[Users] oVirt node in a diskless environment

[Perry Myers]

On 01/17/2012 02:24 PM, Li, David wrote:
> Hmm, interesting.. 3 months is reasonable if we can get a prototype
> running. Ideally I will need to fit the images into an embeded space
> less than 200MB (it's my pxeboot server).

200MB shouldn't be a problem, the oVirt Node ISO right now is around
150MB iirc.  So you should be able to fit kernel/initrd for PXE server
into 200MB

> We are certainly interested in the feature and is willing to be part
> of it. But where do we start?
> Any suggestions from you guys that I can take back to my team?

I think taking a look at what primalmotion has been doing with going
stateless for archipel would be a good place to start, and then seeing
how this could be generalized for use outside of archipel.

Our original thinking on 'stateless oVirt Node' was that we would use:

* some form of {PXE/DHCP/embedded USB stick with minimal config} to get
  just enough info to boot the system, get the mgmt network interface
  up and communicate to the mgmt server controlling the node

* once you've got that done, the remainder of the configuration can be
  applied dynamically by the mgmt server (for example the oVirt Engine
  through vdsm)

If you follow the above, this problem actually isn't too hard to solve,
I don't think.

Perry