Quoting from the Basic Hardware Configuration subsection of the RedHat 5.1 Installation Guide:
"You should have a basic understanding of the hardware installed in your computer, including:On many newer systems, the installation program is able to automatically identify most hardware. However, it's a good idea to collect this information anyway, just to be sure."
- hard drive(s) -- Specifically, the number, size, and type. If you have more than one, it's helpful to know which one is first, second, and so on. It is also good to know if your drives are IDE or SCSI. If you have IDE drives, you should check your computer's BIOS to see if you are accessing them in LBA mode.
- memory -- The amount of RAM installed in your computer.
- CD-ROM -- Most importantly, the unit's interface type (IDE, SCSI, or other interface) and, for non-IDE, non-SCSI CD-ROMs, the make and model number. IDE CD-ROMs (also known as ATAPI) are the most common type in recently manufactured, PC-compatible computers.
- SCSI adapter (if one is present) -- The adapter's make and model number.
- network card (if one is present) -- The card's make and model number.
- mouse -- The mouse's type (serial, PS/2, or bus mouse), protocol (Microsoft, Logitech, MouseMan, etc.), and number of buttons; also, for serial mice, the serial port it is connected to.
You may also need information/specifications for your monitor and video card in order to configure X-windows.
Detailed information on supported hardware is available in the RedHat Hardware Compatibility List
Click Here for a summary of the actual initial hardware configuration for hrothgar.
The network configuration for the initial, four-PC Beowulf system is shown above, and involves two separate networks:
- The Internal Network
- A 100baseT network linking the PC's through the switch. This network carries the internal communications (e.g., MPI messages) of the Beowulf system.
- The External Network
- The "master" PC of the system (i.e., "hrothgar" itself) has an additional ethernet card and LAN connection to the rest of the world.
The External Network is (presumably) part of a standard Internet or Intranet system, with IP address, netmasks, gateway IPs, ... supplied by the network administrator. The Internal Network is "arbitrary" and can be numbered using an available dummy address space (such as the 192.168.8.0 set illustrated in the figure).
Both networks used in the hrothgar system are class C (netmask 255.255.255.0 and broadcast xxx.yyy.zzz.255). The specific network parameters for the initial hrothgar system are as follows (with "notional" values for addresses on the external network):
| PC | Name | IP Address | Device | Gateway |
| PC 0 | hrothgar | 206.220.47.3 | eth0 | 206.220.47.253 |
| PC 0 | dan00 | 192.168.8.40 | eth1 | |
| PC 1 | dan01 | 192.168.8.41 | eth0 | 192.168.8.40 |
| PC 2 | dan02 | 192.168.8.42 | eth0 | 192.168.8.40 |
| PC 3 | dan03 | 192.168.8.43 | eth0 | 192.168.8.40 |
All machine names in the table use the same extensions to fully qualified form (e.g., hrothgar.a.b.edu), using the full domain name provided by the network administrator. Only hrothgar (PC 0 on the external LAN) is accessible from the outside world. (The danMM internal names for the individual PCs acknowledge the efforts of Dan Davis in getting the K-12 Beowulf project rolling.)
- Each machine has a 1 Gbyte Linux Native partition mounted as "/" and a 128 MByte Linux Swap partition.
- The remaining space on the hard-drive on machine danNM is formatted as a single Linux Native partition and mounted as /scratchNM.
- All /scratchNM disk partitions are NFS mounted on all PCs within the system.
- A Symbolic link (on all PCs)
ln -s scratch00 homesets up the standard user account area for all machines in dan00:/scratch00.- While "operational strategies" remain to be determined, the remaining /scratchNM systems are intended to provide user-accessible data staging areas across the full machine.
- Initially, at least, all NFS mounting on all danNM machines is done through configuration files at system reboots.
There are some mild annoyances in the implementation. In particular, the RHS Linux loading procedure creates a /home on the root partition to contain /home/samba, and this stuff has to be moved to the "new", symbolically linked /home area.