We run a DNARD cluster here booting off of a single FreeBSD system.
We've configured them to share all of their filesystems, but have
unique swap (it's far easier to maintain that way).  We stuff their
/var/run and /tmp filesystems on a swap-backed MFS.  I've also got
some perl scripts which extract the hardware ID from the serial port
and stuff them in a file, then create the bottom part of the DHCP
configuration from that file.

While I do have the machines set up to have persistent IP addresses,
they have little per-machine permanent state; our setup is not
designed to allow the dnards much of a unique persona outside of the
cluster.  If any of this will help your situation, let me know - I'm
happy to ship it on to you.  I have a little "howto" message I sent to 
one of our collaborators for setting up the DEC NetBSD 1.3-shark
system, and _most_ of it applies to 1.4, but there've been some
changes (you can't set the swap partition via DHCP, for instance).

  -Dave

Lo and Behold, Graham Allan said:
> I wonder if anyone has any handy set of starter hints they would be
> prepared to share, for setting up a cluster of network-booted SHARKs
> from scratch. I have a number of Rev 5 SHARKs to set up from a Digital
> (sorry, Compaq) UNIX host, and have started with the simpleminded basics
> of booting one via DHCP, mounting its filesystem via NFS using the
> downloaded NetBSD 1.4 sets. What I have so far works, after a fashion,
> but I am sure I will be making many false starts which others have
> eliminated before me.
> 
> Does anyone have any simple scheme for setting up root filesystems on
> the boot host for multiple machines - I guess what is needed is separate
> root (/, /etc, /var ) filesystems plus a single shared /usr ? I can see
> this was the intention with the original DEC NetBSD distribution, but is
> there any way to achieve that more-or-less directly from the 1.4 binary
> sets?
> 
> I booted using the netbsd_netboot.SHARK kernel, which seems to make
> sense and also works, at least after running "MAKEDEV std" on the boot
> host. Failing to do this first resulted in the kernel giving "Warning:
> no /dev/console". That does seem to make sense still, but it wasn't
> mentioned anywhere I could see, so leaves me wondering if I am going
> about things the right way... any reassurance, or instructions to the
> contrary would be welcomed. Did I miss some completely different
> (ramdisk?) file for install-booting?
> 
> What settings are appropriate in XF86config for the Shark? Generic VGA
> chipset? I don't see anything more specific.
> 
> Apologies for the basic nature of these questions. I scanned through
> FAQs, but could have missed much!
> 
> Thanks for any help. I've had these systems for a few months now and
> would really like to get them running!
> 
> Graham Allan
> Physics, University of Minnesota
> gta@umn.edu

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      University of Utah                            http://www.angio.net/
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