From s.hogg@ic.ac.uk Mon, 31 May 1999 16:48:52 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 16:48:52 -0400 From: Simon Hogg s.hogg@ic.ac.uk Subject: Two stupid ip questions; Just two quick questions for now - I only have accesss to email at the moment (well for a couple of days, so ...) 1) what are the reserved ip numbers for the network 'internal' to the beowulf? (I *thought* it was 192.x.x.x but I just want to check? 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is this in an rfc or something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) Thanks. -- Simon Hogg, Research Assistant, RCA/V&A Conservation Course, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, SW7 2RL, UK Tel. +44 (0)171 938 8685 Fax. +44 (0)171 938 8661 Mobile: +44 (0)7788 870 550 Email: s.hogg@vam.ac.uk s.hogg@ic.ac.uk From chris.corney@safeway.com Mon, 31 May 1999 16:58:15 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 16:58:15 -0400 From: Chris Corney chris.corney@safeway.com Subject: seti @ home on clusters? This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------19B8081DFB81D32E820A0E54 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Isn't that what the Distributed.net client and proxy do? A "normal" beowulf would be isolated from the rest of the network world, while the head runs the proxy, fetching keys as needed to distribute to nodes as they complete their previous key. I think this is a perfect example of a course grained task. It does not, however, test network performance at all as the keys are small and transmission times are minimal compared to the time it takes to process the key. chris.corney@safeway.com Computer Analyst Canada Safeway Ltd. The opinions expressed are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of the company, blah, blah, blah. Mark E Drummond wrote: > Felix Rauch wrote: > > > > It's easy to use the SETI@home client on the cluster: Just start one > > process per CPU on each machine... > > I was going to do the same for my Distributed.net code cracking efforts. > I currently employ many workstations and servers but when I build my > Beowulf in the fall I'll run the rc5des client on it. The only thing is, > this is not a demonstration of the "network-parallel" features of > Beowulf processing. Running a copy of the client on each machine has > nothing to do with the Beowulf itself and could be done on any set of > workstations. > > What would be interesting would be to have Distributed.net/SETI@Home > clients that were rewritten using PVM/MPI or whatever so that the > console node would (in the Distributed.net case) grab some keys and > distribute them among the clients. > > -- > _________________________________________________________________ > Mark E Drummond Royal Military College of Canada > drummond-m@rmc.ca Computing Services > Linux Uber Alles perl || die --------------19B8081DFB81D32E820A0E54 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name=chris.corney.vcf Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Chris Corney Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=chris.corney.vcf begin:vcard n:Corney;Christopher tel;pager:(800)749-4974 tel;fax:(604)806-5404 tel;work:(604)806-5870 x-mozilla-html:TRUE org:Canada Safeway Ltd.;Software Company version:2.1 email;internet:chris.corney@safeway.com title:Computer Analyst adr;quoted-printable:;;Suite 500=0D=0A1185 West Georgia Street=0D=0A;Vancouver;British Columbia;;Canada fn:Christopher Corney end:vcard --------------19B8081DFB81D32E820A0E54-- From billf@inxpress.net Mon, 31 May 1999 18:01:27 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 18:01:27 -0400 From: Bill Fredrickson billf@inxpress.net Subject: SCSI as a network interface Thanks all for the replies. Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions. I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. When I was reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So, not being a SCSI expret, I posted the message in hopes that maybe this might be a possible way of doing it. I was hoping to avoid the adtional cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. Any thoughts, and/or suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance. Bill From morrone@wen.capsl.udel.edu Mon, 31 May 1999 18:54:30 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 18:54:30 -0400 From: Christopher J. Morrone morrone@wen.capsl.udel.edu Subject: Two stupid ip questions; On Mon, 31 May 1999, Simon Hogg wrote: > Just two quick questions for now - I only have accesss to email at the > moment (well for a couple of days, so ...) > > 1) what are the reserved ip numbers for the network 'internal' to the > beowulf? (I *thought* it was 192.x.x.x but I just want to check? The 192 one is 192.168.0.0, and is the most common. Other posibilities are 10.0.0.0 and 172.16.0.0. > 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is this in an rfc or > something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. > http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) Looks like it is the decimal representation of the address, but I'm just guessing... From mdavis@kieser.net Mon, 31 May 1999 19:25:27 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 19:25:27 -0400 From: mdavis@kieser.net mdavis@kieser.net Subject: Two stupid ip questions; Hi, As far as I know, it's 10.x.x.x; 192.x.x.x 224.x.x.x ; I could be wrong about the 224. Anyway, as for the second question, I haven't really seen it being used that way, except in text books! Basically an IP address is divided into 4 numbers, seperated by the dots... if you convert these numbers to hex individually, concatenate them and then convert them back from hex, you'll get your number! Obviously you can reverse this to get back to the original ip address. So, 216.33.20.4 = D8 21 14 04 (in HEX) = 3626046468 I used the windoze calulator. Mike Davis mdavis@kieser.net Date sent: Mon, 31 May 1999 21:47:15 +0100 To: beowulf@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov From: Simon Hogg Subject: Two stupid ip questions; > Just two quick questions for now - I only have accesss to email at the > moment (well for a couple of days, so ...) > > 1) what are the reserved ip numbers for the network 'internal' to the > beowulf? (I *thought* it was 192.x.x.x but I just want to check? > > 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is this in an rfc or > something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. > http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) > > Thanks. > > > > -- Simon Hogg, Research Assistant, > RCA/V&A Conservation Course, > Victoria and Albert Museum, > London, SW7 2RL, UK > Tel. +44 (0)171 938 8685 > Fax. +44 (0)171 938 8661 > Mobile: +44 (0)7788 870 550 > Email: s.hogg@vam.ac.uk s.hogg@ic.ac.uk From admin@cersa.admu.edu.ph Mon, 31 May 1999 21:45:51 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 21:45:51 -0400 From: William Emmanuel S. Yu admin@cersa.admu.edu.ph Subject: were can i find pvmpovray samples do you know were i can find pvmpovray samples? i would like to try out some for the demo. i also have a problem with access because i only have email access for now. if anyone i kind enough to email the samples to me i would highly appreciate it. william.s.yu@ieee.org From rob@varesearch.com Mon, 31 May 1999 22:47:02 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 22:47:02 -0400 From: Rob Walker rob@varesearch.com Subject: were can i find pvmpovray samples there are a ton of povray sample traces which come with the povray sources. look for an examples directory, iirc. also, you will love to look at the stuff found at the internet ray tracing competition. rob >>>>> On Tue, 1 Jun 1999 08:38:49 +0800 (PHT), "William Emmanuel S. Yu" said: William> do you know were i can find pvmpovray samples? William> i would like to try out some for the demo. i also have a problem with William> access because i only have email access for now. if anyone i kind enough William> to email the samples to me i would highly appreciate it. William> william.s.yu@ieee.org -- Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS) technology, which is used by over 20 companies in over 50 different products, is the de facto worldwide standard for data transmission across both public and private networks. -cisco Marketing, 1994 From sct@lanl.gov Mon, 31 May 1999 22:57:27 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 22:57:27 -0400 From: sct sct@lanl.gov Subject: I thought this was an extreme linux list Nate Downes wrote: > William Emmanuel S. Yu wrote: > > > > > > How possible would it be to set up a Linux hypercube over a firewire > > > > network? > > > > > i am a newbie when it comes to other networking protocol aside from atm > > and ethernet. i thought that firewire was ieee640 or something that is the > > bus for the gameboy. are there nics that support firewire? > > No, Firewire is IEEE1394, and it was originally designed as a > replacement for SCSI by Apple. It, like SCSI, can be used as a network > interface. And no, the gameboy isn't firewire. > > No NIC cards support IEEE1394, since it is designed to be built into a > motherboard. > > I wouldn't call SCSI a network interface. It's really a channel (I/O) interface. Calling it a network interface implies that there are SCSI switches and a more robust addressing scheme instead of the 7 addresses that SCSI supports. Network interfaces are such things as Ethernet, FDDI, ATM, etc. From ulairi@ecs.csun.edu Mon, 31 May 1999 22:57:39 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 22:57:39 -0400 From: Ulairi ulairi@ecs.csun.edu Subject: Two stupid ip questions; -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 1: Check out RFC 1918 2: It's what is known the LONG IP notation, your browser can accept it. | | Just two quick questions for now - I only have accesss to email at the | moment (well for a couple of days, so ...) | | 1) what are the reserved ip numbers for the network 'internal' to the | beowulf? (I *thought* it was 192.x.x.x but I just want to check? | | 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is this in an rfc or | something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. | http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) | -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.0.2i iQA/AwUBN1NLYFR8Yh25VFLEEQLSgwCfakNBktSDY2Qm0ByG7VKIsXMUkH0AnRbe r75E99ft+jftZXtK6z0gyRzb =6rku -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From bobby@fapenet.org Mon, 31 May 1999 23:21:23 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 23:21:23 -0400 From: Robert S. Raagas bobby@fapenet.org Subject: Beowulf w/o Extreme Linux CD from Redhat Hi, Would it be possible to create a Beowulf Cluster without the separate package of Extreme Linux from Redhat, using only Redhat 5.2 or 6.0? :) I am new to Linux and Beowulf clusters, but i have a Linux box at the office and want to have a demo Beowulf Cluster, i've been reading a lot of website about Beowulf so far. Btw, i'm from the Phillippines, a province away from Manila (our Capital, which will held our first Linux Conference this coming June 9-11), coz it's hard to find a Extreme Linux CD, i only have the RH CD Distribution 5.2 and 6.0 which i have downloaded from the net. Thanks. Bobby From casioqv@mail.geocities.com Mon, 31 May 1999 23:30:27 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 23:30:27 -0400 From: Casioqv casioqv@mail.geocities.com Subject: standard apps in paralell If I run a non-beowulf optimized program on one computer on a cluster I know that it will not be run across the entire cluster and that it will only run on one node. Will it always run on the node it was loaded on? Can I still take advantage of a cluster if I have 8 nodes and a programs open? From ronelson@vt.edu Mon, 31 May 1999 23:31:23 -0400 Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 23:31:23 -0400 From: Rob Nelson ronelson@vt.edu Subject: Two stupid ip questions; >> 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is this in an rfc or >> something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. >> http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) Good thing I learned about radix stuff in college... 216.33.20.4 is a number of a 256 radix, if I have my terminology right. The periods are separators of each digit. Take each digit starting at the right and multiply it by 256^(number of digits from the right), starting with 0. So, you get 216 * 256^3 + 33 * 256^2 + 20 * 256^1 + 4 * 256^0 = 3626046468 Why, you ask, would anyone give their IP like that? Certain versions of IE4 would take any IP given in decimal form as in the intranet zone, therefore bypassing most security. Rob Nelson ronelson@vt.edu From admin@cersa.admu.edu.ph Tue, 1 Jun 1999 01:56:33 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 01:56:33 -0400 From: William Emmanuel S. Yu admin@cersa.admu.edu.ph Subject: were can i find pvmpovray samples On Mon, 31 May 1999, Rob Walker wrote: > > there are a ton of povray sample traces which come with the povray > sources. look for an examples directory, iirc. > in my distribution there is no examples directory. > also, you will love to look at the stuff found at the internet ray > tracing competition. > i have no web access right now so could you just mail me a sample. in your opinion is cool. william.s.yu@ieee.org > rob > > >>>>> On Tue, 1 Jun 1999 08:38:49 +0800 (PHT), "William Emmanuel S. Yu" said: > > William> do you know were i can find pvmpovray samples? > > William> i would like to try out some for the demo. i also have a problem with > William> access because i only have email access for now. if anyone i kind enough > William> to email the samples to me i would highly appreciate it. > > William> william.s.yu@ieee.org > > > -- > Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS) technology, which is used > by over 20 companies in over 50 different products, is the de facto > worldwide standard for data transmission across both public and > private networks. -cisco Marketing, 1994 > From rauch@inf.ethz.ch Tue, 1 Jun 1999 02:48:54 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 02:48:54 -0400 From: Felix Rauch rauch@inf.ethz.ch Subject: Two stupid ip questions; On Mon, 31 May 1999 mdavis@kieser.net wrote: > As far as I know, it's 10.x.x.x; 192.x.x.x 224.x.x.x ; I could be > wrong about the 224. 224.x.x.x are multicast addresses, AFAIK. - Felix -- Felix Rauch | Email: rauch@inf.ethz.ch Institute for Computer Systems | Homepage: http://www.cs.inf.ethz.ch/~rauch/ ETH Zentrum / RZ H15 | Phone: ++41 1 632 7489 CH - 8092 Zuerich / Switzerland | Fax: ++41 1 632 1307 From revans@e-z.net Tue, 1 Jun 1999 03:46:36 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 03:46:36 -0400 From: Russell Evans revans@e-z.net Subject: Beowulf w/o Extreme Linux CD from Redhat You may wish to look at the SuSE distibution. ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/6.1/suse/beo1/ contains the Beowulf packages that are part of the standard 6.1 distribution. Thank you Russell > coz it's hard to find a Extreme Linux CD, i only have > the RH CD > Distribution 5.2 and 6.0 which i have downloaded from the net. > > Thanks. > > Bobby > > From admin@cersa.admu.edu.ph Tue, 1 Jun 1999 03:51:10 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 03:51:10 -0400 From: William Emmanuel S. Yu admin@cersa.admu.edu.ph Subject: can someone email me six more povray files for the demo can someone email me the povray files for the beowulf demo? please.. i need them and i do not have web access. please. and if you guys have some urls can you include them na rin. tnx for all your help. william.s.yu@ieee.org From JesseP@europe.stortek.