Hi Bernard, On 15/08/09 07:34, Bernard Li wrote: > Hi Àlex: > > This looks interesting. > > Have you done any performance comparisons between SystemImager+LTSP vs > standard SystemImager (like time it takes to image node and potential > load on NFS server when imaging multiple systems). > >
No, I haven't. I only tested imaging one node with the only purpose of making it work, so I didn't pay attention to the performance aspect. Anyway, I don't remember noticing a significant difference, neither I expected getting any. When I started this I already thought about its possible performance bottlenecks. The only case I thought could give problems was when multiple nodes start imaging at the same time. Not in the imaging process in itself but in the booting phase, as this is the moment, I think, the I/O load could be heavy enough to give any problem. Anyway, if I find some time, I'll try to run some tests and report back the results. > SystemImager has been traditionally used to deploy images to a large > number of systems at the same time, so performance and scalability is > quite an important metric for the software. > There surely will be some point in which the NFS server gives some problem. The thing is whether it'll cause the node to fail booting or simply boot slower. Possible solutions could be NFS v4 or use NBD instead of NFS, as Ubuntu does. Cheers, Àlex > Cheers, > > Bernard > > On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 1:50 AM, Àlex Magaz Graça<[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Some months ago I was working on integrating SystemImager into LTSP. The >> idea was to run the installation scripts from an LTSP environment instead of >> running them from a custom initrd. >> >> Why do this? Well, right now, if you want to modify some of this scripts, >> you have to regenerate the initrd and put it into the right place. As you >> usually make mistakes you have to repeat the process several times, which is >> a bit tedious. Things become worse when you need to regenerate the BOEL >> binaries tar ball, for example to update some of its utilities. It also a >> pain when something fails in the middle of an installation and you have to >> find out what happened from a so limited busy box environment. >> >> So, what do we get from this? With LTSP we get a chroot of a standard >> distribution mounted through NFS, which means we can modify any file and >> install/upgrade any package in a really easy way. This makes it easier to >> test new functionality and debug problems. >> >> With the attached patch I've succeeded doing installations with both rsync >> and BitTorrent, but there's still a lot of work do. I've not tested >> multicast and SSH installations, support for all installation parameters is >> incomplete and some other things don't work as they should. >> >> As I don't think I'll be able to work on this anymore, I drop it here in the >> hope someone finds it useful. Apart from the patch, I've also attached the >> instructions on how to integrate the SystemImager scripts into the LTSP >> chroot. >> >> Cheers, >> Àlex >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ sisuite-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sisuite-users
