Global Open Versity ICT Labs Step-by-Step Install Guide Oscar Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5 v1.

Global Open Versity

Systems Integration Hands-on Labs Training Manual

Step-by-Step Install Guide OSCAR Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5

Kefa Rabah
Global Open Versity, Vancouver Canada
krabah@globalopenversity.org
www.globalopenversity.org

Table of Contents Page No.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTALL GUIDE OSCAR CLUSTER 5.1 ON LINUX RHEL5 2

Introduction 2
1. Terminology 2
2. Main Software Requirements 2
3. Additional Pre-Installation Software Requirements 3
4. Hardware Requirements 3
5. Other Requirements 4

Part 1: Hands-on Labs Session 4

Step 1: Network Diagram Configuration 5

Part 2: Connecting the Hardware to Make the OSCAR Cluster 6

Step 1: Option 1 - Installing on Physical RHEL5 Servers 6
Step 1: Option 2 - Installing on Physical RHEL5 Servers 6

Part 3: Installing RHEL5 on the Head Node (Virtual Machine 1) 6

Step 1: Installation RHEL5 6
Step 2: Setting up the RPMs directories & other requirements 6
Step 3: Additional Packages Installation & Other Preparations 8
Step 4: Install MySQL Server, Apache (httpd) Server and PHP 9

Part 4: Installing OSCAR 5.1rc1 on the Head Node 9

Part 6: Trouble Shooting Issues: 23

Part 7: Training & Technology Transfer 24

Part 8: Hands-on Lab Assignments 24

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Global Open Versity ICT Labs Step-by-Step Install Guide Oscar Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5 v1.1

Global Open Versity

Systems Integration Hands-on Labs Training Manual

Step-by-Step Install Guide OSCAR Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5

By Kefa Rabah, krabah@globalopenversity.org Feb 24, 2010 GTS Institute

Introduction
Oscar - If your organization needs or desires high-performance super-computing power at a very
affordable price, OSCAR (Open Source Cluster Application Resource) software offers the ideal solution.
OSCAR software enables virtually any person with minimal computer skills to transform several standard
computers into a virtual super-computer.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a Linux distribution produced by Red Hat and targeted toward the
commercial market, including mainframes. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86,
x86_64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86_64. All of Red Hat's
official support and training, and the Red Hat Certification Program center on the Red Hat Enterprise
Linux platform

On one certified platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers your choice of: (i) Applications - Thousands of
certified ISV applications; (ii) Deployment - Including standalone or virtual servers, cloud computing, or
software appliances; (iii) Hardware - Wide range of platforms from the world's leading hardware vendors.
This gives IT departments’ unprecedented levels of operational flexibility. And it gives ISVs unprecedented
market reach when delivering applications. Certify once, deploy anywhere. All while providing world-class
performance, security, and stability. And unbeatable value. This is why today Red Hat is the platform of
choice.

In order to begin creating an OSCAR cluster, several software and hardware items are required. We’ll also
need to learn some terminologies before we kick-off with our lab session.

1. Terminology

• Cluster - a group of individual computers bundled together using hardware and software in order
to make them work as a single machine.
• Node - each individual machine of a cluster.

• Server (Head) node is responsible for servicing the requests of client nodes.
• Client (Child, Slave) node is dedicated to computation.

2. Main Software Requirements

1. Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5) server must be installed on your head node (explained
below) and client nodes. Although OSCAR supports several different versions of Red Hat and

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Global Open Versity ICT Labs Step-by-Step Install Guide Oscar Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5 v1.1

Mandrake, and other Linux distros, however, these instructions are only valid for clusters using
RHEL5 as their underlying operating systems. Before installing RHEL5, please read very carefully the
included step-by-step Linux Installation Guide for OSCAR.

2. If you do not have already RHEL5, you can purchase and download one for subscription fee at
www.redhat.com. We assume that you’ll have your copy on a single DVD.