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 04:51:53 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 04:51:53 -0400 From: Jessen, Per JesseP@europe.stortek.com Subject: Beowulf w/o Extreme Linux CD from Redhat > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert S. Raagas [mailto:bobby@fapenet.org] > Sent: 13 April 1999 04:33 [snip] > Would it be possible to create a Beowulf Cluster without the separate > package of Extreme Linux from Redhat, using only Redhat 5.2 > or 6.0? :) I am Certainly. In fact, don't use the Extreme-Linux software. There is no or little need for it. If you do need some of e.g. the kernel extensions it provides, it is far better getting the most recent versions of the 'net. > new to Linux and Beowulf clusters, but i have a Linux box at the office > and want to have a demo Beowulf Cluster, i've been reading a lot of website > about Beowulf so far. Btw, i'm from the Phillippines, a province away from > Manila (our Capital, which will held our first Linux Conference this coming > June 9-11), coz it's hard to find a Extreme Linux CD, i only have the RH CD > Distribution 5.2 and 6.0 which i have downloaded from the net. Good luck with your Beowulf - what you have should do just fine. regards, Per Jessen, ENIDAN Technologies, LOndon From a.saha@acm.org Tue, 1 Jun 1999 05:21:41 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 05:21:41 -0400 From: a.saha@acm.org a.saha@acm.org Subject: Two stupid ip questions; Felix Rauch writes: > On Mon, 31 May 1999 mdavis@kieser.net wrote: > > As far as I know, it's 10.x.x.x; 192.x.x.x 224.x.x.x ; I could be > > wrong about the 224. > > 224.x.x.x are multicast addresses, AFAIK. > > - Felix and it is 192.168.x.x since all other addresses are valid IPs. Also, 172.16.x.x ought to be included in the non-routable IP list. -amlan -- Amlan Saha as@cwc.nus.edu.sg Mobile Computing and Protocols Group Center for Wireless Comms, 20 Science Park Rd, Singapore 117674 +65.8709.265 (Tel) +65.779.5441 (Fax) **I speak only for myself** From JesseP@europe.stortek.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 05:52:20 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 05:52:20 -0400 From: Jessen, Per JesseP@europe.stortek.com Subject: two books with the same ISBN# ? (was RE: Second Puzzle Piece? ) > -----Original Message----- > From: Putchong Uthayopas [mailto:uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov] > Sent: 28 May 1999 16:28 [snip] > BARRY WILKINSON AND MICHAEL ALLEN, Parallel > Programming Techniques and Applications Using > Networked Workstations and Parallel Computers, Prentice > Hall, Upper Saddle River, 1999, ISBN 0-13-671710-1. > [snip] Hmmm, I just did a search at www.waterstones.co.uk, and found a title by the same authors called 'Parallel Computing' - with the quoted ISBN number. At Waterstones, it is listed as having been published in Aug1998. At amazon.co.uk it says Sep1998, but same ISBN-number. If we are talking about a NEW book, but with misqouted ISBN I'd be interested. A search on the title as quoted returns nothing. --- pause Hmmm, at amazon.com it is listed with the title as above, but still published Aug1998. Same ISBN. Ah, and if you're now thinking of buying it, you might want to know that amazon.com is asking USD52 while amazon.co.uk is merely asking GBP19.95. Apparently the same book, but with two different titles. Odd. regards, Per Jessen, ENIDAN Technologies, London From s.hogg@ic.ac.uk Tue, 1 Jun 1999 06:58:08 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 06:58:08 -0400 From: Simon Hogg s.hogg@ic.ac.uk Subject: Two stupid ip questions; >Why, you ask, would anyone give their IP like that? Certain versions of IE4 >would take any IP given in decimal form as in the intranet zone, therefore >bypassing most security. That explains why the only place I've seen it is in spam messages. -- Simon Hogg, Research Assistant, RCA/V&A Conservation Course, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, SW7 2RL, UK Tel. +44 (0)171 938 8685 Fax. +44 (0)171 938 8661 Mobile: +44 (0)7808 587 647 Email: s.hogg@vam.ac.uk s.hogg@ic.ac.uk From deadline@plogic.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 07:43:34 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 07:43:34 -0400 From: Douglas Eadline deadline@plogic.com Subject: Beowulf mailing list FAQ v2 Can some one tell me the URL of the FAQ? I just searched my email records and can not find it. Thanks Doug ------------------------------------------------------------------- Paralogic, Inc. | PEAK | Voice:+610.861.6960 115 Research Drive | PARALLEL | Fax:+610.861.8247 Bethlehem, PA 18017 USA | PERFORMANCE | http://www.plogic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- From alvin@iplink.net Tue, 1 Jun 1999 07:44:44 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 07:44:44 -0400 From: Alvin Starr alvin@iplink.net Subject: I thought this was an extreme linux list On Mon, 31 May 1999, sct wrote: > I wouldn't call SCSI a network interface. It's really a channel (I/O) > interface. Calling it a network interface implies that there are SCSI switches > and a more robust addressing scheme instead of the 7 addresses that SCSI > supports. Network interfaces are such things as Ethernet, FDDI, ATM, etc. A network can be thought of as more than one computer connected together over some medium. That medium could be SCSI. the newer versions of SCSI now support 16 devices and there are some devices that will break LUN's into seperate scsi addresses so there is to some extent the equivilant of switches. At 80Mbytes/sec SCSI can make for a fast link between a small number of systems and with a low overhead protocol it could help solve some of the problems involved in trying to share memory across a network. Alvin Starr || voice: (416)585-9971 Interlink Connectivity || fax: (416)585-9974 alvin@iplink.net || From ajl4@eecs.lehigh.edu Tue, 1 Jun 1999 08:41:29 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 08:41:29 -0400 From: Adam Lazur ajl4@eecs.lehigh.edu Subject: standard apps in paralell Casioqv (casioqv@mail.geocities.com) said: > If I run a non-beowulf optimized program on one computer on a cluster I > know that it will not be run across the entire cluster and that it will > only run on one node. Will it always run on the node it was loaded on? > Can I still take advantage of a cluster if I have 8 nodes and a programs > open? You could take a look at MOSIX. It is a set of kernel mods and utilities that will transparently balance the load across all of the nodes on your cluster. Check out more info about MOSIX at http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/mosix/ HTH .adam -- Adam Lazur - Computer Engineering Undergrad - Lehigh University icq# 3354423 - http://www.lehigh.edu/~ajl4 "Samba is a huge win for these beleaguered techies; it enables open-source fans to stealth their Linux boxes so they look like Microsoft servers that somehow miraculously fail to suck." From deadline@plogic.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:24:03 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:24:03 -0400 From: Douglas Eadline deadline@plogic.com Subject: Beowulf w/o Extreme Linux CD from Redhat On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Robert S. Raagas wrote: > Hi, > > Would it be possible to create a Beowulf Cluster without the separate > package of Extreme Linux from Redhat, using only Redhat 5.2 or 6.0? :) I am Yes. DO NOT USE THE EXTREME LINUX CD! > new to Linux and Beowulf clusters, but i have a Linux box at the office > and want to have a demo Beowulf Cluster, i've been reading a lot of website > about Beowulf so far. Btw, i'm from the Phillippines, a province away from > Manila (our Capital, which will held our first Linux Conference this coming > June 9-11), coz it's hard to find a Extreme Linux CD, i only have the RH CD > Distribution 5.2 and 6.0 which i have downloaded from the net. See: http://www.xtreme-machines.com/x-cluster-qs.html http://pobox.com/~kragen/beowulf-faq.txt Doug ------------------------------------------------------------------- Paralogic, Inc. | PEAK | Voice:+610.861.6960 115 Research Drive | PARALLEL | Fax:+610.861.8247 Bethlehem, PA 18017 USA | PERFORMANCE | http://www.plogic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- From Christopher.Bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:23:44 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:23:44 -0400 From: Bohn Christopher A Capt AFRL/IFSD Christopher.Bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Subject: Cox report on Chinese spy activities and Beowulf > off-topic, so I'll make it short - I am under the impression > that neither > Pakistan nor India have a delivery-mechanism for those nuclear bombs ? > So perhaps they're not quite on the brink of a nuclear > exchange. One can > always hope (or pray, as rgb suggests). The Indians, at least, have been testing sounding rockets for scientific research. The leap from sounding rockets to SRBMs is only azimuth. Take care, cb > -----Original Message----- > From: Jessen, Per [mailto:JesseP@europe.stortek.com] > Sent: Friday, May 28, 1999 4:04 AM > To: 'Robert G. Brown' > Cc: 'beowulf' > Subject: RE: Cox report on Chinese spy activities and Beowulf > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Robert G. Brown [mailto:rgb@phy.duke.edu] > > Sent: 28 May 1999 06:16 > [snip] > > > > (Speaking of which, let us pray for the Indians and > Pakistanis who are > > about to die in the world's second nuclear war...and who > didn't steal > > any codes or misuse any controlled computers to build the > devices that > > they will use in it). > > rgb > > Robert G. Brown > > off-topic, so I'll make it short - I am under the impression > that neither > Pakistan nor India have a delivery-mechanism for those nuclear bombs ? > So perhaps they're not quite on the brink of a nuclear > exchange. One can > always hope (or pray, as rgb suggests). > > > regards, > Per Jessen > ENIDAN Technologies, London > From roche@ibs.fr Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:51:53 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:51:53 -0400 From: Olivier Roche roche@ibs.fr Subject: Superstck 2 switch and channel bonding Hi, I want to use channel bonding in my cluster but i didn't find how to configure my switch (a 3com superstack 2 switch 3300) for VLAN in the user guide ? Maybe someone who have the same switch as mine can give me the solution ? Thanks, Olivier -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Roche Olivier | E-Mail: roche@ibs.fr Laboratoire de Dynamique Moleculaire | Tel.: +33-4.76.88.99.28 Institut de Biologie Structurale | Fax: +33-4.76.88.54.94 41, rue Jules Horowitz | Francais/English 38027 Grenoble Cedex 1, France ---------------------------------------------------------------- From newt@hq.nasa.gov Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:08:04 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:08:04 -0400 From: Daniel Ridge newt@hq.nasa.gov Subject: SCSI as a network interface On Mon, 31 May 1999, Bill Fredrickson wrote: > Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions. > I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of > PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. > I was hoping to avoid the adtional > cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. Three observations: You can't really broadcast on the SCSI bus. for normal ultra/wide SCSI, the max spec cable length is 1.5m. nice SCSI _cables_ can cost more per port than NICs. Cheers, DSKR -------------------------------------+--------------------------------- Daniel Ridge | Computer Crime Division | N A S A email: dridge@hq.nasa.gov | Office of Inspector General tel: 202-358-4308 | 300 E Street SW fax: 202-358-3439 | Washington, D.C. 20546 NexTel: 301-440-9153 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:15:44 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:15:44 -0400 From: Putchong Uthayopas uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Subject: Beowulf mailing list FAQ v2 I put the faq in my web at http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~uthayopa On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Douglas Eadline wrote: > > Can some one tell me the URL of the FAQ? > > I just searched my email records and can not find it. > > Thanks > > Doug > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > Paralogic, Inc. | PEAK | Voice:+610.861.6960 > 115 Research Drive | PARALLEL | Fax:+610.861.8247 > Bethlehem, PA 18017 USA | PERFORMANCE | http://www.plogic.com > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > From uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:19:20 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:19:20 -0400 From: Putchong Uthayopas uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Subject: Beowulf w/o Extreme Linux CD from Redhat HI, Kragen has written a good FAQ for all these questions. I put that Beowulf FAQ V2 on my web at http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~uthayopa. Please read that and it will help save a lot of your time. Putchong. On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Jessen, Per wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Robert S. Raagas [mailto:bobby@fapenet.org] > > Sent: 13 April 1999 04:33 > [snip] > > Would it be possible to create a Beowulf Cluster without the separate > > package of Extreme Linux from Redhat, using only Redhat 5.2 > > or 6.0? :) I am > > Certainly. In fact, don't use the Extreme-Linux software. There is no > or little need for it. > If you do need some of e.g. the kernel extensions it provides, it is > far better getting the most recent versions of the 'net. > > > new to Linux and Beowulf clusters, but i have a Linux box at the office > > and want to have a demo Beowulf Cluster, i've been reading a lot of > website > > about Beowulf so far. Btw, i'm from the Phillippines, a province away from > > Manila (our Capital, which will held our first Linux Conference this > coming > > June 9-11), coz it's hard to find a Extreme Linux CD, i only have the RH > CD > > Distribution 5.2 and 6.0 which i have downloaded from the net. > > Good luck with your Beowulf - what you have should do just fine. > > > regards, > Per Jessen, ENIDAN Technologies, LOndon > From cworley@altatech.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:43:13 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:43:13 -0400 From: Chris Worley cworley@altatech.com Subject: Hard Disk or not Hard Disk Benjamin Forgeau wrote: > I'm wondering if it's reasonnable to build a Linux Cluster without HardDisk but with NFS. Does anyone have ideas about it?? > I find diskless booting: 1) is the only way to debug device drivers (kernel crashes don't lead to corrupt disks). 2) is easier to keep a cluster homogeneous (if all nodes share the same root, with the exception of etc, var, dev, and tmp, which I keep as ram disks). 3) programs load a lot slower (but if everything you're doing runs as daemons, then only your startup time is effected). 4) is less prone to disk failure (if your disks are 2 years MTBF, and you're running 12 nodes, MTBF is now 2 months). 5) is the quickest way to bring new hardware on line (a new node doesn't need to be loaded with software if it boots disklessly). So, Yes, it's very reasonable. But most don't. Chris From Scott_Palmer@Dell.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:52:08 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:52:08 -0400 From: Scott_Palmer@Dell.com Scott_Palmer@Dell.com Subject: SCSI as a network interface The pain of developing such a solution, were it even possible, can't be worth the money unless you really have a personal interest in making this work. There are some SAN-type ideas already out there that might be able to be modified, but, AFAIK, not without some serious mods. Cheap 10/100 NIC's can be found for $30, and 100Mbps switches are running around $50/port. Cat 5 cabling is cheap, assume $5 per box covers the cable and connectors, and you're running well under $100 per node. The price of good SCSI cable and active terminators won't be cheap, and I wouldn't skimp on that part, esp. considering the likely cable length that you're going to have. Don't forget that SCSI stands for (S)ystem (C)an't (S)ee (I)t, imagine the joy of troubleshooting this system with a bad terminator....! Just my two cents. - Scott -----Original Message----- From: Bill Fredrickson [mailto:billf@inxpress.net] Sent: Monday, May 31, 1999 5:01 PM To: extreme-linux@acl.lanl.gov; beowulf@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: SCSI as a network interface Thanks all for the replies. Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions. I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. When I was reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So, not being a SCSI expret, I posted the message in hopes that maybe this might be a possible way of doing it. I was hoping to avoid the adtional cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. Any thoughts, and/or suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance. Bill From joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:54:25 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:54:25 -0400 From: Joel Jaeggli joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu Subject: SCSI as a network interface On Mon, 31 May 1999, Bill Fredrickson wrote: > Thanks all for the replies. > > Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions. > I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of > PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. When I was > reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference > to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So, > not being a SCSI expret, I posted the message in hopes that maybe this > might be a possible way of doing it. > I was hoping to avoid the adtional > cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. scsi controllers, or motherboards with them built-in are more expensive than fast-ethernet. cable lengths are a real problem with fw/uw scsi 1.5-3 meters at most. Single cpu motherboard with built-in scsi is ~$360 (asus p2b-s) vs $120 for a regular p2 board $30 for a fast ethernet card and ~$50 for per port for the switch, and the doesn't include the cost of the scsi interconnect which will likely be significant... > Any thoughts, and/or suggestions would be most appreciated. > > Thanks in advance. > > Bill > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joel Jaeggli joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu Academic User Services consult@gladstone.uoregon.edu PGP Key Fingerprint: 1DE9 8FCA 51FB 4195 B42A 9C32 A30D 121E -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Karl Marx -- Introduction to the critique of Hegel's Philosophy of the right, 1843. From rriendeau@netquotient.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:02:12 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:02:12 -0400 From: Richard Riendeau rriendeau@netquotient.com Subject: SCSI as a network interface For hooking together 4 or less nodes IN ADDITION to ethernet- it could allow for a much closer relationship between those nodes. I.E. Parallel virtual database. Keeping it part of a network stack makes code also applicable to other high bandwidth connections such as ATM or GB Ethernet- instead of having to deal with file base I/O. If you think about the implementations of a socket versus a file handle and they are very similar. -Rich Riendeau Netquotient Consulting Group -----Original Message----- From: Daniel Ridge [SMTP:newt@hq.nasa.gov] Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 10:13 AM To: Bill Fredrickson Cc: extreme-linux@acl.lanl.gov; beowulf@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: SCSI as a network interface On Mon, 31 May 1999, Bill Fredrickson wrote: > Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions. > I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of > PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. > I was hoping to avoid the adtional > cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. Three observations: You can't really broadcast on the SCSI bus. for normal ultra/wide SCSI, the max spec cable length is 1.5m. nice SCSI _cables_ can cost more per port than NICs. Cheers, DSKR -------------------------------------+--------------------------------- Daniel Ridge | Computer Crime Division | N A S A email: dridge@hq.nasa.gov | Office of Inspector General tel: 202-358-4308 | 300 E Street SW fax: 202-358-3439 | Washington, D.C. 20546 NexTel: 301-440-9153 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From daye@ultramip.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:09:53 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:09:53 -0400 From: Melchior daye@ultramip.com Subject: SCSI as a network interface On May 31, 1999 Bill Frederickson said: >Thanks all for the replies. > >Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions. >I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of >PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. When I was >reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference >to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So, >not being a SCSI expret, I posted the message in hopes that maybe this >might be a possible way of doing it. I was hoping to avoid the adtional >cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. > >Any thoughts, and/or suggestions would be most appreciated. > >Thanks in advance. > >Bill SCSI is not really suitable for direct network connection. Each SCSI bus needs to be terminated at both ends within the same machine. Given that network cards are cheap nowadays (hubs too), the path of least resistance is to put in some thirty dollar NE 2000 compatibles. If you don't want to spend (as little as) a hundred dollars per hub, you can use 10 base 2 (coaxial network cable and tees). The downside is that your network will only run at 10 MBs, but it's very cheap and performance will suffice to test many of the concepts in a smaller array. If you decide in the future that you need more bandwidth inside the cluster the cards can be replaced with 10/100 cards and you only have to throw out a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff. D. D. (Daye) Dancer daye@ultramip.com From darie@cab.cnea.gov.ar Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:43:07 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:43:07 -0400 From: Enzo A. Dari darie@cab.cnea.gov.ar Subject: SCSI as a network interface Bill Fredrickson wrote: > ... > I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of > PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. When I was > reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference > to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So, > not being a SCSI expret, I posted the message in hopes that maybe this > might be a possible way of doing it. I was hoping to avoid the adtional > cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. > ... Take a look at: http://www.msoe.edu/~sebern/courses/cs400/team1/final/ -- Regards, O__ Enzo. ,>/ ========================================================()=\()==== Enzo A. Dari | Instituto Balseiro / Centro Atomico Bariloche 8400-San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina | email: darie@cab.cnea.gov.ar Phone: 54-2944-445208, 54-2944-445100 Fax: 54-2944-445299 Web page: http://cabmec1.cnea.gov.ar/darie/darie.htm From eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:46:37 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:46:37 -0400 From: Eugene Leitl eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Subject: Two stupid ip questions; Rob Nelson writes: > >> 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is this in an rfc or > >> something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. > >> http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation http://3626046468/ http://d8211404/ instead of a much more natural hexadecimal one? And won't it be just horrible typing monstrosities like http://1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128.1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128/ in IPv6? Hexadecimal notation would seem definitely more compact here... http://d8211404d8211404d8211404d8211404/ Still, quite difficult to memorize, unless you're an idiot savant, that is. -- Eugene From alan@groucho.med.jhmi.edu Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:03:16 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:03:16 -0400 From: Alan Grossfield alan@groucho.med.jhmi.edu Subject: SCSI as a network interface :On Mon, 31 May 1999, Bill Fredrickson wrote: :> PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. When I was :> reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference :> to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So, :> not being a SCSI expret, I posted the message in hopes that maybe this :> might be a possible way of doing it. There was an article about this in _Linux Journal_ last year: "Encapsulating IP using SCSI" by Ben Elliston, August 1998, pp 60-62. He mentions the existence of RFC 2143. From the article, I get the impression that it's still in the early development stages, but that was almost a year ago. In any event, if you're interested in pursuing this, you might want to talk to the author (bje@cygnus.com). Alan Grossfield -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In | |practice, there is." Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From alvin@iplink.net Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:32:28 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:32:28 -0400 From: Alvin Starr alvin@iplink.net Subject: SCSI as a network interface On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Melchior wrote: > On May 31, 1999 Bill Frederickson said: > > >Thanks all for the replies. > > > >Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions. > >I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of > >PC's each of which already have SCSI controlers in them. When I was > >reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference > >to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So, > >not being a SCSI expret, I posted the message in hopes that maybe this > >might be a possible way of doing it. I was hoping to avoid the adtional > >cost of NIC cards, switches, etc. > > > >Any thoughts, and/or suggestions would be most appreciated. > > > >Thanks in advance. > > > >Bill > > > SCSI is not really suitable for direct network connection. Each SCSI bus > needs to be terminated at both ends within the same machine. Given that > network cards are cheap nowadays (hubs too), the path of least resistance > is to put in some thirty dollar NE 2000 compatibles. If you don't want to > spend > (as little as) a hundred dollars per hub, you can use 10 base 2 (coaxial > network > cable and tees). The downside is that your network will only run at 10 MBs, > but it's very cheap and performance will suffice to test many of the > concepts > in a smaller array. If you decide in the future that you need more > bandwidth > inside the cluster the cards can be replaced with 10/100 cards and you only > have to throw out a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff. SCSI is distance limited but it does not have to be in a single enclosure. With LVD the limiting distance is 12 meters, not unreasonable for a small cluster. With a transfer speed of 80Mbytes/sec you could get the equivilent of 640Mbits/sec. The SCSI protocol even supports host to host communications so the idea of using it as a interconnect system was thought of way back. This is not to say that using SCSI is easy. But it can be used for a high speed link between systems. Alvin Starr || voice: (416)585-9971 Interlink Connectivity || fax: (416)585-9974 alvin@iplink.net || From enano@ceu.fi.udc.es Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:04:21 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:04:21 -0400 From: Miguel Barreiro Paz enano@ceu.fi.udc.es Subject: Superstck 2 switch and channel bonding > I want to use channel bonding in my cluster but i didn't > find how to configure my switch (a 3com superstack 2 > switch 3300) for VLAN in the user guide ? > > Maybe someone who have the same switch as mine can give > me the solution ? At least early SuperStack II 3300 were shipped with a flash version that didn't allow VLANs, and obviously no information regarding VLANs in the documentation (other than "to be provided in future releases" or something alike). Probably manuals weren't changed for later releases, I don't know (all our 3300's had old flash revisions). Newer flash versions are available at 3com.com. Regards, Miguel From mcking@cajunbro.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:20:48 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:20:48 -0400 From: Mark McCoy mcking@cajunbro.com Subject: Two stupid ip questions; Eugene Leitl wrote: > > Rob Nelson writes: > > >> 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is this in an rfc or > > >> something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. > > >> http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) > > Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation > http://3626046468/ > http://d8211404/ > instead of a much more natural hexadecimal one? > > And won't it be just horrible typing monstrosities like > http://1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128.1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128/ > in IPv6? Hexadecimal notation would seem definitely more compact here... > http://d8211404d8211404d8211404d8211404/ > > Still, quite difficult to memorize, unless you're an idiot savant, > that is. > > -- Eugene Ahh, but that's what DNS is for!! -- Mark McCoy -- Proud to run Linux since February 1996 Systems Administrator - Cajun Brothers Technology, llc The views in this message do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer This message posted from snowdog, a 100% MS-free machine. From bob.cat@juno.