Node Profiles
Profiles provide a way to scalably group node configurations together. Instead of redundant configurations for each node, you can put that into a profile and the nodes will inherit these configurations. This is very handy if you have groups of node specific customizations. For example, a few hundred nodes that are running a particular container or kernel, and another group of nodes that are running a different kernel or container.
Any node configuration attributes can be applied to a profile, but there are always going to be some node configurations which must be specific to a node, like a network HW/MAC address or an IP address.
An Introduction To Profiles
Every new node is automatically added to a profile called default. You can view the configuration attributes of this profile by using the wwctl profile list command. Like the wwctl node list command, this will provide a summary, but you can see all configuration attributes by using the --all or -a flag as follows:
$ sudo wwctl profile list
PROFILE NAME COMMENT/DESCRIPTION
================================================================================
default This profile is automatically included for each node
And with the -a flag:
$ sudo wwctl profile list -a
################################################################################
PROFILE NAME FIELD VALUE
default Id default
default Comment This profile is automatically included for each node
default Cluster --
default Container --
default Kernel --
default KernelArgs --
default Init --
default Root --
default RuntimeOverlay --
default SystemOverlay --
default Ipxe --
default IpmiIpaddr --
default IpmiNetmask --
default IpmiPort --
default IpmiGateway --
default IpmiUserName --
default IpmiInterface --
As you can see here, there is only one attribute set by default in this profile, and that is the "Comment" field. That Comment is inherited by any nodes that are configured to use this profile. So if we look at the node we configured in the last section, we can see that configuration attribute there:
$ sudo wwctl node list -a | head -n 5
################################################################################
NODE FIELD PROFILE VALUE
n0000 Id -- n0000
n0000 Comment default This profile is automatically included for each node
n0000 Cluster -- --
Here you can see that the "Comment" attribute was inherited by this node, and it also provides you with the information of which profile this attribute was inherited from. This is very useful information as nodes can be part of multiple profiles with inheritance being cascading.
Multiple Profiles
For demonstration purposes, let's create another profile and demonstrate how to use this second profile.
$ sudo wwctl profile add test_profile
$ sudo wwctl profile list
PROFILE NAME COMMENT/DESCRIPTION
================================================================================
default This profile is automatically included for each node
test_profile --
Now that we've created a new profile, let's create a configuration attribute in this profile:
$ sudo wwctl profile set --cluster cluster01 test_profile
? Are you sure you want to modify 1 profile(s)? [y/N] y█
$ sudo wwctl profile list -a test_profile | grep Cluster
test_profile Cluster cluster01
Lastly we just need to configure this profile to our node(s):
$ sudo wwctl node set --addprofile test_profile n0000
Are you sure you want to modify 1 nodes(s): y
And you can now verify that the node has both profile configurations:
$ sudo wwctl node list -a | head -n 6
################################################################################
NODE FIELD PROFILE VALUE
n0000 Id -- n0000
n0000 Comment default This profile is automatically included for each node
n0000 Cluster test_profile cluster01
n0000 Profiles -- default,test_profile
Cascading Profiles
In the previous example, we set a single node to have two profile configurations. We can also overwrite configurations as follows:
$ sudo wwctl profile set --comment "test comment" test_profile
Are you sure you want to modify 1 profile(s): y
$ sudo wwctl node list -a | head -n 6
################################################################################
NODE FIELD PROFILE VALUE
n0000 Id -- n0000
n0000 Comment test_profile test comment
n0000 Cluster test_profile cluster01
n0000 Profiles -- default,test_profile
And if we delete the superseded profile attribute from test_profile we can now see the previous configuration:
$ sudo wwctl profile set --comment UNDEF test_profile
Are you sure you want to modify 1 profile(s): y
$ sudo wwctl node list -a | head -n 6
################################################################################
NODE FIELD PROFILE VALUE
n0000 Id -- n0000
n0000 Comment default This profile is automatically included for each node
n0000 Cluster test_profile cluster01
n0000 Profiles -- default,test_profile
This is a very useful feature for dealing with many groups of cluster nodes and/or testing new configurations on smaller subsets of cluster nodes. For example, you can use this method to run a different kernel on only a subset or group of cluster nodes without changing any other node attributes.
Overriding Profiles
All profile configurations can be overwritten by a node configuration as can be seen here:
$ sudo wwctl node set --comment "This value takes precedent" n0000
Are you sure you want to modify 1 nodes(s): y
$ sudo wwctl node list -a | head -n 6
################################################################################
NODE FIELD PROFILE VALUE
n0000 Id -- n0000
n0000 Comment SUPERSEDED This value takes precedent
n0000 Cluster test_profile cluster01
n0000 Profiles -- default,test_profile
How To Use Profiles Effectively
There are a lot of ways to use profiles to facilitate the management of large cluster node attributes, but there is nothing inherent in the design of Warewulf that requires use of them for anything. It is completely reasonable to not use profiles at all to help with node configuration attributes.
But if you do wish to use profiles, the best way to use them is to manage "fixed" configurations of groups of cluster nodes. For example, if you have multiple sub-clusters in your cluster, it might be advantageous to have a cluster_name profile which includes things like network configurations, and/or a specific kernel, container, boot arguments, etc.
Node specific information, like HW/MAC addresses and IP addresses should always be put in a node configuration rather than a profile configuration.