5.6. Mirroring the Rocks and Red Hat Distributions

5.6.1. Mirroring the Rocks Cluster Distribution

After the frontend is installed, only a portition of the entire Rocks cluster distribution is installed on the frontend (in fact, only the portion that could fit on the first CD is present).

To obtain the entire Rocks cluster distribution, execute:

# cd /home/install
# rocks-dist mirror

This puts the entire Rocks distribution under the directory /home/install/ftp.rocksclusters.org

To recompile the distribution, that is, to incorporate all the packages from the updated mirror, execute:

# cd /home/install
# rocks-dist dist

This binds all the packages from ftp.rocksclusters.org into a new Red Hat compliant distribution under /home/install/rocks-dist

5.6.2. Incorporating Multiple Red Hat Mirrors

The following is a procedure on how to mirror an official Red Hat mirror (e.g., in order to incorporate the latest Red Hat packages as they are made available).

First, select a mirror host (we mirror from andromeda.acs.uci.edu).

Then find the root of the mirror. This the directory that has the directory names 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, etc.. Again, using our example, on andromeda.acs.uci.edu. this is mirrors/redhat/linux.

To pass the above info to rocks-dist, create the file /home/install/rocks-distrc and place the following in it:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>

<rocks-dist>
        <host name="updates" value="andromeda.acs.uci.edu"/>
        <path name="updates" value="mirrors/redhat/linux"/>
</rocks-dist>

Now you can download RPMs from the specified mirror site by executing:

# cd /home/install
# rocks-dist mirror

Now build a new distribution that merges the Rocks mirror (ftp.rockscluster.org) and your selected Red Hat mirror:

# rocks-dist dist

This compiles a new distribution under the directory /home/install/rocks-dist.

Now reinstall your compute nodes.