3. At the time of writing the Hands-on Lab session, we downloaded OSCAR Version 5.1rc1. This
software can be downloaded for free at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/oscar/ (Although other
versions of OSCAR exist, these instructions are specifically designed for OSCAR version 5.1rc1.).
The three required Oscar files are:

• oscar-base-5.1rc1.tar.gz
• oscar-repo-common-rpms-5.1rc1.tar.gz
• oscar-repo-rhel-5-i386-5.1rc1.tar.gz

4. You’re done with this section.

3. Additional Pre-Installation Software Requirements

i) Network Booting using PXE - Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) network boot option is to
be used in the Oscar client’s BIOS. Hope over and download "pxe-0.1-20.i386.rpm" from
FileWatcher site:
http://www.filewatcher.com/m/pxe-0.1-20.i386.rpm.92558.0.0.html
For more info on PXE software checkout: http://etherboot.org/wiki/index.php.

ii) Tk-GUI Interface – Hope over at CPAN and download the Tk-804.028_502.tar.gz at the time of
writing from: http://search.cpan.org/~srezic/Tk-804.028_502/

Extract and enter dir "Tk-804.028_502", and issue the following commands to install it:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

Note: Be warned. When running "make test" you will see hundreds of dialog boxes and
pictures opening all over the place and closing. Enjoy the fireworks

4. Hardware Requirements

i) Computers (Nodes)
Although technically you only need one computer in your OSCAR cluster, it makes little sense to have a
cluster of one. Therefore, at a minimum, you should have two computers with one computer acting as the
head node and one as the client. Of course, you can have many more nodes than two. The following are
the system requirements for the head and client nodes.

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Global Open Versity ICT Labs Step-by-Step Install Guide Oscar Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5 v1.1

Head Node:
• CPU of i586 or above
• A network interface card that supports a TCP/IP stack
o **If your OSCAR head node is going to be the router between a public network and
the cluster nodes, you will need a second network interface card, see Fig. 1.
• At least 4GB total free space – 2GB under / and 2GB under /var (although 10+ GB is really
preferable because you will need about 2GB for installing the X Window System, GNOME,
and KDE).
• A Floppy Drive, CD/DVD Drive, or .ISO software.

Client nodes:
• CPU of i586 or above
• A disk on each client node, at least 2GB in size (OSCAR will format the disks during the
installation)
• A network interface card that supports a TCP/IP stack
• All clients must have the same architecture (e.g., ia32 vs. ia64)
• Monitors and keyboards may be helpful, but are not required
• Floppy or PXE enable BIOS
• A Floppy Drive, CD/DVD Drive, or .ISO software.

ii) An Ethernet switch – any brand of switch should suffice. However, make sure that each node
(including the head node) has its own port on the switch. In other words, if you have one head node and 8
client nodes, you need at a minimum a 9-port switch. The switch is necessary for communication
between the nodes.

iii) Ethernet Cables – you need a separate Ethernet cable for each node to connect to the switch.

If you have obtained all necessary hardware and software, you are now ready to begin building your
OSCAR cluster.

5. Other Requirements
If you plan on remotely accessing your OSCAR cluster through telnet or SSH, you need a static IP
address. If you do not have a static IP, it doesn’t make any sense to have remote access to your OSCAR
cluster. If you do not have a static IP, your OSCAR cluster will strictly have a private network and your
head node will only require a single Ethernet card.

Part 1: Hands-on Labs Session

In this Hands-on Lab session, you’ll learn how to setup virtual network on VMware (you may also use any
other virtual machines like MS VirtualPC, Linux Xen, or VirtualBox from Sun). Next you will learn how to
initialize a VMware virtual machine with two NIC adapters, which we’ll use to install & configure Oscar
cluster server. You’ll also learn how to install & configure two virtual machines holding the two Oscar client
nodes for testing your Oscar cluster network connectivity functionality. Finally you’ll have an opportunity to
do the Hands-on Labs assignments to test what you have learned in this lesson. Once you’re done with

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Global Open Versity ICT Labs Step-by-Step Install Guide Oscar Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5 v1.1

this labs session you should have gained an experience and capability to enable you to plan design
implement and deploy Oscar server cluster network infrastructure.

Step 1: Network Diagram Configuration

It’s assumed that you have a good understanding of Linux operating system and its working environment.
It’s also assumed that you know how to install Linux Red Hat Enterprise 5 Server on VMware Workstation
6.5.

Figure 1 shows our network setup for pilot lab test session of our Oscar cluster system, which we have
configured using VMware with two NIC adapters attached to Oscar Server (Virtual Machine 1) head node.
The eth0 is attached to the public side of the network and is receiving its IP address from the Internet
DHCP server via the VMnet0. The eth1 is configured with static IP address and is also the NIC that is
attached to DHCP server which feed the dynamic IP address to the devices located within the private LAN
(Oscar node clients) via the VMnet2 virtual switch, connects the Oscar clients (Oscarnodes), see Fig. 1.

