Quote from: hari on January 31, 2008, 02:33:24 PMQuote from: Matthew on January 31, 2008, 02:17:33 PM
And if you really want to be cool, kboot claims to support HTTP and NFS for retrieving the boot image. You might even make the boot image server keep state of which PS3 MD has already loaded the image, and use the DCE history to see whether there's a PS3 MD that's got the image, but not busy, and point the currently booting PS3's kboot at that other MD by HTTP or NFS, to offload from a busy Core. If you want to be a hero, figure out how to add BitTorrent to kboot, make it store the boot image before booting, and let the Core respond to DHCP request with a .torrent pointing at all the booted PS3 MDs, which can participate in the swarm if they're not too busy. That's the kind of system that could make diskless MD booting a PS3 over its Gb-e really fast.
guy, what are you smoking???
What's the problem? Make a PS3 MD kboot over HTTP to the Core. Make the HTTP URL point at a CGI that checks all the MDs in the DB for one that's not busy playing, and return an HTTP redirect (or Object Moved etc) message pointing to that MD's HTTPd.
Revising kboot to use bittorrent to MDs is harder, but doable. Making MDs de/activate in the swarm whether they're busy or not is harder, but a doable tweak. And if we're trying to get MDs to boot fast (which several are, by hibernating), and remain diskless (which is an important way to keep MDs upgraded and manageable), this is a strategy. And if we want MDs to power up/down on changing presence info (which I do), this is an infrastructure to do it.
Booting a host is already complex because of conditions varying while the machine is off and unresponsive. Network boot management adds more complexity. But there is an architecture here that is compatible with architecture already part of LMCE. That could be even better with some swarm tech. Designing a PS3 MD is a good opportunity to think through some of that "grand design" because of the PS3's limitations (balanced by strengths when actually running). For example, PS3 has only only 512MB RAM, a single SATA connection, and no PCI, so there are stategies to netboot, use a large SATA i-RAM bank as swap, and get something closer to a 16GB PS3 than just 0.5GB. And since we're talking about managing power (and cheaper HW overall), a BitTorrent boot swarm is one way to maximize the HW and power consumption, by decentralizing away from the busy Core whenever possible.