[SOLVED] a scaled down Slackware for HPC - smallest possible configuration for a VPS image ?

pisti · 01-28-2019, 12:46 PM

i need to create an as small as possible Slackware image which i want to pull and employ as temporary HPC-VPS instance for the time of intensive analysis computations. i only need VPN, NFS and python3 to run on that workhorse. ideally the image is smaller than 2GB (current limit with Linode).

what is in your opinion a minimal configuration for such a Slackware v14.2 machine image ? i thought i would go with the following packages :

Quote:

A, AP, L, N

can i spare some more packages ? what is too small ? i don't know yet how big an image this [A AP L N] setup would result in.

rkfb · 01-28-2019, 01:56 PM

I've seen this discussed many times over the years, a quick search of the forum came up with this:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...archid=9511674

Hopefully that will give you a start.

pisti · 01-28-2019, 03:27 PM

dear rkfb, thank you for your reply - but your URL was unfortunately non-functional. i also checked 9511674 though w/o success. but i will search our forum here... bye, pisti

Alien Bob · 01-28-2019, 03:46 PM

If you can work with a Slackware Live ISO, you can find a 700 MB file here: https://slackware.nl/slackware-live/...ce-current.iso
It contains python3 and nfs, and openvpn would not be hard to install.
Note that the ISO boots a Slackware with XFCE in 'non-persistent' mode i.e. all your modifications are gone after reboot.

If you just want to see the package list for this stripped-down Slackware, it's the sum of these lists:
https://git.slackware.nl/liveslak/pl...glists/min.lst
https://git.slackware.nl/liveslak/pl...ts/noxbase.lst
https://git.slackware.nl/liveslak/pl...sts/x_base.lst
https://git.slackware.nl/liveslak/pl...ts/xapbase.lst
https://git.slackware.nl/liveslak/pl...s/xfcebase.lst

pisti · 01-28-2019, 09:19 PM

wow, that sounds intriguing, thanks much for your reply, i am honored, Alien! i never thought of using a liveCD, but why not, right ? my intention is anyway to create non-persistent nodes that get deleted after finishing the job. i just have to make sure that such a liveCD can run meaningfully on a VPS node inside a VPS farm, that's Linode in my case.

what scripts do you use for creating your liveCD ? i assume i could run these scripts too and adjust them beforehand to our needs, and so create our own liveCD for this analysis project, am i right ? i am looking right now at the README in your liveslak-1.3.0.2.tar.gz file - looks promising ! for example i don't need any of the X stuff but want runlevel 3 and VPN as mentioned earlier.

in any case, my next step will be to test-boot your slackware-live-xfce-current.iso on a Linode instance. my concern currently is that i want to do this entire spiel script-based initiated from our main node which shall manage on the newly created though temporary node the whole show such as :

Quote:

create node, boot, config, compute, finish, delete

but i am not sure yet how to do this with a liveCD. will it boot at all ? i didn't see such a CD boot option on Linode - though a custom OS installation requires a CD boot too...

philanc · 01-28-2019, 11:15 PM

Hi Pisti,

Have you considered using the default Linode Slackware-14.2 image, with their default kernel (4.18.xxx)?

IIRC, their most basic Linode plan comes with 20-25GB SSD. Does the 2GB size limit you mentioned come from some other factor?

If you really need to maximize the available SSD space (eg. make more disk space available for temp computations), you may start with their default installed image and have a script with a list of 'removepkg unused_package1", 'removepkg unused2', etc.

Alien Bob · 01-29-2019, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pisti

what scripts do you use for creating your liveCD ? i assume i could run these scripts too and adjust them beforehand to our needs, and so create our own liveCD for this analysis project, am i right ? i am looking right now at the README in your liveslak-1.3.0.2.tar.gz file - looks promising ! for example i don't need any of the X stuff but want runlevel 3 and VPN as mentioned earlier.

See: https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:liveslak
And: https://git.slackware.nl/liveslak/

pisti · 01-29-2019, 08:26 PM

dear Alien, i tried to boot this lice CD image of yours :

Quote:

slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso

which i downloaded from http://bear.alienbase.nl/ but without success unfortunately. it first booted nicely on a VPS node at Linode.com but then it got stack. i copy here the error message manually from the GLISH window (cave typo!) :

Code:

...
ntfs: driver 2.1.32 [Flags: R/W MODULE]
SLACKWARELIVE:  no live media found... trouble ahead
SLACKWARELIVE:  try adding "rootdelay=20" at the boot command.

RESCUE mode

    You can try to fix or rescue your system now.  It you want
    to boot into your fixed system, mount your root filesystem
    read-only under /mnt:

        # mount -o ro -t filesystem root_device /mnt

    Type 'exit' when things are done.

/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off

/ # mount -o ro -t filesysten root_device /mnt
mount: mounting root_device on /mnt failed: no such device
/ #

what to do next ? i am usually very happy with Linode, and also this time i played a bit with the settings in their web-based GUI menu. do in general liveCDs boot well on VPS farms ?

in any case, i also have to ask Linode about liveCDs too - they will know i guess...

PS : just on the side - Linode uses a kind of rescue CD too, Finnix in this case, which does the job what it's meant for.

