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Configuration Management
ClusterVisor becomes the point of truth for your entire cluster.
It stores the configuration for the whole system.
Your Entire Cluster Configuration Behind an Easy to Use Web GUI
ClusterVisor gives you easy-to-use Web GUI and command line tools to manage the configuration. Everything is stored as a series of collections and sections in the database running on the ClusterVisor appliance or server. The collection refers to the type of data, and the section is the individual item. Each collection has a unique schema with properties specific to its data type. A common example is node.head (which refers to the collection node, and a section named head). All of the configuration data is stored in this collection.section pattern.
Some of the collections in ClusterVisor:
- node – all nodes in your cluster
- chassis – multi-node chassis (example: 2U with 4 nodes, or blade systems)
- switch – ethernet, or fabric switches (IB, OPA, etc)
- device – other hardware devices like: PDUs, UPS, HVAC, etc
- appliance – dedicated ClusterVisor appliances
- group – a grouping of nodes, chassis, switches, devices
- cloner_image – operating system images that can be deployed on nodes
- cloner_disk_layout – the partitioning, filesystem, software RAID, and LVM configuration used when deploying stateful images to nodes
And many more …
Manage Configuration fields via the Command Line or Web GUI
All configuration fields can be managed via the command line or the web GUI. The Web GUI is easier for discovery to see all the possible fields and values available. The command line can be faster to edit once you are familiar with the syntax and options.
Configuration Plugins
The “node” and “appliance” collections support plugins. These plugins are what takes the data stored in ClusterVisor and actually commits it to the nodes.
Here are just some of the most popular plugins in ClusterVisor:
- Boot Options – Configure how a node boots
- Chronyd – Setup/configure the chrony daemon to synchronize a nodes date/time
- Cloner Server – Manage the cloner server
- DHCP / DNS server – Manage a DHCP & DNS server internal to the cluster network
- IPMI Settings – Configure IPMI / out of band management interfaces
- LDAP Auth – Setup LDAP authentication on the nodes
- YUM/DNF Repo Server – Run an internal cluster RPM repository
- Serial Console – Manage system’s serial console settings
- SLURM server – Manage the SLURM configuration and partitions
- SLURM client – Make a node a SLURM worker node ready to run jobs
And many more …
For example ….
the networking plugin takes all the networking configuration stored in ClusterVisor and configures things like IP address, gateways, DNS, etc.
Plugins can be enabled or disabled
Depending on whether or not you want ClusterVisor to manage it.. it may make sense to disable the ldap plugin if you have a very advanced authentication setup and would prefer to manage that configuration on your own, without using ClusterVisor.