Automatic Installation Overview

You can use the sge-root/inst_sge utility to install and uninstall N1 Grid Engine master hosts, execution hosts, shadow host, and Berkeley DB spooling server hosts. You can also use this utility to backup automatically the N1 Grid Engine configuration and accounting data. You can use the inst_sge utility in interactive mode to supplant any of the commands that were described in Chapter 2, Installing the N1 Grid Engine Software Interactively.

The use of a Berkeley DB Spooling Server host does not provide high availability. In addition, the Berkeley DB Spooling Server has no authentication mechanism, and should only be used on a closed network with fully trusted users.

To simplify automatic installation and backup processes, use the configuration templates that are located in the sge-root/util/install_modules directory.

The automatic installation requires no user interaction. No messages are displayed on the terminal during the installation. When the installation finishes, a message indicates where the installation log file resides. The name of the installation log file is of the form install_hostname_timestamp.log. Normally, you can find information about errors during installation in this file. In case of serious errors, the installation script might not be able to move the log file into the spool directory. In this situation, the log file is placed in the /tmp directory.

Special Considerations

The first step in performing an automatic installation is to set up a configuration file. You can find configuration file templates in the sge-rootT/util/install_modules directory. Consider the following as you plan your automatic installation:

• To use automatic installation on remote hosts, the root user must be able to access those hosts through rsh or ssh without supplying a password.

• For local spooling, that is, spooling on the master host, no special configuration is needed. However, the directory where the spooling occurs must not be on an NFS version 3 volume. You may use an NFS version 4 volume for local spooling.

• To run the Berkeley DB spooling server on a host other than the master host, you must install and configure RPC services on this separate host.

  To perform this step manually before you start the automatic installation, use the following command:

  ./inst_sge -db

  You can also use the following command to install automatically the Berkeley DB Spooling Server:

  % ./inst_sge -db -m -x -auto <full-path-to-configuration-file>

  This command checks the SPOOLING_SERVER entry within the configuration file and starts the Berkeley DB installation on the server host.

If you start the automatic installation on the master host, the entire cluster can be installed with one command. The automatic installation script accesses the remote hosts through rsh or ssh and starts the installation remotely. This process requires a well-configured configuration file, which each host must be able to read. That file should be installed on each host or shared through NFS.