Image modules are the building blocks of the OS that is booted via the network by Qlustar cluster nodes or workstations. The core image module is the basis of this node OS. It is Qlustar’s bare, ready-to-run core OS, needed by any type of node, regardless of its purpose. Running nodes with an image containing just the core module can make sense to run basic tests e.g., but usually more modules will be added.

When creating an image with QluMan, additional modules can be selected to provide specific functionality for a group or all of your nodes (e.g. to add workload management functionality or to activate support for Infiniband, parallel filesystems, High-Availability, GPU computing, etc.). An example is shown in the screenshot to the left.

The modules themselves are pre-generated from the content of a well-defined set of Debian/RPM packages, that is needed for the module’s functionality. These constituting packages are listed in the module’s contents file together with their version. This creates full transparency and retraceability about what is part of an image. Like any other software package, the image modules are installable and distributed from the Qlustar package repositories in deb format (see screenshot below). Furthermore, they are auto-registered with QluMan to make them available for the convenient assembly of images inside of the QluMan GUI.

Available Modules

The following is a table of currently available Qlustar image modules grouped by functionality. Be aware, that new modules are added every now and then, so initially some of them might not be listed here. However, the QluMan image creation dialog will always offer all available modules for a given Qlustar release.