Qury · 01-30-2019, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pisti

Code:

/ # mount -o ro -t filesysten root_device /mnt
mount: mounting root_device on /mnt failed: no such device

H Pisti,

Try replacing the filesystem with the ext4,xfs or whatever filesystem you are using
For root_device it is the same, it should be something like /dev/sda1

Alien Bob · 01-30-2019, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pisti

dear Alien, i tried to boot this lice CD image of yours : which i downloaded from http://bear.alienbase.nl/ but without success unfortunately. it first booted nicely on a VPS node at Linode.com but then it got stack. i copy here the error message manually from the GLISH window (cave typo!) :

Code:

...
ntfs: driver 2.1.32 [Flags: R/W MODULE]
SLACKWARELIVE:  no live media found... trouble ahead
SLACKWARELIVE:  try adding "rootdelay=20" at the boot command.

RESCUE mode

    You can try to fix or rescue your system now.  It you want
    to boot into your fixed system, mount your root filesystem
    read-only under /mnt:

        # mount -o ro -t filesystem root_device /mnt

    Type 'exit' when things are done.

/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off

/ # mount -o ro -t filesysten root_device /mnt
mount: mounting root_device on /mnt failed: no such device
/ #

what to do next ? i am usually very happy with Linode, and also this time i played a bit with the settings in their web-based GUI menu. do in general liveCDs boot well on VPS farms ?

in any case, i also have to ask Linode about liveCDs too - they will know i guess...

PS : just on the side - Linode uses a kind of rescue CD too, Finnix in this case, which does the job what it's meant for.

First:
The "mount -o ro -t filesysten root_device /mnt" comment should not be taken literally. It requires you to enter the particular 'filesystem' you chose (for the Live ISO that will be ext4) and the 'root_device' should also be an actual device.

But that's not your problem. I do not know Linode, so I have no idea how you arranged for it to boot the Slackware Live ISO image. Did you extract its content somehow and then told Linode to boot kernel? Because booting the ISO (it is a bootable image) instead of extracting the content first should work without issue.
in the past years I have tried booting the ISO on various virtual and physical machines, including QEMU, VMWare and VirtualBox. No issues.

pisti · 01-30-2019, 08:06 PM

gosh, what a goof i am - and this after >2 decades of unix, quelle blamage, literally ! i guess it was a bit (too) late last night, and i was too perplexed seeing that error message while expecting a login prompt. meanwhile i also received a Linode support letter though i don't think that their suggestions differ much from how i booted Alien's liveslak ISO or my own ISOs created with Alien's liveslak script.

nop, i didn't *extract* the liveslak ISO image, i just did *dd* from another machine after booting the Linode instance into a Linode-Finnix rescue ISO disk :

Code:

dd if=slackware64-live-xfce-current.iso bs=1M status=progress | ssh root@myLinodeIP "dd of=/dev/sda"

now, i was hoping that by changing the format of /dev/sda from 'ext4' to 'raw' would help my case - but no change, same error message... otherwise there is not much more to adjust in the Linode menues, at least to my eyes.

later in the future i will have more questions about how to configure liveslak via rc.local or to invoke post-boot custom config scripts - but for now, i need to get this non-persistent RAM-based OS up & running... any suggestions greatly appreciated ! and thank you, Alien, for helping !

pisti · 01-30-2019, 08:39 PM

interestingly i got a very similar error message while booting a Finnix live CD (v111) on the very same Linode instance (manual copy/typing from Glish window):

Code:

Welcome to Finnix!
[*] total memory: 997MiB, shared ramdisk: 786MiB
[*] Cannot find Finnix media.  You are on your own.
[*] Giving you a shell, hopefully you can mount the media to /tmp/cd_base
[*] If you can, exit the shell and startup will proceed as normal.
[*] Starting debug shell.
[*] Type "exit" to continue.

ash: can't access tty: job control turned off
/ #

my Linode configuration is truly simple and looks the following way :

Code:

/dev/sda for liveslak
/dev/sdb for finnix
Boot settings : Kernel = direct disk
root/boot device : standard (either /devsda or /dev/sdb)
Boot helpers: either all off or all on, no difference noted

does this all ring any bells to some of you ?

pisti · 01-30-2019, 09:30 PM

so, in summary, i tried to boot liveslak, finnix and knoppix on my Linode VPS instance, but all were failing with the same error message :

Code:

can't access tty: job control turned off

...while slax didn't even want to boot as no MBR was detected by the Linode manager setup.

where is the problem ? is it a conceptual problem, either to start a liveISO on a VPS, or is it a specific issue with Linode ? did i miss some special configuration steps ?

Alien Bob · 01-31-2019, 02:59 AM

The issue seems to be on your end - conceptually. Can you specify how you boot these ISOS on your Linode VPS?

pisti · 01-31-2019, 10:52 AM

dear Alien, i will try to describe in my next post in detail how we load/install and boot these liveISOs in a Linode node.

but i first show you here the boot messages in PDF i copied as bitmaps from the Linode Glish window - see URL :

http://pistikem.org/linode/20190131....t_messages.pdf

if i am not mistaken then the crucial error is the 2nd-last page 31 "SLACKWARELIFE: no live media found..." - which doesn't help us further i guess. so, let's wait for my next post. bye, pisti