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- Must support CASA
- Will need a patching/updating mechanism
- How to boot diskless OS images
- I am not finding any new sexy software packages to automate PXE+DHCP+TFTP+NFS, so we will keep doing it the way we have been for years https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/managing_storage_devices/setting-up-a-remote-diskless-system_managing-storage-devices
- One OS image for both our use and remote institution use, or multiple OS images?
- Use containers (docker, singularity/apptainer, kubernetes, mesos, etc)?
- Ask Greg at CHTC what they use
- They use disked OSes and puppet to maintain it
- What Linux distrobution to use?
- Can we use Red Hat with our current license? I have looked in JDE and I can't find a recent subscription. Need to ask David.
- We have a 1,000 FTE license with up to 20,000 installations allowed. But since we are either selling the equipment to the institution or asking them to buy it themselves, at least with UPRM, I don't see how we can use our RHEL license legally. Asking each institution to aquire an RHEL license sounds like a recepie for failure so I think open source OS is the answer.
- Should we buy Red Hat licenses like we did for USNO?
- USNO is between $10K and $15K per year for 81 licensed nodes. This may not be an EDU license.
- NRAO used to have a 1,000 host license for Red Hat but I don't know what they have now.
- I don't want to maintain licenses for up to 10 differenct installs. I don't think the institutions will want to purchase and maintain a license.
- Do we even want to use Red Hat?
- Alternatives would be Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux or CentoOS Stream
- Can we use Red Hat with our current license? I have looked in JDE and I can't find a recent subscription. Need to ask David.
- What version do we use RHEL7 or RHEL8 or RHEL9?
- CASA is verified against RHEL not CentOS or Rocky or etc.
- The cost of RHEL is pretty small compared to the hardware.
- UPRM has their own money but the other institutions will either get a grant or money from us so we can say what OS they use and pay for.
- Should pull in Matthew or Schlake on this decision.
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