Here I was going to describe the rough configuration of my four node cluster - however, based on questions I’ve gotten, there was a more pressing issue to address first. First let me just re-iterate why I run the cluster at all: I want a neat little compute cluster at home from which I can serve this web site, my e-mail plus whatever other services I want for hobby purposes at home (like a git repo, file services etc.

A while back, as part of my ever so slightly over-engineered noise reduction effort on the basement cluster, a simple fan manager daemon was developed. Emphasis was on simplicity and small footprint. Now some weeks down the road, looking at systemctl status fanman output, I cannot help but notice that, accumulated, the fan controller software does burn quite some cycles on the CPU. A full 38 minutes and change, from running just around two and a half weeks.

This may lead to accusations of over-engineering, but I solved a problem and had fun while doing so. The four node cluster runs two different types of 5V fan, two fans are fairly quiet but clearly noticeable and two are somewhat loud. All in all the cluster is too loud, and noise aside, it’s silly to be running fans at full tilt when there is no need for cooling. The plan The VisionFive2 board has a 5V fan header, but no electronics behind it to allow regulating (or even switching on/off) the fan.

Building a chassis for a 19" 1U four node cluster of StarFive VisionFive2 boards. Getting the boards set up with a clean Debian Trixie install on on-board NVME storage was treated in the previous post. Now we need to create an enclosure that will fit four of these boards in a single unit of a shallow 19" wall-mounted rack. Why the dimensions? First of all, organising computers and switches and the like in a 19" rack is just convenient.