Decisions of RedHat on CentOS strongly impacted my choices for the minicluster. First of all on the Linux distribution: the roadmap of CentOS is more than ever at the will of RedHat management … which is IBM now. I prefer to switch to a RHEL compatible but autonomous distribution. Perhaps it is a bet but Rocky Linux seems to be a viable choice. At least it will be for the lifespan of the minicluster.

I did not check when purchasing nodes but RockPI-X Small Board Computers (SBC) are not PXE network boot capable. Forums on Radxa (RockPi-X manufacturer) suggest to use iPXE to circumvent this limitation.

Technical information on the minicluster is now available in a Github repository. It includes the Bill of Material. The repository will also host DEVOPS code used to setup the cluster and deploy Kubernetes.

After the proof-of-concept, it is time for the real version. Parts are bound together user OpenBeam structure. The result fits in a low-cost aluminum covered case.

The Rock PI-X have arrived: it is time to build the minicluster! First, let’s assemble a proof-of-concept: