naked machines

[Steffen Grunewald]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2005 at 01:04:53PM +0200, massimiliano cialdi wrote:
> is it possible to run acluster in which some machines are "naked"?
> I mean a computer with only mother board (with an integrated NIC to
> boot up), cpu and ram; without any mass storage device (such hard
> disk, floppy or CD), keyboard, mouse and graphic card.

Without a graphics card, most BIOSes will beep, not boot.
With a PXE capable network interface, you can (using memdisk or the
like) start almost everything on the node. (even a harddisk image,
if it fits into memory)
I guess a minimum VGA card is required. Then the answer is yes!

Steffen

-- 
Steffen Grunewald * MPI fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut)
SciencePark Golm, Am Mühlenberg 1, D-14476 Potsdam * http://www.aei.mpg.de
* e-mail: steffen.grunewald(*)aei.mpg.de * +49-331-567-{fon:7233,fax:7298}
No Word/PPT mails - http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html