Updating a mesh network full of machines.

[C. Scott Ananian]

I've been asked by the Nortel guys if there's a good way to push a
build to a testbed of machines.

There are at least three such ways!

OFW has a multicast mode, which Mitch Bradley can probably point you
at documentation for.  If you've got a server properly configured, you
can have all of your machines reflash their NAND with the build
broadcast from the server.

For the OLPC mesh testbed, I used the same olpc-update mechanism we
use to upgrade machines in the field.
 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Olpc-update#Setting_Up_A_Local_Updates_Server
describes how to set up a local updates server.  By default XOs will
query http://antitheft.laptop.org/antitheft/1/ using the protocol
described in http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Theft_Deterrence_Protocol
which lets you specify which update server to use and how often to
query for updates.  You can either ensure that your local DNS maps
antitheft.laptop.org to a server you control, or patch the build to
query a different server.  You can then push updated builds to your
network of machines.

Granted, I used this mechanism for our mesh testbed specifically
because I also wanted to exercise our field upgrade code.

Other folks have reported success using screen or Konsole to send
identical commands over ssh to a large number of machines, which is a
lower-barrier-to-entry option.
 --scott

-- 
                         ( http://cscott.net/ )