Some basic Questions...

[Jeff Squyres]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2000, Nacho Ruiz wrote:

> - It makes sense to have on each node PVM/MPI installed or is better
> to have it via NFS?

The LAM/MPI FAQ talks about this.  See the section "Typical Setup of LAM",
and the questions "How should I setup LAM for multiple users?", "Do I need
a common filesystems on all my nodes?", and "What directory do I install
LAM to?"

These questions are obviously LAM-specific, but apply to most current
parallel run-time systems.

> - RSH o SSH for the cluster?

There are arguments both ways; advantages and disadvantages to each.  
It's almost a religious debate.  You pretty much have to decide what it
right for your site.

>    Nobody has acces to the nodes machines, in theory. The only one
> that could acces them is the root for administration reasons... and if
> somebody get the root password, why care about the 486 without
> internet acces?

This is a Very Bad position to take.  A firewall is *not* complete
protection; it is only one level in a protection system.  Your 486 nodes
are only as safe as your gateway machine.

Just my $0.02.

{+} Jeff Squyres
{+} squyres at cse.nd.edu
{+} Perpetual Obsessive Notre Dame Student Craving Utter Madness
{+} "I came to ND for 4 years and ended up staying for a decade"