© 2007 Global Open Versity,

Vancouver Canada Internet
www.globalopenversity.org Modem

Virtual network switch

VMnet0
Private Network
Oscar Virtual Clients
192.168.0.0/24
Virtual NIC Virtual NIC

eth1 eth0

Virtual Machine 1
Virtual network switch Oscar Server
oscarnode1 oscarnode2 oscarnoden VMnet2

Note: eth0 = Internet DHCP

eth1 = 192.168.0.1

Fig. 1: Schematic Oscar cluster network infrastructure

Note: once you’re done with pilot testing and all is working great then you can migrate your setup
to your production environment.

Assumptions:
1. It’s assumed that you have a good understanding of Linux operating system and its working
environment. It’s also assumed that you know how to install and configure Linux RHEL5, if not go

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Global Open Versity ICT Labs Step-by-Step Install Guide Oscar Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5 v1.1

ahead and pop over to scribd.com and check out a good HowTo entitled “Install Guide Red Hat Linux
Enterprise Server v1.0” to get you started.

2. It’s also assumed that you have a good understanding of MySQL database and Apache (httpd)
server.

Part 2: Connecting the Hardware to Make the OSCAR Cluster

Step 1: Option 1 - Installing on Physical RHEL5 Servers

1. First, if you’re installing physical servers, then you must ensure that each node must have its own
Ethernet card and cable. Connect one end of the cable to the RJ-45 jack in each computer. The
other end of the cable must be plugged into a separate port in the switch. Replace Fig. 1 with a
physical network infrastructure.

2. It doesn’t matter which node’s cable is plugged into which port, as long as each node’s cable is
plugged into the switch.

3. Turn on the switch’s power button, and you have completed your setup.

Step 1: Option 2 - Installing on Virtual RHEL5 Servers

Please note that in our case we’re installing our Oscar cluster system on VMware machine. Therefore, this
is the option that this lab session is based on, see Fig. 1.

Part 3: Installing RHEL5 on the Head Node (Virtual Machine 1)

Step 1: Installation RHEL5 Server

1. It’s assumed that you have a good understanding of Linux operating system and its working
environment. It’s also assumed that you know how to install and configure Linux CentOS5, if not go
ahead and pop over to scribd.com and check out a good HowTo entitled “Install Guide Red Hat Linux
Enterprise Server v1.0” to get you started. This is the same Guide that I have used to install the Oscar
Cluster.

Step 2: Setting up the RPMs directories & other requirements

1. Mount RPM Packages

1. Login as the root user. Open a new Terminal window. Change to the root "/" directory. You can do
this by typing "cd /".
2. Create a directory called "tftpboot" in the root directory. Type in:

# mkdir –p /tftpboot

Then create a subdirectory called "rpm" within the "tftpboot" directory by typing:
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Global Open Versity ICT Labs Step-by-Step Install Guide Oscar Cluster 5.1 on Linux RHEL5 v1.1

# mkdir –p /tftpboot/rpm

3. Install the Linux RHEL5 DVD or disk 1 into the CD/DVD drive. Type at the command prompt:

# cd /mnt/cdrom

4. Now copy all files in RPMS to "/tftpboot/rpm" directory by typing:

# cp –Rv /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS /tftpboot/rpm

This will take a while. (Note: You can also perform this step using the Graphical User Interface and
simply click, point and drop.). If you’re using CDs; then remove Linux RHEL5 disk 1, and insert disk 2
repeat the same operation, and etc.

Note: sometimes when you remove a CD, you must unmount that CD before inserting a new CD.
You can do this by typing "cd /mnt" and then typing "umount cdrom". Then insert the new CD,
type "cd /mnt" and then "mount cdrom". This should fix most problems.)

5. Next, we need to create a subdirectory called "distro/redhat-el-server-5-i386" within the

"tftpboot" directory by typing:

# mkdir –p /tftpboot/distro/redhat-el-server-5-i386

Note: Now copy all the RPMs files from the distro’s CD/DVD into the "distro/redhat-el-
server-5-i386" directory

4. Follow the link below to access the full document.

The full document has moved to Docstoc.com. You can access and download it
from here:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/31460875/?key=NWM5Y2Y1ZGUt&pass=OWE2Yy00MjA5

-----------------------------------------------
Kefa Rabah is the Founder and CIO, of Global Technology Solutions Institute. Kefa is highly
knowledgeable in the fields of Science & Technology, IT Security Compliance and Project
Management, and Renewable Energy Systems. He is also the founder of Global Open Versity, a
Center of Excellence in eLearning.
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April 2007, Kefa Rabah, Global Open Versity, Vancouver Canada

www.globalopenversity.org ICT202 - Linux Enterprise Infrastructure Engineering Diploma