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BitKey
BitKey was a Debian-based live distribution containing specialist utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions. It contains a swiss army knife of handy Bitcoin tools that support a wide range of usage models, including a few very secure ones which would otherwise be difficult to perform. The system boots into one of the three available modes: "cold-offline" - for creating a wallet and signing transactions; "cold-online" - for watching the wallet and preparing transactions; "hot-online" - standard usage but less secure as the private keys are known to the computer which was connected to the internet. BitKey also provides tools for generating "brainwallets", for the most paranoid of Bitcoin users. The live CD provides a simple desktop based on the Metacity window manager with quick links to the Bitcoin tools and Chromium for web browsing.
Status: Discontinued
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Latest News and Updates |
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2009-06-25 |
NEW • Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.2 |
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Greg Bruno has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.2, a specialist, CentOS-based distribution designed to make it simple to build high-performance computer clusters: "Rocks 5.2 is released for Linux on the i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures and Solaris for the x86_64 architecture. New features: with the new JumpStart roll one can now install and configure a Linux-based Rocks front-end to 'JumpStart' Solaris-based back-end machines; can assign 'attributes' to nodes at four levels - global, appliance type, OS (e.g., Linux or SunOS), and host; Anaconda installer updated to version 11.1.2.168; isolated MySQL for the Rocks database under /opt/rocks; fix for software RAID partitioning...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information. Download (MD5): area51.i386.disk1.iso (2,335MB), area51.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,713MB).
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About Rocks Cluster
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Rocks is a complete "cluster on a CD" solution for x86 and x86_64 Red Hat Linux clusters. Building a Rocks cluster does not require any experience in clustering, yet a cluster architect will find a flexible and programmatic way to redesign the entire software stack just below the surface (appropriately hidden from the majority of users). Although Rocks includes the tools expected from any clustering software stack (PBS, Maui, GM support, Ganglia, etc), it is unique in its simplicity of installation.
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Recent Related News and Releases |
2017-12-03 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 7.0 |
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Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 7.0, a major new update of the project's specialist operating system for easy deployments as computer clusters. Rocks Cluster 7.0 is based on CentOS 7.4: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Manzanita', is now released. Manzanita is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 7.4. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of December 1, 2017." The brief release announcement doesn't give many details about the release, but the distribution's user guide has been updated to include notes about the "significant differences" compared to Rocks 6: "This section describes how to install your Rocks cluster frontend for Rocks 7. It is significantly different than Rocks 6. The minimum requirement to bring up a frontend is to have the following rolls: Kernel, Base, Core, CentOS, Updates-CentOS. Rocks 7 supports a network-only installation. All rolls must be located on a roll server on a network that is accessible by your frontend." Here are the links to download the essential Rocks 7.0 rolls (MD5, pkglist): kernel-7.0-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (1,171MB), base-7.0-2.x86_64.disk1.iso (349MB), core-7.0-2.x86_64.disk1.iso (122MB), CentOS-7.4.1708-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (7,791MB), Updates-CentOS-7.4.1708-2017-12-01-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (1,562MB). |
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2017-09-10 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 7.0 Beta |
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Philip Papadopoulos has announced the availability of the initial beta build of Rocks Cluster Distribution 7.0, the project's specialist CentOS-based operating system for deployments as computer clusters. This is the distribution's first release based on CentOS 7.x: "It has taken a while, but Rocks 7 is ready for beta testing. Not all rolls are ready for beta testing, but a number of them are. I'm looking for constructive testing, bug hunting and bug fixes. The purpose of the beta is to improve Rocks to support CentOS version 7. This should not be used on production hardware. Getting started: view the YouTube video of Rocks 7 installation, it's very different from Rocks 6; download the kernel ISO image; burn the image to either a DVD (not tested) or a USB stick (tested), it is the same process as copying a CentOS installer image to a USB device; boot the installer and follow the steps shown in the video. What's NOT available? There is no 'scheduler' roll, it's on the to-do list; restore rolls are completely untested (and probably don't work, so don't try); ethernet device names are completely different...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information. Interested beta testers can download the above-mentioned ISO image from here: kernel-7.0-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (1,070MB, MD5). |
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2015-05-12 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.2 |
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Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.2, the latest stable version of the project's CentOS-based specialist distribution designed for building real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name Sidewinder, is now released. Sidewinder is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 6.6. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of May 10, 2015. Support for ZFS has been updated to version 0.6.4.1. Condor is now the HTCondor roll release 8.2.8. Also included is support for perfSONAR where cluster builders can decide to install the full GUI (recommended for a standalone perfSONAR host) or just the command tools. Customizing what is installed for perfSONAR gives four attributes that control which elements of perfSONAR are installed on hosts. New to 6.2 is the ability to reconfigure the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your cluster. There are some caveats to the process. When building a frontend on networks with jumbo frames, the cluster builder can specify the MTU on the 'build' command line." See the release announcement and release notes for further information. Download: area51...6.2.x86_64.disk1.iso (3,334MB, MD5, pkglist). |