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:34:40 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:34:40 -0400 From: bob.cat@juno.com bob.cat@juno.com Subject: Two stupid ip questions; The IP addresses of the cluster are irrelevant so long as the head system does not route packets. If you do need to route packets, you will need to use network address translation anyway. The 192.168.x.x and other reserved addresses are there to protect against someone putting a previously private network onto the Internet. Since the net is not supposed to route reserved addresses (SUPPOSED not to), when you plug your 192.168.x.x network in, it just doesn't work for you, rather than possibly screwing up the network whose addresses you used. > http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) >Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation >http://3626046468/ >http://d8211404/ >instead of a much more natural hexadecimal one? There IS no *natural* way to express a number. That notation doesn't work everywhere: WIN98 IE5.0 needs: http://0xd8211404/ or http://0xd8.0x21.0x14.0x04/ And it does like octal (leading 0 indicating octal): http://033010212004 etc., etc... There are many ways to express an IP address, and this is not OS dependent. >And won't it be just horrible typing monstrosities like >http://1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128.1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128/ >in IPv6? Hexadecimal notation would seem definitely more compact >here... >http://d8211404d8211404d8211404d8211404/ > >Still, quite difficult to memorize, unless you're an idiot savant, >that is. Simply convert the address to base(2^128) and you'll just have one number to remember! :ßobÇat.Bat 1.0 >^^< Stop me before I hack again! Echo f b800:0000 fff 32 00 e1 09 6f 0f 62 0f 80 04 61 0f 74 0f 32 00 > Bob.Cat Echo q >> Bob.Cat DeBug < Bob.Cat > Nul @Erase Bob.Cat > Nul From ronelson@vt.edu Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:49:30 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:49:30 -0400 From: Rob Nelson ronelson@vt.edu Subject: Two stupid ip questions; > Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation > http://3626046468/ > http://d8211404/ > instead of a much more natural hexadecimal one? > > Still, quite difficult to memorize, unless you're an idiot savant, > that is. I think you answered your own question :) 2^2 sections of 2^8 possibilities is easier to remember than 4 sections of 8^2 possibilities. Besides, even in base 256, the digits are represented by decimal numbers rather than a mix of alphanumeric. If you want to be fancy, memorize your MAC #'s instead of IPs! Rob Nelson ronelson@vt.edu From eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Tue, 1 Jun 1999 20:04:33 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 20:04:33 -0400 From: Eugene Leitl eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Subject: Two stupid ip questions; bob.cat@juno.com writes: > There IS no *natural* way to express a number. There is: use the smallest possible base. Binary is thus special. Unfortunately, it's very unwieldy for humans, so one has to use something with a more useful widely used base and the least amount of cyphers: hex. > That notation doesn't work everywhere: WIN98 IE5.0 needs: > > http://0xd8211404/ or > > http://0xd8.0x21.0x14.0x04/ > > And it does like octal (leading 0 indicating octal): > > http://033010212004 etc., etc... Octal is nice. I don't like the noise characters to denote the used base, though. http://d8211404/ is way shorter than http://0xd8.0x21.0x14.0x04/ > There are many ways to express an IP address, and this is not OS > dependent. OS doesn't know anything about syntax: applications do. There ought to be a RFC for that. > Simply convert the address to base(2^128) and you'll just have one number > to remember! Unfortunately, the amount of neural tissue devoted to 2^128 representational systems required would undergo instant gravitational collapse, and create one hell of a singularity. From mcking@cajunbro.com Tue, 1 Jun 1999 21:09:41 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 21:09:41 -0400 From: Mark McCoy mcking@cajunbro.com Subject: Network cards availability (again) Hi, Does anyone on the list know where I can get a list of network cards that work under RedHat 6? I know about the 3com and tulip-based cards, but what about any others. RedHat's support site has the hardware list for Intel, but not for Alpha (I've already sent them an e-mail about it). I need this to find out what ISA cards are supported (10Mbit is fine for this card) since we will use up all of our PCI slots in the master machine. Ideally, we want to use all tulip-based cards. If anyone knows where we can get 16 DEC-based cards, _pleeeaaasse_ let me know. I have a lead on some cards made by TrendNet. Does anyone know if these are any good? I have not even heard of them. Thanks in advance! -- Mark McCoy -- Proud to run Linux since February 1996 Systems Administrator - Cajun Brothers Technology, llc The views in this message do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer This message posted from snowdog, a 100% MS-free machine. From hanzl@noel.feld.cvut.cz Wed, 2 Jun 1999 04:33:37 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 04:33:37 -0400 From: Vaclav Hanzl hanzl@noel.feld.cvut.cz Subject: Superstck 2 switch and channel bonding Upgrade to firmware 2.0 solved this. (However web interface is still messy, there are functions available through the telnet interface only. But VLANS can be set using web interface.) Vaclav Hanzl > > I want to use channel bonding in my cluster but i didn't > > find how to configure my switch (a 3com superstack 2 > > switch 3300) for VLAN in the user guide ? > > > > Maybe someone who have the same switch as mine can give > > me the solution ? > > At least early SuperStack II 3300 were shipped with a flash > version that didn't allow VLANs, and obviously no information regarding > VLANs in the documentation (other than "to be provided in future releases" > or something alike). Probably manuals weren't changed for later releases, > I don't know (all our 3300's had old flash revisions). > > Newer flash versions are available at 3com.com. From Christopher.Bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:17:41 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:17:41 -0400 From: Bohn Christopher A Capt AFRL/IFSD Christopher.Bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Subject: Two stupid ip questions; Good day, > Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation The IP address we're used to seeing is 256-radix, which probably was originally represented as hex. e.g., 00.00.00.00 .. FF.FF.FF.FF -- which, of course, is representable in exactly 32 bits (hence, 32-bit IP) So, our 216.33.20.4 maps to D8.21.14.04 Take care, cb *-*-*-*-* *-*-*-*-* Christopher A. Bohn, Capt, USAF || christopher.bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Digital Simulation Systems Engineer || cbohn@computer.org Collaborative Simulation Technology || and Applications Branch || v (937)255-4429x3576 (DSN785) Information Directorate || f (937)255-4511 (DSN785) Wright Research Site || Air Force Research Laboratory || http://members.aol.com/EngrBohn/ http://www.if.afrl.af.mil/div/IFS/IFSD/IFSD_home.html *-*-*-*-* *-*-*-*-* > -----Original Message----- > From: Eugene Leitl [mailto:eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de] > Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 1:42 PM > To: Rob Nelson > Cc: mdavis@kieser.net; Simon Hogg; beowulf@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov > Subject: Re: Two stupid ip questions; > > > Rob Nelson writes: > > >> 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is > this in an rfc or > > >> something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. > > >> http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) > > Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation > http://3626046468/ > http://d8211404/ > instead of a much more natural hexadecimal one? > > And won't it be just horrible typing monstrosities like > http://1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128.1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128/ > in IPv6? Hexadecimal notation would seem definitely more > compact here... > http://d8211404d8211404d8211404d8211404/ > > Still, quite difficult to memorize, unless you're an idiot savant, > that is. > > -- Eugene > From hmm@patmos-international.com Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:36:39 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:36:39 -0400 From: Howard Miller hmm@patmos-international.com Subject: Network cards availability (again) On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Mark McCoy wrote: > I know about the 3com and tulip-based cards, but what about any others. > RedHat's support site has the hardware list for Intel, but not for Alpha (I've > already sent them an e-mail about it). I need this to find out what ISA cards While I've never seen a good list, it is certainly easy enough to get the kernel-src rpm, go into the /usr/src/linux directory and run 'make menuconfig' or 'make xconfig', and browse through untill you find the list of network adapters. There are quite a few (under menuconfig you have to turn on some general-looking options before you can see them all). Also, the make command has to be done as root. > Ideally, we want to use all tulip-based cards. If anyone knows where we May I ask why you feel the tulips are ideal? Hope this helps, Howard Miller From wasshub@spdc.ti.com Wed, 2 Jun 1999 09:08:32 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 09:08:32 -0400 From: Christoph Wasshuber wasshub@spdc.ti.com Subject: two NICs - channel bonding - tradeoff Assuming one has two 100MB NICs per node, is it always the best to channel bond? Or are there applications which run better with two separate communication channels. I could imagine an application where one has two kinds of messages. One kind is a short message but highly 'urgent'. Only after the message was delivered can the calculation continue. For example a synchronization message. And then another type of message which is higher in volume but is not time critical. So one channel would stay most of the time empty to provide the lowest latency for the urgent messages. Where the other channel is stuffed to transmit non-urgent data. Do I gain something with running two separate communication channels? Or do I fool myself? Chris.... From uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Wed, 2 Jun 1999 10:42:18 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 10:42:18 -0400 From: Putchong Uthayopas uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Subject: were can i find pvmpovray samples This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. Send mail to mime@docserver.cac.washington.edu for more info. ---578021369-791095760-928334425=:7903 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi, There is a povray benchmark called POVBENCH. This the one that IBM for their cluster in Linux World Conference in March. the site is http://www.haveland.com/povbench I attached the source povray file with this mail for you. all the result can be found on that web site. We also have test run of data for PVM povray on our SMILE Beowulf Cluster I will put the gif file of the graph at http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~uthayopa Putchong. On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, William Emmanuel S. 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UGH! :) From uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Wed, 2 Jun 1999 10:53:37 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 10:53:37 -0400 From: Putchong Uthayopas uthayopa@mcs.anl.gov Subject: Network cards availability (again) Hi, This is related and not quite related. I have just bought LinkSys Etherfast 10/100 + 56Kmodem PCMCIA card. It work good with Linux but for Redhat 5.2 you must load PCMCIA 3.0.9 since RH5.2 use PCMCIA3.0.5. I install Redhat 6 yesterday, it work right away. The price is also good, the one I have is about 192US$ (Plus tax already). Putchong. PS: Sorry if it not very related, I am just in the mood to post. On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Mark McCoy wrote: > Hi, > Does anyone on the list know where I can get a list of network cards that work > under RedHat 6? > I know about the 3com and tulip-based cards, but what about any others. > RedHat's support site has the hardware list for Intel, but not for Alpha (I've > already sent them an e-mail about it). I need this to find out what ISA cards > are supported (10Mbit is fine for this card) since we will use up all of our PCI > slots in the master machine. > > Ideally, we want to use all tulip-based cards. If anyone knows where we can get > 16 DEC-based cards, _pleeeaaasse_ let me know. I have a lead on some cards made > by TrendNet. Does anyone know if these are any good? I have not even heard of > them. > > Thanks in advance! > -- > Mark McCoy -- Proud to run Linux since February 1996 > Systems Administrator - Cajun Brothers Technology, llc > The views in this message do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer > This message posted from snowdog, a 100% MS-free machine. > From walt@parl.ces.clemson.