Is it possible to specify different configuration parameters for different nodes when netbooting?

Yes.

NOTE: These options are for non-CSN deployments.

There are two config files used when a Swarm node boots:

• A "BOOT CONFIG" file that tells the node what software to load (e.g. Swarm)
• When booting from a USB stick, the boot config file is: "syslinux.cfg"
• When using PXE boot, the boot config file is a file within the "pxelinux.cfg" directory of the tftp server.
• You will need to create a unique boot config here for each node (see below for more info)
• A "SWARM CONFIG" file that provides Swarm its settings.
• If Swarm is passed a "castor_cfg" setting (specified in the above boot config file), it will attempt to use settings from the file given in that parameter (more info below)
• Otherwise, Swarm will look for "node.cfg" on a local USB stick
• You will need to use the castor_cfg paramter (see below for more info)

  
  

  To have separate configurations for each node when using PXE boot:

• Create Separate PXELINUX Boot Configs For Each Node: In your tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/ directory, make a copy of "default" for each node & name these files based on the MAC addresses of each node (for details on the file naming convention, see "samples/Network-Boot/pxelinux.txt" on the Swarm USB stick). This allows PXE to pass each Swarm node a different config setting on boot.
• Use Separate Config-List Files: Edit each of the 3 files Created in step #1 & add a castor_cfg parameter.
• E.G: castor_cfg=http://172.16.1.9/CAStor/node1-config-list.txt
• Create Config-List Files: For each node, create the nodex-config-list.txt file referenced in step 2. For example, node1-config-list.txt would contain two lines:
• http://172.16.1.9/CAStor/cluster-wide.cfg - (this file will contain all config settings that are the same for all nodes)
• http://172.16.1.9/CAStor/node1.cfg - (these files will contain all config settings that are unique for just one node)
• Create Swarm Config Files:
• Create http://172.16.1.9/CAStor/cluster-wide.cfg. Copy the entire node.cfg contents into here EXCEPT the vols line.
• Create node-specific files & put a single line in each one with the ipaddress setting

  
  

  E.G: http://172.16.1.9/CAStor/node1.cfg would contain a single line:

  vols=/hda0

  Now, PXE boot will use a separate boot configuration for each node and that boot config will use a different config-list for each node. The config-lists will reference a single file with all the common settings and a node-specific file with just the unique settings (in the example case vols parameter).