neal
On Thu, 15 Oct 1998, Eric Hoffman wrote:
>
> ...thinking about how to Stefan's model of node management where the
> basic management interface is to dump a new disk image and reboot
>
> for a while I had been thinking that we could use an intelligent
> network card as some kind of node-controller. It could listen
> for authenticated messages at either IP or ethernet level, and
> would be able to:
>
> reset the host machine
> address the pci ide controller when the host machine was stalled
> for purposes of dumping a new image
> encapsulate and relay messages on the host serial port (for those
> environments that use it) to network clients
>
> in general this might not work because of two problems:
>
> slave cards can't generally drive the host reset line (I also don't
> know if PCI reset is actually interpreted as a system reset, or is
> just local to the bus)
>
> it wont be simple to insure that the host is quiescent while writing
> to the disk
>
> intel has an ethernet board for $200-$300 with a i960, but mef isn't
> sure we can get programming specs. we can buy a $1000 board from
> cyclone which does, but thats quite a bit to spend per node on control
> functions
>
> the other technology which is have at our disposal is bootable
> cds. this is basically the same story as boot floppies, but far less
> space constrained and far more reliable
>
> if we put a full operating system on the cd for purposes of upgrading
> the drive boot image, its not clear how easy it will be to boot again
> into the target operating system. unfortunately, dos would probably be
> the best for this since pc os's need information from the bios during
> boot, and linux and freebsd generally use this information and dispose
> of it
>
> the bootable cd seems the most likely course, but it leaves us with
> the requirement for a 'control host' in every rack. the cd-os would
> check with this controller as to what the right action was on each
> boot, load any new partitions, and boot into any of the existing ones.
> the controller would contain power and serial control similar to that
> used in the loom rack
>
> the per-node intelligent ethernet card could (possibly) be engineered
> to be directly managed by any authenticated node on the internet, and
> thus spare the added administration overhead of dealing with the
> control host
>
> any other thoughts?
>