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by amluto 699 days ago
Ceph doesn’t really nail the “I want to boot off this thing” use case. It would be interesting to try, though.
1 comments
magicalhippo 698 days ago
Ceph provides S3-compatible object store no? If so, just use s3backer[1] with a loopback mount and boot[2] off it?

I mean, sounds like a house of cards but, should be possible?

[1]: https://github.com/archiecobbs/s3backer

[2]: https://ersei.net/en/blog/fuse-root

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simcop2387 698 days ago
I'd actually recommend instead going a bit further since it'll be more reliable and easier to setup on the client side. Use the iSCSI gateway and an RBD image instead. This'll get you the availability of Ceph and is much better supported than using FUSE or s3 for booting. You can even install windows on an iSCSI target and PXE boot it (disclaimer: i've only read about this being done, not actually done it) so that you don't need any local storage at all on the remote machine.

You'll still want a fast network (I'd recommend 10gbe on the server at least, 2.5gbe on clients though 1gbe will work you will notice it bottleneck in bursts) but that won't be any different than any other network booting/rooting process

https://docs.ceph.com/en/latest/rbd/iscsi-overview/

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magicalhippo 698 days ago
Oh wow how ironic. I totally forgot about iSCSI, despite having used it against Ceph for testing in my home lab. Yeah, definitely go for that.

Or the S3-fuse route if you just want to geek flex.

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yencabulator 698 days ago
If you're going that way, you'll be much, much happier with RBD.

https://docs.ceph.com/en/reef/rbd/

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amluto 698 days ago
By “I want to boot off this thing” I mean that, if I have a computer with three disks, I want to run a normal-ish distro on that computer with those three disks possibly as /home or /var or maybe even as /.

I’m sure it’s possible. I don’t think this is quite what Ceph is intended for :)

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