Setup
In this lesson you will learn how to create a high performance computer using Raspberry Pi single board computers. The skills you learn will be transferrable to any unix type operating system. The focus of this lesson is on the software that is typically used on HPCs and not the hardware.
The minimum equipment you will need for this lesson would be:
- 2 x Raspberry Pi 4 or 5, one which will serve as the login node and one which will be a compute node. These do not need keyboards and screens but it is sometimes handy to have a keyboard and screen for when you run into trouble.
- One network switch.
- One laptop or computer which will serve as your workstation. It might prove useful for this workstation to have an ethernet port.
- Three network cables.
- If your switch has Power over Ethernet (PoE) you might not need power supplies for your two nodes. If they don’t, don’t forget the power supplies. Also don’t forget the power supply for the switch itself.
- For starters you’ll need two SD cards. One SD card will be used for the login node and the other for the compute node. If, later on, you want to use PXE (i.e. boot over network), then you can use the compute node SD card to create a template image for compute nodes
| Setup Instructions | Download files required for the lesson | |
| Duration: 00h 00m | 1. Introduction |
Why is training on a real HPC challenging for workshop
instructors? What hardware is needed to build a mini-HPC for training? ::: |
| Duration: 00h 10m | 2. Preparing an SD Card |
How do you write an OS image to a Raspberry Pi SD card? What configuration can be applied to the SD card before first boot? ::: |
| Duration: 00h 20m | 3. Booting and Updating |
How do you connect to a freshly booted Raspberry Pi on the
network? What are the first steps after logging in for the first time? ::: |
| Duration: 00h 30m | 4. Configuring the login node |
What roles does the login node play in an HPC cluster? How does a login node provide network access to compute nodes? ::: |
| Duration: 00h 40m | 5. Configuring a compute node |
What packages does a compute node need to join the cluster? How does the compute node authenticate with the login node? ::: |
| Duration: 00h 50m | 6. Some extra things that can be done |
How can you provision additional compute nodes without repeating the
full setup? What is PXE booting and how does it help scale a cluster? ::: |
| Duration: 01h 00m | 7. Testing & running your first job |
How do you verify that a Slurm cluster is working correctly? How do you submit and monitor batch jobs? ::: |
| Duration: 01h 10m | 8. Preparing compute nodes for eessi |
What is a loop device and when is it needed? How do you create persistent storage for a diskless compute node? ::: |
| Duration: 01h 20m | Finish |
The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.