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1999 11:18:34 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 11:18:34 -0400 From: Walter B. Ligon III walt@parl.ces.clemson.edu Subject: two NICs - channel bonding - tradeoff -------- Now THIS is a really good question. The answer is: no one can answer that for you. Someone should explore that idea to see. Generally I think there are a number of interesting issues in using multiple networks. We have experimented with using one bus and one switched network (back when switches were still pricey). As you have correctly pointed out it will depend a lot on your application. First off you need to find such an application. Then do some experimenting to see how best to use the network resources. Of course, an alternative to using a dedicated network would be to modify the networking code in the kernel to provide priority access to your special traffic - of course getting switches to do that would be much more difficult. This would make a great project for an MS student - mucking around in the kernel to implement this. I wonder if anyone know if the "out of band" feature of TCP/IP (or is it UDP/IP?) actually gives priority to packets at the network device queue, or if it simply provides a seperate buffer for the socket? One idea would be for the kernel to automatically route "out of band" data via a different device. Anyway, lots of issues to explore. Please do, and then let us know what you find. Walt > Assuming one has two 100MB NICs per node, is it > always the best to channel bond? Or are there > applications which run better with two separate > communication channels. > I could imagine an application where one has two > kinds of messages. One kind is a short message but > highly 'urgent'. Only after the message was delivered > can the calculation continue. For example a > synchronization message. And then another type of > message which is higher in volume but is not > time critical. So one channel would stay most of > the time empty to provide the lowest latency for > the urgent messages. Where the other channel is > stuffed to transmit non-urgent data. > > Do I gain something with running two separate > communication channels? Or do I fool myself? > > Chris.... -- Dr. Walter B. Ligon III Associate Professor ECE Department Clemson University From mcking@cajunbro.com Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:09:23 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:09:23 -0400 From: Mark McCoy mcking@cajunbro.com Subject: Network cards availability (again) Mike Menefee wrote: > > > Hi, > > Does anyone on the list know where I can get a list of network cards that > work > > under RedHat 6? > > I know about the 3com and tulip-based cards, but what about any others. > > RedHat's support site has the hardware list for Intel, but not for Alpha > (I've > > already sent them an e-mail about it). I need this to find out what ISA > cards > > are supported (10Mbit is fine for this card) since we will use up all of > our PCI > > slots in the master machine. > > Might do a search on their site.. they have a thing about burying stuff > sometimes.. also, might look for a general compat HOW-TO... (Never tried > sticking Linux on an Alpha system, but I would expect the hardware list to > be close to an Intel..) In general, it is, except for network cards and video cards > > > > > Ideally, we want to use all tulip-based cards. If anyone knows where we > can get > > 16 DEC-based cards, _pleeeaaasse_ let me know. I have a lead on some > cards made > > by TrendNet. Does anyone know if these are any good? I have not even > heard of > > them. > > Hmm.. this might be a bad memory on my part, but I think NetGear's 10BT card > is DEC based... might look into it... They're prolly around $20 a pop now, > and NetGear is Bay Networks, so... > > > Thanks in advance! > > Np. > > MikeM The Netgear cards used to be DEC, now they're some other (FPIC??) manufacturer. -- Mark McCoy -- Proud to run Linux since February 1996 Systems Administrator - Cajun Brothers Technology, llc The views in this message do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer This message posted from snowdog, a 100% MS-free machine. From dhart@indiana.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:51:57 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:51:57 -0400 From: Dave Hart dhart@indiana.edu Subject: PVM or MPI essential to run parallel applications on a Beowulf? I have 32 dual-processor nodes, with MPICH and Portland Group compilers. Is it possible to take advantage of the dual processors, for a 32-process MPI & pgf90 job? -- David Hart http://php.indiana.edu/~dhart Research Computing Support 812-855-2632 University Information Technology Services Indiana University From kragen@pobox.com Wed, 2 Jun 1999 13:14:03 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 13:14:03 -0400 From: Kragen Sitaker kragen@pobox.com Subject: two NICs -- channel bonding -- tradeoff Someone asked: > I wonder if anyone know if the "out of band" feature of TCP/IP (or is > it UDP/IP?) actually gives priority to packets at the network device > queue, or if it simply provides a seperate buffer for the socket? One > idea would be for the kernel to automatically route "out of band" data > via a different device. The "out of band" feature is a feature of the BSD socket interface. On TCP it translates into "urgent data", which is just data in the normal data stream with an 'urgent pointer' pointing to it. Accordingly, 'out of band' data cannot usefully be routed through a different device, because it will not be received until all previous packets on the same TCP connection are received. You could use a different TCP connection (with different IP QoS flags) though. -- Kragen Sitaker TurboLinux is outselling NT in Japan's retail software market 10 to 1, so I hear. -- http://www.performancecomputing.com/opinions/unixriot/981218.shtml From tull@pgroup.com Wed, 2 Jun 1999 13:53:48 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 13:53:48 -0400 From: Dave Borer tull@pgroup.com Subject: PVM or MPI essential to run parallel applications on a Beowulf? David, I assume you have 3.0-4 release installed. The problem with the MPI type programs is that the code which is loaded on each node does not propogate the environment variables needed, so the program must set them. We recommend that the program loaded on each node should use the OpenMP routine OMP_SET_NUM_THREADS() to set the number of threads (2 in this case) and can be verified with OMP_GET_NUM_THREADS() to make sure it was set. So use these routines in your codes that are to be compiled and linked using -mp. If you need to verify that some representative example of your coding is appropriate for your intended use, feel free to send it, and we will see if we can help. regards, dave > > > I have 32 dual-processor nodes, with MPICH and Portland Group > compilers. Is it possible to take advantage of the dual processors, > for a 32-process MPI & pgf90 job? > > -- > David Hart http://php.indiana.edu/~dhart > Research Computing Support 812-855-2632 > University Information Technology Services Indiana University > From jferg@2boot.com Wed, 2 Jun 1999 14:43:04 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 14:43:04 -0400 From: jferg jferg@2boot.com Subject: Two stupid ip questions; This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------05EA8422E05458D3E3479836 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bohn Christopher A Capt AFRL/IFSD wrote: > Good day, > > > Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation > > The IP address we're used to seeing is 256-radix, which probably was > originally represented as hex. e.g., 00.00.00.00 .. FF.FF.FF.FF -- which, > of course, is representable in exactly 32 bits (hence, 32-bit IP) > > So, our 216.33.20.4 maps to D8.21.14.04 > > Take care, > cb > *-*-*-*-* *-*-*-*-* > Christopher A. Bohn, Capt, USAF || christopher.bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil > Digital Simulation Systems Engineer || cbohn@computer.org > Collaborative Simulation Technology || > and Applications Branch || v (937)255-4429x3576 (DSN785) > Information Directorate || f (937)255-4511 (DSN785) > Wright Research Site || > Air Force Research Laboratory || http://members.aol.com/EngrBohn/ > http://www.if.afrl.af.mil/div/IFS/IFSD/IFSD_home.html > *-*-*-*-* *-*-*-*-* > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Eugene Leitl [mailto:eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de] > > Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 1:42 PM > > To: Rob Nelson > > Cc: mdavis@kieser.net; Simon Hogg; beowulf@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov > > Subject: Re: Two stupid ip questions; > > > > > > Rob Nelson writes: > > > >> 2) what's with these ip addresses with no dots? Is > > this in an rfc or > > > >> something? (or is it straight decimal to hex conversion?) e.g. > > > >> http://3626046468/ maps to www.angelfire.com (216.33.20.4) > > > > Any ideas why people decided on a decimal IP address notation > > http://3626046468/ > > http://d8211404/ > > instead of a much more natural hexadecimal one? > > > > And won't it be just horrible typing monstrosities like > > http://1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128.1.2.4.8.16.32.64.128/ > > in IPv6? Hexadecimal notation would seem definitely more > > compact here... > > http://d8211404d8211404d8211404d8211404/ > > > > Still, quite difficult to memorize, unless you're an idiot savant, > > that is. > > > > -- Eugene > > The library routines derived from the BSD work will normally accept IP addresses in any of the long integer string specifications acceptable to C compilers, e.g., leading "0" for octal, leading "0x" for Hexadecimal, a straight decimal number, and the "dotted decimal" notation which is most familiar. In setting net masks, I frequently use hexadecimal. While "0xFFFFFF00" has little to offer over "255.255.255.0", when I want, say, a 10-bit host field, I prefer "0xFFFFFC00" to "255.255.252.0"; it just seems a bit more intuitive to me. I make no assertion that this works for independently derived libraries. -- Joe Ferguson, ApeX Systems Integration Corp. Voice: 919.468.8150 FAX: 919.468.5288 email: jferg@2boot.com --------------05EA8422E05458D3E3479836 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="jferg.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for jferg Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="jferg.vcf" begin:vcard n:Ferguson;Joe x-mozilla-html:FALSE org:ApeX Systems Integration Corp. adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:jferg@2boot.com title:Tech Director x-mozilla-cpt:;0 fn:Joe Ferguson end:vcard --------------05EA8422E05458D3E3479836-- From Christopher.Bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Wed, 2 Jun 1999 14:54:58 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 14:54:58 -0400 From: Bohn Christopher A Capt AFRL/IFSD Christopher.Bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Subject: Sun community-sources its HPC software Good day, Saw this on Slashdot: Sun is releasing their HPC 2.0 under the Sun Community Source License http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/06/02/1735235 http://www.sun.com/servers/hpc/software/ Interestingly, their HPF compiler is listed as one of the "highlights" -- does this mean a freely-available HPF compiler? HPC 2.0's hightlights (http://www.sun.com/servers/hpc/software/overview.html) HPC 2.0 supports single symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs) and clusters of SMPs with up to 256 processors. Sun High-Performance Fortran (HPF) produces optimized parallel codes that run on either a Sun HPC cluster or a single SMP system. Prism graphical programming environment allows developers to execute, debug, visualize, analyze, and tune both serial and parallel programs. Sun Scientific Subroutine Library(S3L) provides scalable parallel functions and tools for scientific applications. Load Sharing Facility (LSF) optimizes load balancing, job execution, and distributed batch scheduling. Run-Time Environment (RTE) provides tools for optimizing parallel application workload management, parallel resource sharing, and parallel load balancing. Sun MPI delivers thread-safe message passing designed for communication among multiple nodes in clusters as well as among processes on the same symmetric multiprocessor (SMP). Sun MPI I/O maximizes parallel I/O capabilities for message-passing among multiple nodes in clusters. Parallel File System(PFS) allows parallel applications to perform high-performance, scalable I/O across multiple storage systems in parallel. Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) is a public-domain message-passing library. PETSc is a portable, extensible toolkit for scientific computation, providing support for sparse iterative solvers. Cluster Console Manager (CCM)enables administrators to open windows to each node in a cluster and to initiate operations either across all nodes or across subsets of nodes. Switch Management Agent (SMA) helps the administrator configure and monitor the SCI switch. Take care, cb *-*-*-*-* *-*-*-*-* Christopher A. Bohn, Capt, USAF || christopher.bohn@sn.wpafb.af.mil Digital Simulation Systems Engineer || cbohn@computer.org Collaborative Simulation || Technology Branch || v (937)255-4429x3576 (DSN785) Information Directorate || f (937)255-4511 (DSN785) Wright Research Site || Air Force Research Laboratory || http://members.aol.com/EngrBohn/ http://www.if.afrl.af.mil/div/IFS/IFSD/IFSD_home.html *-*-*-*-* *-*-*-*-* From walt@parl.ces.clemson.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1999 15:11:42 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 15:11:42 -0400 From: Walter B. Ligon III walt@parl.ces.clemson.edu Subject: two NICs -- channel bonding -- tradeoff -------- > Someone asked: > > I wonder if anyone know if the "out of band" feature of TCP/IP (or is > > it UDP/IP?) actually gives priority to packets at the network device > > queue, or if it simply provides a seperate buffer for the socket? One > > idea would be for the kernel to automatically route "out of band" data > > via a different device. > > The "out of band" feature is a feature of the BSD socket interface. On > TCP it translates into "urgent data", which is just data in the normal > data stream with an 'urgent pointer' pointing to it. > > Accordingly, 'out of band' data cannot usefully be routed through a > different device, because it will not be received until all previous > packets on the same TCP connection are received. > > You could use a different TCP connection (with different IP QoS flags) > though. > Right. So it sounds like one implementation of that socket feature over TCP/IP does not actually give priority to that data. So the one idea is to implement a mechanism that does. Anyway, I don't know if it would really be worth it - depends on what applications could do with it. But it IS an idea. Walt -- Dr. Walter B. Ligon III Associate Professor ECE Department Clemson University From ctimmer@gci.net Wed, 2 Jun 1999 15:19:29 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 15:19:29 -0400 From: Curt Timmerman ctimmer@gci.net Subject: two NICs - channel bonding - tradeoff This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------E950A66CE2351639243F5A2F Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I took the easy way out. I have 2 NIC cards per node and dedicate cluster messaging (PVM) to one card and everything else to the other card. I have no benchmarks the the activity lights indicate a pretty good load balance. Again - depends on your application. "Walter B. Ligon III" wrote: > > -------- > Now THIS is a really good question. The answer is: no one can answer that > for you. Someone should explore that idea to see. > > Generally I think there are a number of interesting issues in using multiple > networks. We have experimented with using one bus and one switched network > (back when switches were still pricey). > > As you have correctly pointed out it will depend a lot on your application. > First off you need to find such an application. Then do some experimenting > to see how best to use the network resources. > > Of course, an alternative to using a dedicated network would be to modify > the networking code in the kernel to provide priority access to your special > traffic - of course getting switches to do that would be much more difficult. > This would make a great project for an MS student - mucking around in the > kernel to implement this. I wonder if anyone know if the "out of band" > feature of TCP/IP (or is it UDP/IP?) actually gives priority to packets > at the network device queue, or if it simply provides a seperate buffer for > the socket? One idea would be for the kernel to automatically route "out > of band" data via a different device. > > Anyway, lots of issues to explore. Please do, and then let us know what you > find. > > Walt > > > Assuming one has two 100MB NICs per node, is it ... > > > > Do I gain something with running two separate > > communication channels? Or do I fool myself? > > > > Chris.... > > -- > Dr. Walter B. Ligon III > Associate Professor > ECE Department > Clemson University -- -------------------------------------------- Curt Timmerman PO Box 520153 Big Lake, Alaska 99652 (907)892-7460 -------------------------------------------- --------------E950A66CE2351639243F5A2F Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="ctimmer.