File ownership & permission on compute nodes (Scyld)

[Tony Stocker]

All,

Here's the background:
I'm using the 'freebie' version of Scyld [27bz-8].  We are running several 
tests on our cluster comparing performance of our algorithms versus some 
heavy metal platforms.  When running very I/O intensive algorithms over NFS 
we see major performance hits, obviously.  So we decided to create 
directories on the compute nodes to copy over the input files and run the 
algorithms outputting to compute node's local disk as well.  We then plan to 
copy off the output, our assumption is that this should be the performance 
we see over NFS.

Here's the problem:
I can create the directories (as root) just fine.  But for some reason I can 
not get the file/directory ownership to read the passwd file.  It appears to 
read the group file fine.  What I did was copy over /etc/passwd and 
/etc/group to the compute nodes' /etc directory.  While this works for group 
ownership, it does not for user.  I've tried copying over /etc/shadow, and 
rebooting the compute nodes but that doesn't seem to address the problem.  
It's as if it's not bothering to look at the passwd file at all.

Here's the plea for help:
Help! :-)

Seriously, if someone could tell me what I might need to copy over to make 
the passwd file read and applied so that file ownerships and permissions can 
be maintained - that would be great!

Thanks!
-Tony



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