User Guide for podsys-lite

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if you just want to install base os, you can download the lite version.

1. Manager Node Environment Requirements

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Select one machine as the Manager Node and the rest as Compute Nodes.
All PODsys deployment operations are performed on the Manager Node.

• Create a new user: nexus.

sudo adduser nexus
sudo usermod -aG sudo nexus
sudo -su nexus

• Install and configure Docker Environment
• An Ethernet port capable of connecting to compute nodes.
• Download the podsys software package

Go to Download page to download the podsys-lite.tgz. Verify the md5sum:

echo "24ab72f3f087f73eb9971f11f4f0c30c  podsys-lite.tgz" | md5sum  --check
sudo tar -xzvf podsys-lite.tgz -C /home/nexus/
cd podsys-lite/

2. Deploy Compute Nodes

The installation steps for the compute node are to be executed on the Manager Node.

2.1 Modifying iplist.txt

sudo vim workspace/iplist.txt

Example of "iplist.txt":

Serial Number	Hostname	IP address	Gateway	DNS
24X01	node01	192.168.0.1/24	192.168.0.1	8.8.8.8
24X02	node02	192.168.0.2/24	none	none

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Firstly, you can prepare your data in a consistent format within an Excel spreadsheet, then directly copy it into a blank iplist.txt file opened with Vim.

cat -A iplist.txt

The correct output should resemble:

24X01^Inode01^I192.168.0.1/24^Inone^Inone$  
24X02^Inode02^I192.168.0.2/24^Inone^Inone$

Here, ^I represents a tab character used to separate different fields within each line, and $ denotes the end of a line.

DANGER

Don't forget the subnet mask when dealing with IPs.

2.2 Modifying config.yaml

sudo vim workspace/config.yaml

Contents that needs to be modified:

manager_ip: 192.168.2.11
dhcp_s: 192.168.2.201
dhcp_e: 192.168.2.220
manager_nic: enp61s0f1
nexus_passwd: 123
PermitRootLogin: yes
iso: ubuntu-22.04.5-live-server-amd64.iso
compute_storage: sda

• manager_ip: The IP address of the Manager Node.
• manager_nic: The NIC identifier of the Manager Node.
• dhcp_s & dhcp_e: During network installation, the range of IP addresses allocated for compute nodes.

WARNING

The number of IP addresses required is at least three times the number of compute nodes.

Example

1. Manager Node IP: 192.168.0.1/16.
2. Compute nodes (200 units) are set in the iplist.txt as 192.168.0.2/16 to 192.168.0.201/16.
3. You can set dhcp_s to 192.168.1.1 and dhcp_e to 192.168.3.254.
4. This ensures that the DHCP range does not conflict with the static IPs in iplist.txt, maintains connectivity for all nodes including the Manager Node, and provides a sufficient number of IP addresses.

• nexus_passwd: The user nexus password for the compute nodes.
• PermitRootLogin: yes or no

WARNING

PermitRootLogin: This option is not applicable during Ubuntu installation.

• iso: The ISO file used for installation.

supported iso

ubuntu-24.10-live-server-amd64.iso
ubuntu-24.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso
ubuntu-22.04.5-live-server-amd64.iso
ubuntu-22.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso
ubuntu-20.04.6-live-server-amd64.iso
etc.

• compute_storage: The installation location of the compute node system(e.g., sda, sdb, nvme0n1). you also can use MIN_SATA MAX_SATA MIN_NVMEor MAX_NVME .

• compute_storage(Beta):As of now, RAID1 with exactly two disks is supported. To enable RAID1, use the following YAML block format in your config.yaml:

...
iso: ubuntu-22.04.5-live-server-amd64.iso
compute_storage:
  type: raid1
  devices: [sda, sdb]

Requirements: Exactly two disks listed in devices Both disks must be present, unmounted, and of sufficient size Supported disk names: sda, sdb, nvme0n1, etc.

WARNING

This will overwrite the original data on the Disk.

2.3 Download iso

• download the iso file and move it to the workspace directory.

mv ubuntu-22.04.5-live-server-amd64.iso podsys-lite/workspace

2.4 Running install_compute.sh

WARNING

Running the following script will start some services based on the previously filled configuration information. If you have modified config.yaml and iplist.txt, you need to exit the script and re-run it.

sudo ./install_compute.sh

Then you will access an interactive command-line interface within a running Docker:

like this

*
 Welcome to the podsys-lite
  ____     ___    ____    ____   __   __  ____
 |  _ \   / _ \  |  _ \  / ___|  \ \ / / / ___|
 | |_) | | | | | | | | | \___ \   \ V /  \___ \
 |  __/  | |_| | | |_| |  ___) |   | |    ___) |
 |_|      \___/  |____/  |____/    |_|   |____/ (lite)

dhcp-config : /etc/dnsmasq.conf
user-data   : /user-data/user-data

 * Starting DNS forwarder and DHCP server dnsmasq       [ OK ]

Running Monitor on following URLs:
 * http://192.168.2.102:5000

root@podsys:/ $

Preparation is complete, and the compute node awaiting system installation is now powered on.

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• Start the compute nodes without an installed operating system to initiate automatic installation.
• If the compute nodes already have an operating system, they need to be placed in PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) mode.

2.5 Monitor the installation progress

You can check the installation progress by accessing http://manager_ip:5000.

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• A ✓ for each item indicates that the detection is normal, while a ✗ signifies that the hardware component is missing.
• When a specific log name appears in the logs, you can click to view the log details.
• An exclamation mark (!) in the disk column suggests that the disk specified in the config.yaml file does not exist on the node.

After the installation is complete, the compute nodes will reboot automatically.
Type "exit" on command-line interface to finish the installation of the compute node.