[StarCluster] making a leaner AMI

[Justin Riley]

On 10/28/10 3:00 PM, Dan Tenenbaum wrote:
> (I realize I may need to change the StarCluster code so it doesn't try 
> and launch/set up SunGrid Engine on the cluster nodes. I would like to 
> avoid having to fork, though--could this maybe be made into a config 
> option? I could send you a patch...)

I've added a disable_queue config option and --disable-queue flag to the 
github code. See this post for usage:

http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/starcluster/2010-December/000578.html

> BTW, another suggestion for improving startup time would be to 
> increase the frequency with which StarCluster polls to see if the 
> instances have started up. It currently polls every 60 seconds. 
> Hopefully with the leanest possible AMI, we could maybe poll every 15 
> seconds. Could I submit another patch for this? ;)

I've also added a refresh_interval option to the config and a 
--refresh-interval flag to the 'start' command in the github code. This 
allows you to set the refresh interval at the command line:

$ starcluster start --refresh-interval=15 mycluster

Or you can set the refresh interval once and for all in the global 
section of the config:

[global]
...
# specified in seconds (default: 30)
refresh_interval = 15

~Justin