56 lines
1.6 KiB
ReStructuredText
56 lines
1.6 KiB
ReStructuredText
Overview
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========
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Documentation
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-------------
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This guide is written using jupyterbook that accepts both ReStructured Text files (that's the system that was used initially)
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and Markdown.
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Deployment
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----------
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We generally deploy systems using PXE/Kickstart, even VMs. There is a VM
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template, but it only defines the standard hardware/VM settings. No software is
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pre-installed.
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We use an iPXE image, which retrieves its client-specific configuration from a
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web service, which also generates the client-specific Kickstart file.
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For systems where network booting isn't possible, eg. because DHCP isn't
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available, we can boot from USB as well.
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The installation process is very roughly:
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1. Install a minimal system plus the Puppet agent using Kickstart
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2. Reboot
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3. On first boot, run Puppet, which installs/configures the rest
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OS, Software, and Licenses
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--------------------------
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We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (aka RHEL 7). The licenses are provided by
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ETHZ, and we mirror the software from their Satellite server locally. We do not
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have direct access to Red Hat support, but we can access the Red Hat customer
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portal.
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In addition to RHEL, we use/make available the following:
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- EPEL (all of it)
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- ELREPO (mostly for the Nvidia drivers)
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- Puppet
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- NoMachine
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In addition there are several internal repositories.
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Configuration Management and Automation
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---------------------------------------
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We use `Puppet <https://puppet.com>`_ for configuration management on Linux
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systems. Configuration data is managed using `Hiera
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<https://puppet.com/docs/puppet/5.3/hiera_intro.html>`_.
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Scripts are generally written in bash or Python.
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