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Curt Timmerman Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="ctimmer.vcf" begin:vcard n:Timmerman;Curt tel;home:(907)892-7460 tel;work:(907)777-6656 x-mozilla-html:FALSE adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:ctimmer@gci.net fn:Curt end:vcard --------------E950A66CE2351639243F5A2F-- From johansen@publicistech.com Wed, 2 Jun 1999 15:22:31 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 15:22:31 -0400 From: Jon Johansen johansen@publicistech.com Subject: greetings please excuse what is probably an oft-asked question, but I'm new to the list: do apps (commercial/shareware/etc) currently exist to run graphical environments (OpenGl, etc/multi-object, with complex behaviors, and such) on a beowulf cube, or is the state of the tech still at the home-grown level? thnx in advance From philip_juels@harvard.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1999 16:39:15 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 16:39:15 -0400 From: Philip Juels philip_juels@harvard.edu Subject: SSH and clusters Sometimes my users simply want to run a batch process on any given node within our cluster as opposed to true parallel processing. So they use ssh to access the master node of our cluster and then rlogin or telnet to access the clients from the master (the client nodes are on an isolated intranet with the master acting as gatekeeper). Is this insecure? Should we run ssh for connections withing the cluster? My understanding of ssh is that it's like a secure pipe...anything on top of it should be encrypted. Thanks, Philip Juels philip_juels@harvard.edu From a_mccabe@worldnet.att.net Wed, 2 Jun 1999 16:53:52 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 16:53:52 -0400 From: Andrew McCabe a_mccabe@worldnet.att.net Subject: NFS mounts i read somewhere about mounting a common directory with NFS to move files around (ftp is getting annoying) how would i go about doing this? my server is RH6.0, and the client is RH5.2 any help would be greatly appreciated thanx --andrew mccabe From ctimmer@gci.net Wed, 2 Jun 1999 17:24:42 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 17:24:42 -0400 From: Curt Timmerman ctimmer@gci.net Subject: PVM or MPI essential to run parallel applications on aBeowulf? This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------85F1CE57A29BE88197A515C9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The simplest, but not necessarily most optimal, way to handle this is to treat a dual processor node as if it were 2 nodes. No special programming is required and the benefits are available immediately. Curt Dave Hart wrote: > > I have 32 dual-processor nodes, with MPICH and Portland Group > compilers. Is it possible to take advantage of the dual processors, > for a 32-process MPI & pgf90 job? > > -- > David Hart http://php.indiana.edu/~dhart > Research Computing Support 812-855-2632 > University Information Technology Services Indiana University -- -------------------------------------------- Curt Timmerman PO Box 520153 Big Lake, Alaska 99652 (907)892-7460 -------------------------------------------- --------------85F1CE57A29BE88197A515C9 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="ctimmer.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Curt Timmerman Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="ctimmer.vcf" begin:vcard n:Timmerman;Curt tel;home:(907)892-7460 tel;work:(907)777-6656 x-mozilla-html:FALSE adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:ctimmer@gci.net fn:Curt end:vcard --------------85F1CE57A29BE88197A515C9-- From rgb@phy.duke.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1999 17:57:24 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 17:57:24 -0400 From: Robert G. Brown rgb@phy.duke.edu Subject: Cox report on Chinese spy activities and Beowulf On Fri, 28 May 1999, texelsoft wrote: > Whoa RGB you're getting carried away by a perfectly good rant. > > > e) That nuclear bombs basically Are Not That Hard To Build. You > > cannot keep the laws of nature secret from anybody with even a paltry > > research budget (and the Chinese are far from mingy on research and > > defense, I'm sure). Once the laws are known (and they've been > > generally known for decades, now) all that is left is engineering, and > > folks need to get a grip on their seats to hear this, but engineering > > is not all that difficult either. What do they think, Americans have > > some sort of a monopoly on clever ideas so that the world has to steal > > them? I think not... > > Then why the efforts to steal it? Surely you're not sufficiently racist to > suggest the chinese people, in general, are stupid. Equally unlikely is the I'm suggesting from direct personal experience that they are far from stupid. In fact, they're more than smart enough that they didn't need to steal anything to build advanced design bombs. > notion that the engineering effort done in the last N years in american labs > is valueless. Or perhaps you'd like to make the code open source? Kinda has Not valueless, just easily duplicated by other smart people in non-American labs given a decade or more and the resources to work on it. If you check out the website the Chinese government set up to prove that they didn't steal any "secrets" to build their bombs, you will see that the "code" already is "open source". You might look up the nuclear weapons FAQ site (it moves or I'd give you a URL, but a web browser should easily find it) you can browse a fraction of what is known and in the public domain about bombs. The NWFAQ stops (just) short of providing "engineering details" but, as the Chinese noted, most of those details (physical dimensions, materials, specs) are in the open literature or moderately unimportant (many ways to design a house or car or bomb). Curiously, the Chinese government stated clearly that they think that America's claim that they (needed to steal because they are "ignorant Chinese" and hence) "stole" the bomb "secrets" is what is really racist. I agree. I will make a Pronouncement. In my professional opinion, as a physicist of reasonably good standing, a team made up of just the physicists from China that >>I personally<< have taught in graduate school at Duke over the last decade (most of whom were at or near the top of their graduate classes grade-wise) could easily build any kind of nuclear bomb you like from the descriptions of bombs available on the NWFAQ and throughout the open literature. Sure, they'd need a decent budget, some readily available computers, and the support of a corps of explosives (and other) engineers, but again, I feel confident that the Chinese are up to the challenge of building explosive lenses out of well-documented explosive materials with well-documented differential burn rates. Especially given a decade or more to experiment and perfect. They manage to build lasers, ballistic missiles, integrated circuits, and all sorts of other "high-tech" devices; their best engineers are certainly competent and creative enough. I'm not a nuclear theorist, but I'm totally confident that I could do it all by myself in a decade (given a budget of a a few hundred million $$ and a cast of thousands, of course;-). The physics just isn't all that difficult any more, and the physics is the hardest part. The only thing at all difficult about building a bomb is acquiring bomb-grade fissionable materials. This a country the size of China obviously has no problem with. The place where the Chinese obtained the "secrets" required to build the bomb is in the many top-level graduate physics departments across the country that have been eagerly accepting Chinese students for ten years or so now. Note that those students represent the heavily selected "cream" of students from a population pool of approximately 1 billion people, in a culture that has valued education as a means of personal advancement (and hence to some extent selected for intelligence) for some 3000 years. We have trained them in nuclear physics, laser physics, condensed matter physics, computational physics, pretty much any kind of physics they wanted to learn, all sorts of engineering and mathematics -- there have been no "restrictions" on the kind of knowledge foreign students, including the Chinese, are permitted to acquire in American universities. This is the same place, by the way, that both the Pakistanis and the Indians (the latter with an equally large population pool of their own) learned the requisite physics. Sure, both countries have some excellent universities of their own, but face it -- the best graduate physics institutions in the world are arguably in USA (with some equals in Western Europe) right now. We accept and train the best students from all over the world. It's hardly surprising to me that a few Fermis or Tellers or Oppenheimers are among them, especially when the REALLY hard part, the conception and proof of the Idea, is long since accomplished. The last observation to make about the whole issue is that the flow of this sort of information is inevitably from "unknown" to "secret" to "generally and openly known". In the early 1940's nuclear bomb design stopped being "unknown". It remained approximately "secret" up to perhaps the late sixties, with occasional (very brief) bursts of new, ever "smaller" secrets as new bomb designs were obtained. Once it is known that something (like a neutron bomb, or a very small implosion warhead) is possible, however, it is just a matter of time before its "secrets" become public domain and generally known. Inside the next decade, every detail of building any kind of bomb you like will become publically available, instantly retrievable knowledge; most of the details are already available if you look carefully for them. We might as well get used to the idea. The USA is trying to stop the bleeding of an amputation with a band-aid, or building an armed bunker around the barn long after the horse has departed, or passing water into the face of a force seven hurricane, or trying to reverse the course of the second law of thermodynamics (literally, as this dictates the direction of the flow of information from isolated to disseminated). Perhaps we'll buy a few years before any Iraqi armed with a web-browser can get the details. Perhaps not; personally I think that the Iraqi's have done just fine building bombs lacking only the "pits" to make them functional even without web browsers. Either way their response of the moment is redolent with jingoistic hysteria. We don't really need some sort of Nuclear McCarthyism introduced into American politics to restrict free trade in computers and distract us from real issues -- that it is occuring anyway strikes me as blatant election-year issue-creation. > > (Speaking of which, let us pray for the Indians and Pakistanis who are > > about to die in the world's second nuclear war...and who didn't steal > > any codes or misuse any controlled computers to build the devices that > > they will use in it). > Good sentiment if a bit overwrought with nuclear hysteria. Pray for the > young indian and pakistani men and women who really are dying right now from > conventional weapons too. Good point, although they are dying by the tens or even the hundreds in a very confined locale. In almost any kind of nuclear exchange in the crowded Indian sub-continent, I would expect casualties four to five orders of magnitude greater. A hundred million dead or wounded or poisoned by fallout would not be out of the question. I actually lived in India from 1959 to 1967, during one of the earlier India-Pakistani wars (and not so long after their splitup, Nehru was Prime Minister when I first arrived). I had occasion to visit India again fairly recently. Based on this experience, I'm not at all optimistic about the current situation there. Perhaps I'm being "hysterical"; certainly I'm being cynical. Very, very cynical. rgb Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@phy.duke.edu From rgb@phy.duke.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:56:15 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:56:15 -0400 From: Robert G. Brown rgb@phy.duke.edu Subject: NFS mounts On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Andrew McCabe wrote: > i read somewhere about mounting a common directory with NFS to move files > around (ftp is getting annoying) how would i go about doing this? my > server is RH6.0, and the client is RH5.2 > > any help would be greatly appreciated There are a number of documents describing how to do this in the HOWTOs, usually in /usr/doc somewhere. Its also described in almost any book on systems administration, especially in linux-specific ones. In a nutshell: a) pick a filesystem or directory (e.g. /whattever) to export b) add it to /etc/exports. read the man page on format, be careful not to export it promiscuously (that is, to everybody in the known universe). Export the directory rw if you want the client to be able to make changes (e.g. delete or add files) c) restart rpc.nfsd and rpc.mountd (kill -1 their pids) On the client, add a line to /etc/fstab and run mount -a, or just hand enter "mount server:/whattever /whattever". Set ownership and permissions appropriately -- both server and client need to agree about the uid's of files in /whattever. A second (perhaps better) alternative is to install and use ssh. scp is a secure alternative to ftp, provided that you have accounts on both systems. Note that between SOME systems, especially those widely separated by routers, one may encounter a router set to not pass port 2049. In this (sensible!) case one cannot use nfs at all. Since nfs is fundamentally insecure over a WAN (IMHO, at least) if your connection passes through one or more routers you should consider the ssh alternative even if the routers do pass 2049. rgb > > thanx > --andrew mccabe > Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@phy.duke.edu From rgb@phy.duke.edu Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:59:40 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 18:59:40 -0400 From: Robert G. Brown rgb@phy.duke.edu Subject: Cox report on Chinese spy activities and Beowulf On Fri, 28 May 1999, texelsoft wrote: > Whoa RGB you're getting carried away by a perfectly good rant. Oops, sorry list folks, especially Alan Cox and others who complained. I meant to hit the other "r"; I agree that it is time to take the discussion offline (or let it die a natural death:-) but was catching up on a bunch of mail fast and mis-hit. rgb Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@phy.duke.edu From jstan@trendcmhs.org Wed, 2 Jun 1999 19:03:12 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 19:03:12 -0400 From: Stanley, Jeremy jstan@trendcmhs.org Subject: Cox report on Chinese spy activities and Beowulf > ---------- > From: Robert G. Brown[SMTP:rgb@phy.duke.