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David Isaac Wolinsky

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Dec 9, 2009, 12:39:03 AM12/9/09
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I'm working on the next generation of Grid Appliances that allow users
to easily create their own appliance using apt based systems. My
progress can be found at
http://www.grid-appliance.org/wiki/index.php/TestingGridAppliance

So now users can easily do apt-get install grid-appliance-public-pool
and get connected to the public Grid Appliance pool!

During my efforts, I've found that EC2 allows users to insert data into
the VM via the command line or web interface. As such, it is now
possible to have a generic grid appliance that can be configured at run
time, i.e., like floppy used by the current generation of Grid Appliances.

Right now I'm working on getting cow working again, but its tricky as it
appears that as of 9.10 (or maybe earlier) Ubuntu now uses upstart
instead of system-v to boot the system. That means that cow needs to be
started in /etc/init rather than /etc/rcS.d. The non-trivial part is
that upstart doesn't provide the same level of control to order scripts
as system-v. As I wrapped up earlier, it appears that I do have a
working cow FS using unionfs-fuse. Using unionfs-fuse over aufs or
other kernel based solutions should ensure the viability of the cow
across multiple versions of ubuntu.

upstart is a relational and multiprocess init system that is supposed to
be significantly faster than system-v, which is a sequential, in-order
init system.

Regards,
David

Arjun Prakash

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Dec 23, 2009, 4:29:59 PM12/23/09
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Hi David,
I am working on creating a package which installs MPI on grid appliance. I followed the steps mentioned to install a base grid appliance. After installing grid-appliance-public-pool, the dns settings of the grid-appliance got changed. /etc/resolv.conf looked like this: 
root@ubuntu:~# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 5.0.0.1
search ipop
I waited for around 10-15 minutes and even tried restarting /etc/init.d/grid_appliance.sh, but it did not help. But by restarting the VM, name resolution started working again. Now /etc/resolv.conf looked like:
root@C021116098:/opt/grid_appliance/scripts# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 5.0.0.1
nameserver 172.16.243.2
nameserver 192.168.146.1
search ipop localdomain
My VM has two network adapters, one is host-only and the other is NAT. 

Is the VM restart required or should I do anything else to get the dns name resolution working after installing the public-pool package?

Another problem I am facing is with the floppy. I used the empty floppy provided in the website. The VM was created using VMware player 3 and I configured the floppy to connect at start. But each time I start the machine, it complains that its not a bootable disk and I have to disconnect it. This causes th grid-appliance start script to mount the floppy internally (loop0). Do you know a work around to this problem?



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Arjun Prakash

David Isaac Wolinsky

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Dec 23, 2009, 4:42:22 PM12/23/09
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The Grid Appliance you're mentioning is still in heavy development!  So it looks like you've found a few issues for me, so let's see if we can't help each other out.  Comments inlined.


On 12/23/2009 04:29 PM, Arjun Prakash wrote:
Hi David,
I am working on creating a package which installs MPI on grid appliance. I followed the steps mentioned to install a base grid appliance. After installing grid-appliance-public-pool, the dns settings of the grid-appliance got changed. /etc/resolv.conf looked like this: 
root@ubuntu:~# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 5.0.0.1
search ipop
I waited for around 10-15 minutes and even tried restarting /etc/init.d/grid_appliance.sh, but it did not help. But by restarting the VM, name resolution started working again. Now /etc/resolv.conf looked like:
root@C021116098:/opt/grid_appliance/scripts# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 5.0.0.1
nameserver 172.16.243.2
nameserver 192.168.146.1
search ipop localdomain
My VM has two network adapters, one is host-only and the other is NAT. 

Is the VM restart required or should I do anything else to get the dns name resolution working after installing the public-pool package?
When did you last create the appliance.  I think I resolved this in later code, though because I haven't formally announced anything, I haven't been updating version numbers.  The reality, for IPOP, is that eventually it  will need to support recursive lookups if there are no other dns servers listed in resolv.conf or if there is a broken resolv library.  I've experienced both and you're experiencing the former, which seems to be a bug in Ubuntu 9.10.  I suspect they are still smoothing things out with upstart.  Anyway, this issue should have been resolved in newer grid appliances.  Though in general, it doesn't hurt to reboot after installing all packages.


Another problem I am facing is with the floppy. I used the empty floppy provided in the website. The VM was created using VMware player 3 and I configured the floppy to connect at start. But each time I start the machine, it complains that its not a bootable disk and I have to disconnect it. This causes th grid-appliance start script to mount the floppy internally (loop0). Do you know a work around to this problem?

Examine the bios and see if there is an option to specify the device or order used to boot, make sure the hard drive is ahead of the floppy.  We will no longer be booting from floppy devices, they will simply be used for configuration.

Let me know what you find.

Regards,
David

Arjun Prakash

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Dec 23, 2009, 5:19:49 PM12/23/09
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Thanks David.

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 4:42 PM, David Isaac Wolinsky <dav...@ufl.edu> wrote:
The Grid Appliance you're mentioning is still in heavy development!  So it looks like you've found a few issues for me, so let's see if we can't help each other out.  Comments inlined.


On 12/23/2009 04:29 PM, Arjun Prakash wrote:
Hi David,
I am working on creating a package which installs MPI on grid appliance. I followed the steps mentioned to install a base grid appliance. After installing grid-appliance-public-pool, the dns settings of the grid-appliance got changed. /etc/resolv.conf looked like this: 
root@ubuntu:~# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 5.0.0.1
search ipop
I waited for around 10-15 minutes and even tried restarting /etc/init.d/grid_appliance.sh, but it did not help. But by restarting the VM, name resolution started working again. Now /etc/resolv.conf looked like:
root@C021116098:/opt/grid_appliance/scripts# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 5.0.0.1
nameserver 172.16.243.2
nameserver 192.168.146.1
search ipop localdomain
My VM has two network adapters, one is host-only and the other is NAT. 

Is the VM restart required or should I do anything else to get the dns name resolution working after installing the public-pool package?
When did you last create the appliance.  I think I resolved this in later code, though because I haven't formally announced anything, I haven't been updating version numbers.  The reality, for IPOP, is that eventually it  will need to support recursive lookups if there are no other dns servers listed in resolv.conf or if there is a broken resolv library.  I've experienced both and you're experiencing the former, which seems to be a bug in Ubuntu 9.10.  I suspect they are still smoothing things out with upstart.  Anyway, this issue should have been resolved in newer grid appliances.  Though in general, it doesn't hurt to reboot after installing all packages.
  I installed it yesterday.


Another problem I am facing is with the floppy. I used the empty floppy provided in the website. The VM was created using VMware player 3 and I configured the floppy to connect at start. But each time I start the machine, it complains that its not a bootable disk and I have to disconnect it. This causes th grid-appliance start script to mount the floppy internally (loop0). Do you know a work around to this problem?

Examine the bios and see if there is an option to specify the device or order used to boot, make sure the hard drive is ahead of the floppy.  We will no longer be booting from floppy devices, they will simply be used for configuration.
thanks.   Its working fine now.

Let me know what you find.

Regards,
David

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Regards
Arjun Prakash
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