Recovery Roll

The ROCKS server can automatically build a recovery roll that allows the server's configuration to be reproduced on a new ROCKS server install. This has utility for disaster recovery and hardware or ROCKS versions upgrades. This is a log of running through this procedure.

References

• http://www.rocksclusters.org/rocks-documentation/4.3/upgrade-frontend.html

Make Roll

Just follow the instructions:

# cd /export/site-roll/rocks/src/roll/restore
# make roll

Then burn to CD.

You can also add files to the roll by modifying the make scripts. I added the ssh host keys. They were properly installed on the rebuilt host (correct permissions). (See official docs for locations of these make scripts.)

You can also add post-install scripts.

Recovery

Include the Recovery Roll as a local roll in the ROCKS frontend install process.

The installer dialog allows you to change the frontend's network configuration. It tested that changing the hostname and public IP worked.

After the frontend was reinstalled, it would talk to a running compute node. When the compute node was restarted though, a reinstall was forced.

-- TomRockwell - 02 Nov 2007