2010-09-15 11:30:15 
阿炯
PelicanHPC是基于Debian的自启动运行光盘镜像，其宗旨是简化高性能计算集群的安装。其前端节点(或者是真实的计算机，或者是虚拟机)直接 从该镜像引导，计算节点则依靠预执行环境(PXE)来启动，它们以前端节点为服务器。
集群的所有节点都从相同的光盘镜像获取它们的文件系统，因此所有的节点都运行相同的软件，该光盘镜像通过运行一份单独的脚本创建而得，这也使得可以基于额外的Debian软件包来定制该自启动运行光盘镜像。
Features
PelicanHPC is a live CD image that let's you set up a high performance computing cluster in a few minutes. A Pelican cluster allows you to do parallel computing using MPI. You can run Pelican on a single multiple core machine to use all cores to solve a problem, or you can network multiple computers together to make a cluster. The frontend node (either a real computer or a virtual machine) boots from the CD image. The compute nodes boot by PXE, using the frontend node as the server.
All of the nodes of the cluster get their filesystems from the same CD image, so it is guaranteed that all nodes run the the same software. Packages can be added to all nodes using apt-get, thanks to aufs. The CD image is created by running a single script, which takes advantage of the Debian Live infrastructure. It is very easy to create a custom version with new packages installed in standard locations by adding package names to the script and then running it.
* Pelican is created using tools from the Debian Live project. To make your own version you only need live-build (also deboostrap and rsync) and the make_pelican script, which is provided below. All of this is also available on the PelicanHPC images, so you can build a custom version while running PelicanHPC.
* Contains the latest stable version of the OpenMPI implementation of MPI.
* Both 32 and 64 bit versions are available.
* Contains extensive example programs using GNU Octave. Also has the Linpack HPL benchmark.
* Pelican releases and all testing is done using the stable version of Debian GNU Linux as the base.
* ~/pelican_config file to allow for persistence, customization and headless boot. People interested in doing serious work with PelicanHPC are encouraged to examine this self-documented file
* autodetection of persistent frontend home
* autodetection of frontend and node local scratch space
* ability to run local scripts post boot and setup
* node beep after boot
* firewall
* automated node booting using wake-on-lan
* configuration of slots and optional frontend inclusion for mpi
* ganglia
* static IP assignment configurable using MAC addresses.
* node startup/shutdown script
* possibility to serve DHCP to machines that are not compute nodes
* python frontend for mpi software included (mpi4py)
* can now build PelicanHPC on PelicanHPC, using live-build
* added a couple of text editors, joe and nano
最新版本：3.1
此版本修复了 PelicanHPC 3.0 发现的 bug。PelicanHPC 将会在2015年2月1日或者Debian 8(Jessie)发布后发布 4.0 版本。PelicanHPC v3.1 基于 Debian 7(Wheezy)，使用 live-build-4.0.2-1。