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 5:57 PM > To: texelsoft > Cc: Matt Welsh; extreme-linux@acl.lanl.gov; > beowulf@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov > Subject: RE: Cox report on Chinese spy activities and Beowulf > > Not valueless, just easily duplicated by other smart people in > non-American labs given a decade or more and the resources to work on > it. At the risk of continuing a potentially off-topic thread, I feel obligated to point out the obvious Ameri-centrism prevalent in the press's coverage of this unfortunate but inevitable situation. Forget not that the pioneers of nuclear technology in the States were, for the most part, foreign nationals themselves. They brought with them much of the information that the United States claims for itself. This strikes me as nothing more than a case of inflated ego, but one with the potential to do much damage to the scientific world as a whole... -- Jeremy Stanley Trend CMHS I.S.Network Engineer http://www.trendcmhs.org The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of Trend CMHS or Trend Foundation. "I program my homecomputer; beam myself into the future." --Kraftwerk, 1981 begin 600 winmail.dat M>)\^(AX6`0:0"``$```````!``$``0>0!@`(````Y`0```````#H``$(@`<` M&````$E032Y-:6-R;W-O9G0@36%I;"Y.;W1E`#$(`06``P`.````SP<&``(` M$@`P`!P``P`_`0$@@`,`#@```,\'!@`"`!(`,``<``,`/P$!"8`!`"$```!& M1#9"-44W-$5",3A$,S$Q.4,S,#`P03!#.39%14(P-`!"!P$$@`$`-0```%)% M.B!#;W@@`'```0```#$```!#;W@@1")!'M,B0`*`"H%+#G$+8&X.$#`S%.!HH06P>F1O8P``*A)5-B`"D240 M;"5%"O1L:0@Q.#`"T6DM,33^-`ZP#-`G4`N9'5K92X)@'5^72H_*TT&8`(P+'\MBU<%"8!N!Y!D87DL(,1*=34` M(#`R-6`B,`$V("`U.C4W(%#F33"_*TU4;S+_+8L:0.!X96QS;P&`-M\K3`0BTFT&YU>$``T&S&+B/Q02!G;W9` M`"YP82\0=6QF0$'E08!SY1)@+A;P"`0-;!S<'G"(`#0=&EV:4H`!Y%]`'!D+N!!]`J% M"HLFT#,N-B@7$[(,`6,3H"`^7T07&L)-DR@1*25.*3`@5G8'0`I0;`>0`_<`F`0=!)P"DP:`20]TF0`,`ND7!!\`M0 M-;`+@"]#O4U?3F\I-&X"("U!7P>`!1!1T`.@"V!B!"!GWTH0"?!)T%%P!9!A M#G!(X/\%P`1@'*!*@U)Q2'$[(`AP0F,'D71O('<%L&N_2.%3OU3/5=\I4DHP M+ET][RD6"H]!9X1R@6/`U8'A)(&8)X`,@+F`FT&??4>-:T4B@"X!(T75B M]"Y@[TH@"&`4(5=R+5J0`C!C4?YM4Q`%17:B_TC@ M9<`#``(@!"`ZX&LC4@'_4H%T\`.@@@%ODC4`6I%#4/\%$%%0A45(@5HQ:G)2 M<'0@_VP3C#A9(HPT;R`UD#4P;K/[2TR(X2)F@"D1"<""D%E0STG`)(`'@`6@ M;7!H,`20_T'"G^-[XE.!6M">R(H%6?*N9F@P"'`P4"(I@4MKX&L!@',Q:S7R M.`!01EHV+TNO3+]@#1O!`*E`````0``Y`!!OP`=*K;X!`P#Q/PD$```>`#%` M`0````8```!*4U1!3@````,`&D``````'@`P0`$````&````2E-404X````# M`!E```````,`_3_D!````@%'``$````O````8SU54SMA/2`[<#U4`!T.`0```#$```!#;W@@ Sometimes my users simply want to run a batch process on any given node > within our cluster as opposed to true parallel processing. So they use > ssh to access the master node of our cluster and then rlogin or telnet > to access the clients from the master (the client nodes are on an > isolated intranet with the master acting as gatekeeper). Is this > insecure? Should we run ssh for connections withing the cluster? My > understanding of ssh is that it's like a secure pipe...anything on top > of it should be encrypted. I believe that this is as secure as your gatekeeper. As you say, the traffic over open links from your originating host to the gatekeeper should be encrypted and non-snoopable. Furthermore, your INTERNAL traffic on the cluster probably is no-passwd-needed stuff enabled with .rhosts. However, I don't think there is any really good reason not to run ssh inside the cluster anyway. I suppose it is a religious view, but I'd like to see rsh go away permanently, and the best way for this to eventually occur is if everybody everywhere starts to use ssh/sshd exclusively whereever they once used rsh. IIRC this is the last year that RSA is patented; next year ssh will be truly public domain, and if the num-nums who think that people in the USA should be prohibited from exporting an encryption/software package originally distributed from Finland and universally available anyway could just be persuaded to lighten up and rent a brain, we might see all linux distributions adopt it as standard fare. rgb P.S. to forstall possible arguments that rsh is a lighter-weight protocol, I agree, but if one is using the shell itself for IPC's in an application where speed is critical, well... P.P.S. - and if one is really doing this, one CAN still use rsh, but very few people are, I'm sure.... Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@phy.duke.edu From nvertes@intellicorp.com.au Wed, 2 Jun 1999 20:00:01 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 20:00:01 -0400 From: nvertes nvertes@intellicorp.com.au Subject: Fw: Network cards availability (again) To: Mark McCoy Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 9:39 PM Subject: Re: Network cards availability (again) Compex (a US based Taiwanese/Singapore manufacturer) sells a PCI 10/100 Network card which uses the Digital 21143-PD chip. If this is the chip you're referring to then the Name & part number is: Compex Freedomline 100 FL100TX-PCI Their web address is www.cpx.com Nick Vertes / Sales & Mkting Dir Intellicorp Australia Pty Ltd Level 5, 107 Walker St North Sydney NSW 2060 Australia Tel: 61 2 9922 6466 Fax: 61 2 9922 6465 Mobile 0413 059 959 nvertes@intellicorp.com.au > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Mark McCoy > To: beowulf mailing list > Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 11:12 AM > Subject: Network cards availability (again) > > > > Hi, > > Does anyone on the list know where I can get a list of network cards that > work > > under RedHat 6? > > I know about the 3com and tulip-based cards, but what about any others. > > RedHat's support site has the hardware list for Intel, but not for Alpha > (I've > > already sent them an e-mail about it). I need this to find out what ISA > cards > > are supported (10Mbit is fine for this card) since we will use up all of > our PCI > > slots in the master machine. > > > > Ideally, we want to use all tulip-based cards. If anyone knows where we > can get > > 16 DEC-based cards, _pleeeaaasse_ let me know. I have a lead on some > cards made > > by TrendNet. Does anyone know if these are any good? I have not even > heard of > > them. > > > > Thanks in advance! > > -- > > Mark McCoy -- Proud to run Linux since February 1996 > > Systems Administrator - Cajun Brothers Technology, llc > > The views in this message do not necessarily reflect the views of my > employer > > This message posted from snowdog, a 100% MS-free machine. > > > From bob@drzyzgula.org Wed, 2 Jun 1999 21:44:55 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 21:44:55 -0400 From: Bob Drzyzgula bob@drzyzgula.org Subject: Sun HPC software goes "Community Source" FYI, in case y'all haven't seen it... http://www.sun.com/servers/hpc/communitysource/ -- ============================================================ Bob Drzyzgula It's not a problem bob@drzyzgula.org until something bad happens ============================================================ From dylan@aero.org Wed, 2 Jun 1999 21:45:17 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 21:45:17 -0400 From: Dylan A. Loomis dylan@aero.org Subject: SSH and clusters --Fig2xvG2VGoz8o/s Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, Jun 02, 1999 at 01:42:33AM -0700, Philip Juels wrote: > Sometimes my users simply want to run a batch process on any given node > within our cluster as opposed to true parallel processing. So they use > ssh to access the master node of our cluster and then rlogin or telnet > to access the clients from the master (the client nodes are on an > isolated intranet with the master acting as gatekeeper). Is this > insecure? Should we run ssh for connections withing the cluster? My > understanding of ssh is that it's like a secure pipe...anything on top > of it should be encrypted. >=20 > Thanks, >=20 > Philip Juels > philip_juels@harvard.edu Philip, the short answer to your questions is yes this is secure, the long answer is that it depends on where you want your security. If you are primarily worried about people sniffing traffic destined from the outside, passing through your Gatekeeper to the clustered machines, then using ssh to connect to the Gatekeeper and using rsh from there (Gatekeeper to Compute node) will be fine. In this case data is encrypted until the Gatekeeper, then within the private network it is sent cleartext, so as long as you trust your compute nodes th= is is fine. So the person connects: -Encrypted- Outside Host --- SSH --- Gatekeeper -Encrypted- Then once the have ssh'd to the Gatekeeper they rsh to Compute node: -Encrypted- -Cleartext- Outside Host --- SSH --- Gatekeeper --- rsh --- Compute node -Encrypted- -Cleartext- Only the Gatekeeper to Compute node traffic is vulnerable, the traffic from the Outside host to the Gatekeeper stays encrypted. So unless someone is sniffing on either the Gatekeeper, or one of the Compute nodes, your fine. hope that helps -DAL- --=20 Dylan A. Loomis Computer Systems Research Department The Aerospace Corporation e-mail: dylan@aero.org phone: (310) 336-2449 PGP Key fingerprint =3D 55 DE BB DD 34 10 CD 20 72 79 88 FE 02 0E 21 3A PGP 2.6.2 key available upon request --Fig2xvG2VGoz8o/s Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBN1XeEezCrQVfDVWRAQH9vAP/bIxHJiXF7PM4dmNfELVRTnR/21xqCUqE kCHwI5uLptgDmOyOudurMWsg7wO855rGqyjrGDiJO32MNcNEikePQAKPVmu3r4ht JI7uHcpwAHVsCu+XclKc9t1++ZHgr42pPXfOCC9ICiE553H0wVqwHVEKdMfeYwyc XF4Hr9Qm/6I= =xqVg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Fig2xvG2VGoz8o/s-- From dhart@indiana.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 00:33:30 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 00:33:30 -0400 From: Dave Hart dhart@indiana.edu Subject: SSH and clusters At 06:47 PM 6/2/1999 -0400, Robert G. Brown wrote: >. . . I don't think there is any really good reason not to run ssh >inside the cluster anyway. . . . I ran NAS Parallel Benchmarks with rsh and with ssh and found less than 1% difference, IIRC. And since ssh is SOP . . . -- David Hart http://php.indiana.edu/~dhart Research Computing Support 812-855-2632 University Information Technology Services Indiana University From dhart@indiana.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 00:33:29 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 00:33:29 -0400 From: Dave Hart dhart@indiana.edu Subject: PVM or MPI essential to run parallel applications on aBeowulf? At 01:24 PM 6/2/1999 -0800, Curt wrote: >The simplest, but not necessarily most optimal, way to handle this is to >treat a dual processor node as if it were 2 nodes. No special >programming is required and the benefits are available immediately. Thanks, I did try that [2 MPI processes on same system]. Since the OS shifts a lot of work to second processor when the first is pegged, bringing in a second MPI process is not so great [I don't expect it to be]. I have had some suggestions from the Portland Group [to try another time]. - Dave From pesch@ibm.net Thu, 3 Jun 1999 00:51:05 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 00:51:05 -0400 From: Paul Eduard Schenker pesch@ibm.net Subject: Cox report on Chinese spy activities and Beowulf DOn't be sorry, it was interesting anyhow... At 06:59 PM 6/2/99 -0400, Robert G. Brown wrote: >On Fri, 28 May 1999, texelsoft wrote: > >> Whoa RGB you're getting carried away by a perfectly good rant. > >Oops, sorry list folks, especially Alan Cox and others who complained. >I meant to hit the other "r"; I agree that it is time to take the >discussion offline (or let it die a natural death:-) but was catching up >on a bunch of mail fast and mis-hit. > > rgb > >Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ >Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 >Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 >Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@phy.duke.edu > > > > > Paul Eduard Schenker 1 Peirce Hill Singapore 248558 Phone: 476 2245 Fax: 472 6480 email: pesch@ibm.net From daniel.pfenniger@obs.unige.ch Thu, 3 Jun 1999 04:38:13 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 04:38:13 -0400 From: Daniel Pfenniger daniel.pfenniger@obs.unige.ch Subject: keeping nodes in synch Jacek Radajewski wrote: > > rsync is good as well. rsync will only copy the changes. Yes, and also on option delete the deleted files. One then gets a true copy of a disk/directory with a minimum of traffic. In our Beo cluster we use rsync to backup the two master nodes on *spare* hard disks. This is much cheaper than a tape backup. Daniel Pfenniger From john.hearns@framestore.co.uk Thu, 3 Jun 1999 06:03:30 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 06:03:30 -0400 From: John Hearns john.hearns@framestore.co.uk Subject: two NICs - channel bonding - tradeoff > Of course, an alternative to using a dedicated network would be to modify > the networking code in the kernel to provide priority access to your special > traffic - of course getting switches to do that would be much more difficult. > This would make a great project for an MS student - mucking around in the > kernel to implement this. > Anyway, lots of issues to explore. Please do, and then let us know what you > find. > > Walt > > I could imagine an application where one has two > > kinds of messages. One kind is a short message but > > highly 'urgent'. Only after the message was delivered > > can the calculation continue. For example a > > synchronization message. And then another type of > > message which is higher in volume but is not > > time critical. Perhaps I shouldn't raise myself above the parapet here, but as an ATM person, that's the sort of thing an ATM network might be able to do - QoS for different traffic types. Some thoughts off the top of my head would be using PVCs for this 'priority' traffic, and having normal IP traffic via Classical IP or LANE. Also could investigate multicasting for moving bulk data to all machines. (Quickly ducks head back below parapet before the flames start leaping). -------------------OOOOOOOOOOOOOO----------------- John Hearns Systems Engineer FrameStore http://www.framestore.co.uk Tel 0171-344-8910 0171-208-2626 Fax -------------------OOOOOOOOOOOOOO----------------- From rgb@phy.duke.