[Planetlab-users] changing the Linux distribution used by a slice

[Andy Bavier]

Dear PlanetLab users, 

It is now possible to run a Linux distribution other than Fedora 8 inside your PlanetLab slice.  New distributions supported are Fedora 12 and CentOS 5, though Fedora 8 remains the default. 

NOTE: This feature is currently supported on most PlanetLab nodes but not all.  Specifically, it's *not* supported on nodes in the "v27" deployment.  These are nodes that we haven't been able to upgrade because they need updated BootCDs.  You can easily identify the "v27" nodes by adding the "Deployment" column to the node table layout on your slice web page.

To select a different distribution for your slice, follow these steps:

* Log into http://www.planet-lab.org and navigate to your slice's page.

* Expand the tags panel (look for a message saying "No tag!" or "N tags").

* Add the fcdistro slice tag with the tag name of the image that you want to install. The tag names for each distribution are:
   - Fedora 8: fcdistro=f8 (default, not necessary to specify a slice tag if this is what you want)
   - Fedora 12: fcdistro=f12
   - CentOS 5: fcdistro=centos5

* When new nodes are added to the slice, the new slivers will be created with the specified disk image.  No changes are made to pre-existing slivers.

Please contact support at planet-lab.org for help.  

Andy