genders

Genders is a static cluster configuration database used for cluster configuration management. It is used by a variety of tools and scripts for management of large clusters. The genders database is accessed by every node in a cluster, either through a networked file system or by replicating the database on every node of the cluster. The database describes the layout and configuration of the cluster so that tools and scripts can sense the variations of cluster nodes. By abstracting this information into a plain text file, it becomes possible to change the configuration of a cluster by modifying only one file.