Linux Clustering w/Bootable CD-ROMS?

Cameron asks: "Has anyone tried to make a Linux cluster on a typical company/school network? I am trying to make a Linux cluster by taking bootable CDs and putting them in computers on an existing network. Red Hat (or another distro if it's better suited) would boot and run off the CD without needing any (or much) HD space. This way the computers aren't changed and I can have a virtual supercomputer for a while. Mmm 18Ghz. Anyway has anyone tried this before? Also I'd appreciate any suggestions on which distro to use and what cluster software/daemons I'd need. i.e. Beowolf or something like it." While an interesting approach to clustering, unless each node has quite a bit of RAM, I would think that you might need a marginal swap partition. What problems do you see with this idea, and would they be surmountable? Might such an idea be useful for quickly converting a computer lab to a cluster when it's not being used for other things?

Comments

Diskless cluster

[crow]

You should probably look at people who have set up diskless Linux systems. The root directory is NFS. You can even use a network device for swap space. You'll probably need some sort of network file system for doing your work anyway.

The advantage of booting off of NFS is that you don't have to burn new CDs when you udate the cluster. I don't have any experience with this, but I suspect that while most diskless systems use special network boot ROMs on the network cards, you could do the same thing with a CD boot. You might even be able to have a Windows application that shuts down cleanly and boots from the network (something like loadlin).

So I guess I don't have answers, only more questions to research.