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:

# wwctl profile list
PROFILE NAME         COMMENT/DESCRIPTION
default              This profile is automatically included for each node

And with the -a flag:

# wwctl profile list -a
PROFILE              FIELD              PROFILE  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:

# 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.

# wwctl profile add test_profile
# 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:

# wwctl profile set --cluster cluster01 test_profile
? Are you sure you want to modify 1 profile(s)? [y/N] y

# wwctl profile list -a test_profile | grep Cluster
test_profile         Cluster            cluster01

Lastly we just need to configure this profile to our node(s):

# wwctl node set --profile 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:

# 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:

# wwctl profile set --comment "test comment" test_profile
Are you sure you want to modify 1 profile(s): y

# 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:

# wwctl profile set --comment UNDEF test_profile
Are you sure you want to modify 1 profile(s): y

# 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:

# wwctl node set --comment "This value takes precedent" n0000
Are you sure you want to modify 1 nodes(s): y

# 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.