With the Collage 4.0 release, we've tried to streamline the OS installation procedure on the control nodes. Our goal was to simplify the OS by installing only those packages required by Collage. So now, during the Red Hat package selection step, we advise that you select the "minimal" installation option. Then, after completing the Red Hat installer, use the rpm command to add the remaining packages required by Collage. Briefly, those extra required packages are:

• ntp-4.2.0.a.20040617-4.EL4.1.i386.rpm
• compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.3.i386.rpm
• expect-5.42.1-1.i386.rpm
• tcl-8.4.7-2.i386.rpm
• tftp-server-0.39-1.i386.rpm
• dhcp-3.0.1-58.EL4.i386.rpm
• bind-9.2.4-16.EL4.i386.rpm
• compat-libstdc++-296-2.96-132.7.2.i386.rpm

The OS installation doc provides the details about where to find these on the Red Hat installation media.

This minimal installation leaves the control node in a pretty clean state (which brought a smile to our IT chief). Of course, if you know your control node needs other packages, go ahead and install them. One example that has come up in the field is that sites wanting to monitor the control node via SNMP (or utilities that use SNMP) will also need to install the net-snmp-utils package.

The net is, if you're newly installing Collage 4.0, be aware of this change to a minimal OS installation and then add other packages if necessary to support your particular site implementation.

Labels: collage "red hat installation" "control node"

Collage 4.0 has a lot of new, spiffy network capabilities to better integrate with various site network topologies. At the highest level, Collage now lets you have multiple networks and doesn't force you to build your entire Collage environment on one flat network. A common use of multiple networks is to segregate all of your remote management devices (what we often generically refer to as power controllers, such as HP iLO, Dell ERA and DRAC, IBM BCMM, etc. For a complete list, take a look at our Recommended Hardware.)

From talking to our field reps, I've gathered that the rationale for separating these devices on their own network is often for security. Isolating these on their own network makes it more difficult for a malicious user to get to your site and access all of those embedded remote management functions on the power controller.

Here's an illustration of a sample Collage network setup, with redundant network connections for the various servers in the environment, and a separate network their power controllers:

Setting up one of these power networks may be standard stuff, but thought I'd outline the high-level steps, with emphasis on the Collage specifics you'll need to know about. Here are the steps:

1. Set up the network switch and router:

   1. Configure your network switch and set up your VLAN.
   2. Cable the power controllers to the switch.
   3. Configure a router to know about the power network.
      Note: Conversely, the default router for the Collage control nodes should have a route to the power network.
   4. On the router, add DHCP relay, which allows DHCP requests on this network to be forwarded to the Collage control nodes. (If you're using Cisco switches, you'll see this referred to as IP Helper.)
2. Add the power network to the Collage Controller:
   5. In the Controller, add a new network. The dialog looks like this:

      If this image isn't too small, you can see that you'll need to include the gateway IP, which would be the router I told you to configure above, the netmask, and the VLAN number.

Normally, if you are exercising Collage network virtualization services (NVS), you would add the network switch to Collage. However, you don't need to do that for the power network because Collage is not going to manage ports on this switch.

Also, if Collage is configured with auto-discovery off, then you'll need to manually add the MAC addresses of the power controllers. You might want to read up a bit on Collage auto-discovery. It's good practice to turn off auto-discovery while doing this kind of setup, and then turn it back on when you're done with the network and switch configuration.

That's pretty much it. Once your done, your power controllers will be isolated from all other networks, but accessible to Collage for power cycle and boot operations.