Introduction

Grendel is a bare metal provisioning system specifically tailored to High Performance Computing (HPC) Linux clusters. Grendel aims to be a lightweight alternative to xCAT, Warewulf, and Foreman.

Grendel provides an implementation of network protocols required to provision Linux systems over a network in a single binary:

1. DHCP - Static leases and ProxyDHP (PXE) server
2. TFTP - Used to chain load iPXE open source network boot firmware
3. HTTPS - Serve iPXE boot scripts, kernel/initrd, Kickstart and Live images
4. DNS - Forward and reverse name resolution for compute nodes

Grendel also provides a CLI and rest API for managing hosts and OS images. A high-level overview of installing Linux over the network using Grendel is shown below:

Grendel can be deployed in several different ways depending on your level of commitment. You can enable/disable any combination of the above network services depending on your existing setup. For example, if you already have an existing DHCP server, Grendel can run a ProxyDHCP server only and will serve PXE boot requests but not provide any static leases. Used in combination with the HTTP server, Grendel can serve up the provision assets such as iPXE boot script, kernels, initrds, and anaconda kickstart files.