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2014-04-16 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1.1 |
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Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1.1, a CentOS-based distribution for building real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Sand Boa', is now released. Sand Boa is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 6.5. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of April 14, 2014. This includes updates for the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability. Support for ZFS has been updated to version 0.6.2. Condor is now the HTCondor roll is at release 8.0.6. Also included is a new roll called fingerprint that dynamically determines dependencies of compiled code on both Rocks and non-Rocks systems. Enhancements and bug fixes: rocks add host verifies hostname is not an appliance name; fix reverse path filtering on centos 6.x...." See the release announcement and release notes for more details. Download (MD5) the "jumbo" DVDs containing the OS and all available "rolls": area51...6.1.1.x86_64.disk1.iso (3,270MB). |
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2012-11-30 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1 |
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Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1, a CentOS-based open-source toolkit for real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Emerald Boa', is now released. Emerald Boa is available for CentOS 6.3 (Rocks 6.1). The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of November 27, 2012. New features: host-based SSH authentication is now the default, this eliminates the requirement the users have password-less SSH keys and/or mounted home area on remote nodes; two-factor SSH authentication using Google Authenticator Apps for Android and iPhone is supported for all users; New ZFS Linux roll to support the ZFS file system via the ZFS on Linux; new kernel roll to more easily support vanilla Linux kernels." See the release announcement and release notes for further details. Download (MD5) the "jumbo" DVDs containing the OS and all available "rolls": area51...6.1.i386.disk1.iso (2,516MB), area51...6.1.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,580MB). |
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2012-05-10 |
Distribution Releases: Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.5, 6.0 |
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Philip Papadopoulos has announced the availability of Rocks Cluster Distribution versions 5.5 and 6.0, two new builds of the project's CentOS-based open-source toolkit for real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Mamba' is now released. Mamba is available for both CentOS 5.8 (Rocks 5.5) and CentOS 6.2 (Rocks 6.0). The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of May 7, 2012. Rolls use the same code base but are compiled on the different version of operating systems. Mamba is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. New features: Rocks now supports both CentOS 5 and CentOS 6 from the same source code; Xen is no longer supported...." See the release announcement and release notes for a full list of new features. Download the "jumbo" DVDs containing the OS and all available "rolls": area51+...+xen-5.5.i386.disk1.iso (2,578MB, MD5), area51+...+xen-5.5.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,640MB, MD5), area51+...+web-server-6.0.i386.disk1.iso (2,469MB, MD5), area51+...+web-server-6.0.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,580MB, MD5).
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2011-08-11 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4.3 |
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Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4.3, an updated release of the CentOS-based operating system designed for real and virtual clusters: "The production version of Rocks 5.4.3 is now available. New features: the root password supplied during the front-end installation is now used only for the root password of the front-end; to set the root passwords for individual back-end nodes, the user can now use command-line tool. The rationale behind setting random root passwords for all back-end nodes is that, if by some means, an attacker gained access to the root account of a back-end node, and then the adversary could run an offline attack against the encrypted version of the root password, none of the other nodes would be compromised." See the brief release announcement and the detailed release notes for further information. Download (MD5): area51+...+xen-5.4.3.i386.disk1.iso (2,731MB), area51+...+xen-5.4.3.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,937MB).
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2010-11-11 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4 |
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Greg Bruno has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4, a CentOS-based Linux operating system for computer clusters: "Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4 (Maverick) is released for Linux on the i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. New features: redesign of the Avalanche installer; channel bonding for nodes is now controlled by the Rocks command line; all nodes' firewall rules are controlled by the Rocks command line; introduction of 'Air Traffic Control'; 'greceptor' replaced with 'channeld'; DNS resolution for multiple domains; login appliance support; set the name of a host based on the name of a specific network interface; easily swap two interfaces with one Rocks command; created a GIT repository for Rocks-related source code...." See the release announcement and release notes to learn more about the enhancements in this version of Rocks Cluster Distribution. Download (MD5): area51+...+xen-5.4.i386.disk1.iso (2,480MB), area51+...+xen-5.4.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,552MB).
