I am using Fedora Core 6.
I have 9 nodes that are connected through a switch to the master node.
I know the ip address of the master node but not of the slave nodes attached to it.How can i know that...please help.

It would also be highly appreicable, if some one could refer me a how-to for Network installation(I plan to install fedora core6 on the nodes using tftp or something..as these nodes do not have a cdrom).Any help in this regard would be highly apprciable.

Thanks in advance

Since it is a switch, it will be difficult. You might try arping and similar utilties.

Sorry for the error.It is a Hub.

If it’s a hub, you can use a sniffer to get all packets on the wire. From that you can deduce the addresses of machines using the wire.

Not sure if I got your question right ... but the netstat command will show all TCP connections on a given host.
It will display the source and destination address.

I think the OP wants to know a way to determine the machines on a network hub without actively connecting to them. The easiest way to do that is by using a packet sniffer. Since ethernet hubs are “dumb” (in the sense that traffic is sent to all machines using the “shared medium”), this will work.

A sniffer specific to watching arp traffic that the OP might try is arpwatch.

Thanks you guys..
Any help with "how-to for Network installation(I plan to install fedora core6 on the nodes using tftp or something"..would also be highly appreciable.

a nice network tool is nmap. Try it out, it´ll map you entire network.
If you want to install over the network, just set ut an NFS or ftp server on your master node, and serve the cd´s/dvd from there to the network. Then you just use the installation options to use media from ftp/nfs to install from. You´ll need a diskett to start from, though.

thanks...
any HOWTO that i could follow ??

1. For Checking which hosts are online use following command.
nmap -sP 192.168.0.0/24

2. For Network based installation :
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/w...x_Installation

3. Network based automated installation without user interaction [ This worked for me ]:
· Create installation directories and copy ISO images.
[root@LinuxServer tmp]# mkdir -p /network-install/ISO
[root@LinuxServer tmp]# cd /data/network-install/ISO
[root@LinuxServer ISO]# mount /mnt/cdrom
[root@LinuxServer ISO]# mkisofs -J -r -T -o rhl9.0-i386-disc1.iso /mnt/cdrom
...
...
...
[root@LinuxServer ISO]# eject cdrom
Repeat this step with each installation CDROM.

· Configure NFS server for network based installation.
[root@LinuxServer tmp]# cat /etc/exports
…
/data/network-install *(ro,sync)
[root@LinuxServer tmp]#/usr/sbin/exportfs -a -v

· Create Boot Diskette.
[root@LinuxServer cdrom]# dd if=images/bootdisk.img of=/dev/fd0
Remove the boot diskette from your floppy drive.

· Create network driver diskette.
[root@LinuxServer cdrom]# dd if=images/drvnet.img of=/dev/fd0
Remove the network driver diskette from your floppy drive.

· Create a customized kickstart configuration file by using the ksconfig command from a GUI console. It will bring up a menu from which you can select all your installation options. When finished, save the configuration file as ks.cfg on boot diskette. We may want to then edit the configuration file and comment out certain parameters that may change from system to system with a "#". These could include things like the system's name and IP address. During the kickstart process you will be prompted for these unspecified values. Do not change the order of the entries in the kickstart configuration file. For NFS based automated installation first two lines of ks.cfg should looks like this.
[root@LinuxServer tmp]# cat ks.cfg
install
nfs --server=192.16.1.100 --dir=/data/network-install/ISO
…

· Connect your client Linux box to the network.
· Boot your system using the boot diskette.
· Enter the command "linux ks=floppy" at the boot: prompt
· If there is "No Driver Found" screen we should remove the boot diskette and replace it with the network driver diskette.
· Select the "Use a Driver Disk" option, choose the floppy device "fd0" as the source of the files and then proceed to the "Networking Device" menu. Select the Ethernet device to which the installation client is connected to the installation server network. This would most likely be interface "eth0".
· Rest of the installation will be automated. It will ask only for uncommented entries in our ks.cfg file.

Just a slight nit to pick — this doesn’t determine which hosts are online. All it does is scan all hosts on the network 192.168.0.0/24. Private network space in general is much larger than a single /24. IIRC, you’d need to scan 192.168.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/12, 10.0.0.0/8, and even maybe 169.254.0.0/16 to get all “private” network addresses in IPv4 space. Needless to say, this will take quite awhile. Additionally, it won’t help you if your “nodes” use public address space (in which case, you’d be better off scanning 0.0.0.0/32)!

The solution seems to be quite elegant...but there is a problem.
My nodes do not have a floppy drive or a CD Rom drive either.
What am i suppose to do now??

Any help in this regard is highly appreciable...u would really help me alot..

Regards

p.s.there is no way that i can add a floppy drive or a CD ROM drive to the nodes.

Floppy is used in two cases :
1. For loading Network driver.
Sol : You can avoid use of floppy by using PXE enabled NICs. It will directly load network driver from PXE server.

2. For providing Kickstart file.
Sol : You can put kickstart file on NFS/HTTP server also.
NFS :
boot: linux ks=nfs:192.168.1.100:/kickstart/ks.cfg
HTTP :
boot: linux ks=http://192.168.1.100/network-install/kickstart/ks.cfg

In alternate to floppy, you can use USB drives also. Just do a quick study on how to make USB drive bootable.

Any doubts ?

Hmm, my hunch is that this guy doesn´t have access to either pxe-boot os usb-boot(motherboard bios must have support for usb-boot). Wonder what kind of nodes he´s trying to run? He can of coarse always rip out the hd´s and run dd to put the os onto them.
Anyway, I got this idea when I read the last post: Wouldn´t it be very nice to be able to install directly via pxe? I´m not sure how the solution would have to look like, though I know a little about pxe-boot. Rgrds Johan

yes i do not have access to any kind of boot...