Software

This page houses software that is applicable to all forms of Linux clustering. Specific software applications and packages, such as MOSIX or Red Hat's Piranha are on the specific pages that the software is used for (Computational Clusters and High Availability, respectively, for these two examples).

The links housed here are more general, such as various file system technologies, mirroring software, monitoring and administrative tools, and so on.

• Check out the series on Implementing Advanced Filesystems under Linux, from IBM's developerWorks here.



• Arla: Arla is a free AFS implementation. For an overview of the normal capabilities of AFS, look here.



• ClusterNFS: ClusterNFS is a set of patches for the UNFSD server to allow multiple diskless clients to mount the same root filesystem, by providing "interpreted" filenames.



• Coda: Coda is an advanced network file system. Developed at Carnegie Mellon, it is a distributed file system with its origin in AFS2.



• GFS: GFS (Global File System) is fault tolerant and distributed. It is also both a cluster and a journalling file system.



• GPFS: GPFS (General Parallel File System) is a high performance parallel, scalable file system for clusters. It was originally developed for the RS/6000 SP system, and ported to Linux.



• InterMezzo: InterMezzo is a distributed file system with a focus on high availability, offering various features like disconnected operation and automatic recovery from network outages.



• Lustre: Lustre is a novel storage and file system architecture that aims at building a next-generation cluster file system, to service clusters with 10,000s of nodes, petabytes of storage, and move 100s of GB/sec, as well as offering security and management.



• OpenAFS: OpenAFS is a distributed file system. Originally created at Carnegie Mellon, IBM branched the source of the AFS product, and is developing it at IBM's Linux Technology Center, where it is freely available, and open to OSS community development and maintenance.



• OpenGFS: OpenGFS is an open, free version of GFS, the Global File System, a distributed, fault tolertant cluster and journalling file system.



• Oracle Cluster File System: OCFS presents a consistent file system image across nodes in a cluster, allowing Oracle9i RAC users to eliminate the need to set up and manage raw devices. (note: Oracle even provides the complete source for this to anyone who wishes to log onto OTN to download it)



• PVFS: PVFS (Parallel Virtual File System) is being developed at Clemson University's Parallel Architecture Research Lab and is closely tied to the Beowulf (currently a.k.a. Scyld) Project.



• XFS: XFS is SGI's high perfmance journalling file system. The folks at SGI have also recently released a version of XFS for the IA64 architecture.

• Drdb: Drbd is a file system for mirroring systems across a LAN. You can see it as a network RAID 1.



• ENBD: ENBD (Enhanced Network Block Device) is a project that is trying to improve on the original Network Block Device driver.



• NBD: NBD (Network Block Device) is a driver that, when compiled into the kernel, can make a remote resource look like a local (block) device.

• EVMS: The EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management System) Project has the goal of providing unparalled flexibility and extensibility in managing storage. The architecture introduces a plug-in model that allows for easy expansion or customization of various levels of volume management.



• LVM: LVM (Logical Volume Manager) allows you to create file systems spanning multiple disks, create and manage large filesystems, extend and shrink online file systems, move data physically from one disk to another without changing the position in the file tree, and much more.
• Logical Volume Manager HOWTO: A very hands-on HOWTO for Linux LVM.

• FAI: FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) is a non-interactive system to install Debian GNU/Linux on a cluster. It is a collection of Perl and shell scripts, and will work with a variety of PC hardware.



• Imgdisk: At the bottom of this page, there is a link to a tarball and the man page for a tool called imgdisk. Imgdisk can save and restore disk images: the partition table, MBR, partition boot records, ext2 file system contents, and can also restore swap partitions.



• PowerCockpit: PowerCockpit is a tool for installing and managing large groups of servers.



• System Configurator: System Configurator is a tool for automatically configuring, networking, and bootstrapping, of a Linux box, in an architecture and distro agnostic way. (It is part of the System Installation Suite, though is a standalone program)



• SystemImager: SystemImager makes the installation of Linux to masses of similar machines relatively easy. It also makes software distibution, configuration, and operating system updates easy, and can also be used for content management of web sites. (It is part of the System Installation Suite, though is a standalone program)



• System Installation Suite: The System Installation Suite is the grand project name for the joint effort of System Configurator, SystemImager, and System Installer. All three are being developed to work together to provide an easy to use solution for installing and configuring a cluster of heterogenous hardware and to be distibution agnostic. This is the project homepage, with links to the sites of the three projects, and more information on how they will work together.



• System Installer: System Installer is an installation tool which is designed to build Linux images. It can be used to build and install an image directly to a machine, or it may build secondary images to be distributed to remote clients. (It is part of the System Installation Suite, though is a standalone program)