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2008-05-01 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.0 |
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Mason J. Katz has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.0, a CentOS-based distribution designed for building Linux clusters: "Rocks 5.0 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. New Features: 1. Xen support. You can use the Xen roll to create 'VM Containers' - physical machines that are used to hold Xen-based virtual machines. The Rocks Command Line was expanded to help build and maintain virtual machines. 2. Fully programmable partitioning. The partitioning of client nodes (e.g., compute nodes and tile nodes) has been re-tooled. Enhancements: based on CentOS release 5.1 and all updates as of April 29, 2008; Condor updated to 7.0.1; Ganglia monitor core updated to 3.0.7...." Here is the complete release announcement. The installation CD/DVD images, together with specialist "rolls" are available for download from the project's FTP server; see the download page for a list of available files and download instructions.
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2007-07-06 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.3 |
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Version 4.3 of Rocks Cluster, a specialist distribution based on CentOS, has been released: "Rocks v4.3 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. New features: Rocks command line - initial release of the Rocks command line which facilitates non-SQL administrative access to the database; PXE First - hosts can now be configured in BIOS with a boot order of CD, PXE, hard disk. Enhancements: based on CentOS 4.5 and all updates as of July 4, 2007; Anaconda installer updated to 10.1.1.63; performance improvement when building torrent files for the Avalanche Installer; database indirects, more flexibility with Rocks variables; Globus updated to gt4.0.4 with web services...." See the release announcement for a full list of changes and enhancements. Download (MD5): area51...i386.disk1.iso (3,858MB), area51...x86_64.disk1.iso (4,172MB).
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2006-09-26 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2.1 |
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Rocks Cluster Distribution has been updated to version 4.2.1: "Rocks v4.2.1 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. This is a maintenance release to Rocks v4.2 which contains bug fixes and usability enhancements." New features in this version include the following: "During Roll selection, the disk ID for CD/DVD-based rolls is displayed under the 'Selected Rolls'; during a front-end install, the IP settings that are provided on the first text-based screen are used as defaults for the graphical screens; minimum memory requirement for compute nodes has been reduced to 512 MB; Bio Roll: Glimmer source and GROMACS v3.3.1 is added and compiled with MPICH support." More details can be found in the release announcement. For download, please visit the project's downloads page for links to ISO images and specialist cluster "rolls". The installation instructions are available here.
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2006-08-11 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2 |
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Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2, code name "Hallasan", has been released: "Rocks v4.2 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. This release supports latest multi-core CPUs from AMD and Intel (a.k.a., Woodcrest)." Among the many new features and enhancements are: several new tools for Bioinformatics computation; graphical installer; restore roll for saving and restoring user account and cluster node information; based on CentOS 4.3 and all updates as of August 6; updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 8; many bug fixes. Read the full release announcement for further information. The core operating system and the various "rolls" are available from the download page; see the Rocks Users Guide for installation instructions.
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2006-06-28 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2 Beta |
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A beta release of the CentOS-based Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2 is available for testing. Among the new features and enhancements are: "Beta release of bioinformatics roll - the Bio roll contains tools and utilities to facilitate bioinformatics computation; graphical installer; OS roll based on CentOS 4.3 and all updates as of June 28 2006; updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 8; included tentakel as a cluster-fork alternative; auto-partitioning now creates a /var file system to protect the front-end against services that log many messages and fill up the root file system." Read the release announcement for full details. The new beta release of Rocks Cluster distribution is available for both the i386 and x86_64 architectures and can be downloaded from the project's FTP server.
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2005-10-21 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 |
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Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 has been released: "Rocks v4.1 is released for i386, x86_64 and ia64 CPU architectures. New Features: the Avalanche Installer uses a BitTorrent tracker to support highly-scalable concurrent compute node installation; creation of the 'Rocks Foundation Class'; new blog-based front-end homepage. Enhancements: OS Roll based on CentOS release 4/update 2 and all updates as of October 18 2005; Updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 6; 'rocks-mirror' modified to build Roll CD sets for any RPM repository; updated MyPhpAdmin to address security issues...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. The ISO images of Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 are available from the project's download page.
