> It's almost the same from the client point of view, the only problem ist
> the FUSE-client.

Hypothetically yes - as i mentioned in my previous email, in theory 
there's nothing stopping you from integrating Gluster (and the necessary 
support tools / libraries) into your boot image.


-- 
Daniel Maher <dma+gluster AT witbe DOT net>