ROCKS Kickstart XML Style Guide and How-To

The kickstart XML and the accompanying scripts (extras directory) specify much of the configuration for nodes on our cluster, as such it is an important part of the cluster management. This code is how we program the cluster function as required. This code is maintained by multiple people and is building up quite a history. Keeping the code well organized and following coding practices will help to make management easier and less error prone.

References:

• ROCKS Reference Guide

General Recommendations

ROCKS uses a sort of Object-Oriented programming system for generating the kickstart file that drives the node installations.

Testing

Unit Testing

Hum, haven't figured this out. Complicated because tests may require the build environment on a building node... It would be nice to have some unit testing integrated into the kickstart XML files though.

Sample Code

-- TomRockwell - 09 Sep 2008