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2005-09-24 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster 4.1 Beta |
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The first beta of Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 has been released: "Rocks 4.1 Beta is released. New Features: the Avalanche Installer uses a BitTorrent tracker to support highly-scalable concurrent compute node installation; the Avalanche Installer drastically reduces the pressure on the frontend when many compute nodes are concurrently installed; creation of the "Rocks Foundation Class"; new blog-based frontend homepage. Enhancements: OS Roll based on CentOS release 4/update 1 and all updates as of September 21 2005; updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 6; 'rocks-mirror' modified to build Roll CD sets for any RPM repository...." More details can be found in the release notes. The new release, consisting of a "Rocks Boot Roll" ISO image and two "OS Rolls" ISO images, are available for download for both the i386 and x86_64 architectures.
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2005-06-08 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.0.0 |
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A new version of Rocks Cluster Distribution has been released: "Rocks 4.0.0 (Whitney) is now released. This release supports the following CPUs: Athlon, Itanium, Nocona (EM64T), Opteron, and Pentium. Everything is CD-based, unless otherwise specified (Jumbo Rolls are DVD). If you are building a compute cluster, grid endpoint, or a visualization cluster please choose from our following selection...." Read the release announcement for detailed product information and download links. Rocks Cluster is a Red Hat/CentOS-based distribution that allows easy building of Linux cluster computers.
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2005-03-31 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster 4.0.0 Beta |
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A new development version of Rocks Cluster Distribution has been released for testing: "The beta for Rocks 4.0.0 is released for i386 and for x86_64. Installation procedure: 1. Boot the frontend with the base+ganglia+hpc+kernel roll. 2. When the install process asks for rolls, add the base+ganglia+hpc+kernel and ALL the CentOS CDs. 3. Answer the installation screens. 4. After all the frontend installs, run 'insert-ethers'. ... All comments are welcome - please send feedback regarding the beta to npaci-rocks-discussion at sdsc.edu." See the release announcement for further information and download links. The base CD image can be downloaded from here: base+ganglia+hpc+kernel-31.03.2005-10.05.i386.disk1.iso (413MB).
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2004-10-21 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster 3.3.0 |
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A new version of the Rocks Cluster distribution has been released: "Rocks 3.3.0 released. If you are building a compute cluster, grid endpoint, or a visualization cluster please choose from our following selection. For example, to build a Pentium compute cluster you must download the base, hpc+kernel, and area51+java+sge rolls. If you wish to build something not on the menu you must choose from our a la carte selection, but make sure to download the required base, hpc, and kernel rolls." See the release announcement with download links for information on which files to download to suit your environment.
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2004-05-22 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster 3.2.0 |
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The Rocks Cluster Distribution project has released Rocks 3.2.0: "Rocks 3.2.0, code named Shasta, is released for Pentium/Athlon, Opteron, and Itanium. This release includes the latest updates from Red Hat (as of May 18th), bug fixes, refreshed rolls and the addition of two new rolls for Pentium/Athlon clusters. The 'Area51 Roll' contains system integrity tools: tripwire and chkrootkit. The 'Condor Roll' adds the distributed high-throughput feature from the Condor project. To download the ISO images for the Rocks Base and Rolls, see Downloads. For more details regarding the release, see the Release Notes." Read the full announcement on the distribution's home page. Download (i386): rocks-disk1-3.2.0.i386.iso (661MB) and roll-hpc-3.2.0-0.i386.iso (282MB).
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2004-04-11 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster 3.2.0 Beta |
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Rocks Cluster is a new distribution on our list, although by no means a new project, the development of which started back in 2001. As the name suggest, this is a specialist distribution for building clusters. The current stable version is 3.1.0, but a beta version of Rocks Cluster 3.2.0 was released a few days ago: "Rocks 3.2.0 Beta is released into the wild. This beta release includes: support for x86, IA64, Opteron; latest RHEL kernel; 411 startup failure is fixed; ability to network install frontend machines; kickstart graph is now in living color; Postfix replaces Sendmail; ext3 is default filesystem; SGE is upgraded for official Opteron support; SGE qrsh works; several other minor fixes." The release announcement includes download links for x86, ia64 and x86_64 (Opteron) architectures. Get the base ISO for x86 from here: rocks.iso (660MB).
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