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 06:23:50 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 06:23:50 -0400 From: Robert G. Brown rgb@phy.duke.edu Subject: SSH and clusters On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Dave Hart wrote: > At 06:47 PM 6/2/1999 -0400, Robert G. Brown wrote: > > >. . . I don't think there is any really good reason not to run ssh > >inside the cluster anyway. . . . > > I ran NAS Parallel Benchmarks with rsh and with ssh and found less > than 1% difference, IIRC. And since ssh is SOP . . . Well, there you go then...real numbers and not my opinion. Death to the Infidel rsh! Long live ssh! Seriously, our University is being portscanned and probed literally two or three times a week. Most of the documented breakins that have succeeded in our well-managed department have occurred because of offsite passwd traps -- grad students or faculty telnetting or rlogin'ing (rlogging in?:-) back to the department from an insecure site, perhaps while on summer break or at a conference. We're trying to figure out how to make ssh use MANDATORY, and the best way is to simply stop, cease, desist in using either telnetd or rshd or ftpd in favor of sshd. The only obstacle we face is a lack of universally available ssh clients, partly due to US export restrictions (and those restrictions themselves); hopefully at least the first problem will evaporate in 6 more months when RSA becomes public domain for real. rgb Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@phy.duke.edu From kodym@mit.jyu.fi Thu, 3 Jun 1999 06:29:34 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 06:29:34 -0400 From: Petr Ladislav Kodym kodym@mit.jyu.fi Subject: New class of Beowulf clusters ? (Re: two NICs - channel bonding - tradeoff) On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Walter B. Ligon III wrote: > >Generally I think there are a number of interesting issues in using multiple >networks. We have experimented with using one bus and one switched network >(back when switches were still pricey). Hi All, What I'm really interested in is coupling of fast ethernet with PAPERS "network". -------------------------------------------------------------------- PAPERS, Purdue's Adapter for Parallel Execution and Rapid Synchronization, is custom hardware that allows a cluster of unmodified PCs and/or workstations to function as a fine-grain parallel computer capable of MIMD, SIMD, and VLIW execution. The total time taken to perform a typical barrier synchronization using PAPERS is about 3 microseconds, including all hardware and software overhead; this is several orders of magnitude faster than using conventional networks, and is even faster than most commercial parallel supercomputers. A wide range of aggregate communication operations are also supported with comparable efficiency. Despite this performance, the public-domain PAPERS designs are less expensive than most conventional networks and are scalable to very large clusters. ttp://garage.ecn.purdue.edu/~papers/ ------------------------------------------------------------------- Folks in CSC, Helsinki, Finland have measured 312 barriers/sec for 32 processes running on 16 dual PentiumsII 400Mhz connected by switched fast ethernet (under MPI over TCP/IP). It clearly limits usability of such a cluster only to (very) coarse grain parallel programs. PAPERS can handle 330 000 barriers/sec, thats 3 orders of magnitude more. They can also transfer short messages with very low latency. (PAPERS is a small chunk of basic TTL logic circuits which is connected to the parallel port of PC) It would push Beowulf clusters to completely new application areas. Has any of you ever tried this PAPERS thing ? Can you give any comments ? ** Does someone know, how many barriers can by done over MYRINET or ** ** using U-Net ? ** Is anyone running code, that is bottlenecked by the need for frequent synchronization, and therefore possibly interested in trying PAPERS ? Petr From wasshub@spdc.ti.com Thu, 3 Jun 1999 08:21:01 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 08:21:01 -0400 From: Christoph Wasshuber wasshub@spdc.ti.com Subject: hard disk reliability Some days ago someone mentioned that one of the big benefits of running a diskless cluster is the increased reliability. Hard disks are the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time between failure)? I would also be interested in comments from people running beowulfs with 100 or more nodes, where every node has a hard disk. Do you guys exchange a hard disk every month? Or even every week? How serious is the hard disk reliability issue in reality? Chris.... From rbross@parl.ces.clemson.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:05:16 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:05:16 -0400 From: Rob Ross rbross@parl.ces.clemson.edu Subject: hard disk reliability Actually, I have found that power supplies have been the least reliable components of our systems. Rob Ross Parallel Architecture Research Lab, Clemson University On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Christoph Wasshuber wrote: > Some days ago someone mentioned that one of > the big benefits of running a diskless cluster > is the increased reliability. Hard disks are > the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody > have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time > between failure)? > > I would also be interested in comments from > people running beowulfs with 100 or more > nodes, where every node has a hard disk. Do > you guys exchange a hard disk every month? > Or even every week? > > How serious is the hard disk reliability issue > in reality? > > Chris.... From scm@tcdi.com Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:49:19 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:49:19 -0400 From: Shawn Masters scm@tcdi.com Subject: hard disk reliability -----Original Message----- From: Christoph Wasshuber To: beowulf Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:49:19 -0400 Subject: hard disk reliability >Some days ago someone mentioned that one of >the big benefits of running a diskless cluster >is the increased reliability. Hard disks are >the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody >have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time >between failure)? Seagate posts all the MTBFs for their drives last I checked (about 6 months ago). Quantum gave MTBF for some, and another number that could be used to derive the MTBF for others. The seagate drives range from 300,000 MTBF on soem of the older drives to 1,000,000 on some of the newer ones, with quite a few in the 800,000 range. My measured numbers on the quantums is about 250,000 for the bigfoot 6.4 gig, and 320,000 on the same sized fireball. This is with sample sizes of 120 and 24 respectivly. >I would also be interested in comments from >people running beowulfs with 100 or more >nodes, where every node has a hard disk. Do >you guys exchange a hard disk every month? >Or even every week? With the low end drives and that number you will be replacing a drive every few months. We have experienced a MTBF of about 60 days when cooling wasn't adequate (note there were eight drives in each system), but some simple fixes brought it up to about 90 before we finished with the array. >How serious is the hard disk reliability issue >in reality? With a hundred drives you will notice the MTBF, even under perfect conditions. Choose your drives based on the cost of losing one at the calculated frequency, and that will tell you what you can afford. If 90 days between node lose is acceptable then you can buy cheap. If runs need to be over 180 days then you need to look at higher MTBFs (in the 600,000+ range). Overall the price difference isn't as much as when I did these arrays. 73, From deadline@plogic.com Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:04:00 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:04:00 -0400 From: Douglas Eadline deadline@plogic.com Subject: hard disk reliability On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Rob Ross wrote: I would agree. Here is the order of failures/problems after a system is burned in (this is what we have seen): 1. power supplies (general failures) 2. hard drives (due to shipping) 3. hard drives (general failures) 4. motherboards failing 5. NICs going hay-wire 6. Cable problems 7. Switch problems Building systems we have seen (in order of occurance): 1. bad SDRAM (way too much than we care to think about) 2. bad IDE drives 3. bad Motherboards 4. bad SCSI cables, floppies, NICs BTW: we have found that early PII-400s had problems with Linux SMP. After eliminating everything else, we found that replacing the CPUs (with PIII-450) solved the problem. The problem included random crashes, wrong answers, and stalled MPI/PVM runs. It only happened when the system is under high load with lots of interrupts. Goes away if the FSB is set to 66MHz. Doug > Actually, I have found that power supplies have been the least reliable > components of our systems. > > Rob Ross > Parallel Architecture Research Lab, Clemson University > > On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Christoph Wasshuber wrote: > > > Some days ago someone mentioned that one of > > the big benefits of running a diskless cluster > > is the increased reliability. Hard disks are > > the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody > > have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time > > between failure)? > > > > I would also be interested in comments from > > people running beowulfs with 100 or more > > nodes, where every node has a hard disk. Do > > you guys exchange a hard disk every month? > > Or even every week? > > > > How serious is the hard disk reliability issue > > in reality? > > > > Chris.... > ------------------------------------------------------------------- Paralogic, Inc. | PEAK | Voice:+610.861.6960 115 Research Drive | PARALLEL | Fax:+610.861.8247 Bethlehem, PA 18017 USA | PERFORMANCE | http://www.plogic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- From JesseP@europe.stortek.com Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:02:54 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:02:54 -0400 From: Jessen, Per JesseP@europe.stortek.com Subject: hard disk reliability > -----Original Message----- > From: Christoph Wasshuber [mailto:wasshub@spdc.ti.com] > Sent: 03 June 1999 13:16 [snip] > is the increased reliability. Hard disks are > the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody > have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time > between failure)? [snip] checkout www.quantum.com, www.seagate.com etc. Last time I looked, they qouted MTBF, MTTR etc on the individual harddrive datasheets. regards, Per Jessen, ENIDAN Technologies, London From kragen@pobox.com Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:06:02 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:06:02 -0400 From: Kragen Sitaker kragen@pobox.com Subject: New class of Beowulf clusters ? Someone writes: > What I'm really interested in is coupling of fast ethernet with PAPERS > "network". The easiest way to couple FE with PAPERS is probably to put some PCs on the FE with their parallel ports attached to the PAPERS device. But since every PC has a parallel port anyway, and since most PCs in clusters don't use them, you should just use the ordinary parallel port instead. -- Kragen Sitaker TurboLinux is outselling NT in Japan's retail software market 10 to 1, so I hear. -- http://www.performancecomputing.com/opinions/unixriot/981218.shtml From lindahl@cs.virginia.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:15:22 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:15:22 -0400 From: Greg Lindahl lindahl@cs.virginia.edu Subject: hard disk reliability > I would also be interested in comments from > people running beowulfs with 100 or more > nodes, where every node has a hard disk. Do > you guys exchange a hard disk every month? > Or even every week? In my previous life, I had a steady failure rate of 1 per 400 disks per month. In my current life I have 400 disks and I've only had 1 failure in a year. 0 power supplies, 4 case fans, but 3 from the same batch. -- g From joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:45:33 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:45:33 -0400 From: Joel Jaeggli joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu Subject: hard disk reliability On a 13 node cluster 2 bad power supplies one dead disk(western digital 2gb ide) in a year and a half. On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Christoph Wasshuber wrote: > Some days ago someone mentioned that one of > the big benefits of running a diskless cluster > is the increased reliability. Hard disks are > the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody > have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time > between failure)? > > I would also be interested in comments from > people running beowulfs with 100 or more > nodes, where every node has a hard disk. Do > you guys exchange a hard disk every month? > Or even every week? > > How serious is the hard disk reliability issue > in reality? Probably not a serious as the the cheapo chinese power supply reliability issue. > Chris.... > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joel Jaeggli joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu Academic User Services consult@gladstone.uoregon.edu PGP Key Fingerprint: 1DE9 8FCA 51FB 4195 B42A 9C32 A30D 121E -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Karl Marx -- Introduction to the critique of Hegel's Philosophy of the right, 1843. From mccsnrw@dirac.phy.umist.ac.uk Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:12:53 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:12:53 -0400 From: Niels R. Walet mccsnrw@dirac.phy.umist.ac.uk Subject: hard disk reliability I concur: on an eight node dual cluster 2 motherboard failures, no other problems.... Niels -- Dr Niels R. Walet http://www.phy.umist.ac.uk/Theory/people/walet.html Dept. of Physics, UMIST, P.O. Box 88, Manchester, M60 1QD, U.K. Phone: +44(0)161-2003693 Fax: +44(0)161-2004303 Niels.Walet@umist.ac.uk From lindahl@cs.virginia.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:19:24 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:19:24 -0400 From: Greg Lindahl lindahl@cs.virginia.edu Subject: New class of Beowulf clusters ? (Re: two NICs - channel bonding - > Folks in CSC, Helsinki, Finland have measured 312 barriers/sec for 32 > processes running on 16 dual PentiumsII 400Mhz connected by switched > fast ethernet (under MPI over TCP/IP). It clearly limits usability of > such a cluster only to (very) coarse grain parallel programs. Tweet! The overgeneralization police have given you a ticket. PAPERS does one thing really well: global barriers and broadcasts. That's it. The benchmarks I've been doing all involve algorithms which would not be sped up by PAPERS. Most of them involve either nearest neighbor communication, or all-to-all, where each process receives different information. It would be nice if someone who did have an algorithm which is helped by PAPERS integrated it with MPICH. That would make it easier for the rest of us to experiment with it. But it isn't a magic bullet. > ** Does someone know, how many barriers can by done over MYRINET or ** > ** using U-Net ? ** Probably about only 5x as many possible with TCP/IP. However, you could hack some features into your myrinet driver to directly support broadcasts, and that would probably speed it up by quite a bit. The fastest possible would probably be around 10,000 per second, which is far slower than PAPERS. -- g From jdm2d@cs.virginia.edu Thu, 3 Jun 1999 14:03:36 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 14:03:36 -0400 From: Justin Moore jdm2d@cs.virginia.edu Subject: hard disk reliability Hello, I'd be interested to know if anyone has any of the newer, high-end SCSI drives in the 36 - 47 GB range, and what kind of reliability they've seen in of those. The kind of application(s) I have in mind will be very very heavy on I/O, so these drives definitely will be pounded around the clock. Also what kind of experience have people had with different RAID levels, mainly RAID 5 and 10? I've gotten different definitions of what level 10 is exactly. The definition from the Quantum page is disk striping with mirroring, so the failure of two disks is unlikely to kill you unless they're the correct (or incorrect, I guess) two. Given the reliability of the SCSI drives, would there be a financial advantage in using this if the data was absolutely irreplaceable? Thanks. -Justin Moore From mack.joseph@epa.gov Thu, 3 Jun 1999 14:16:43 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 14:16:43 -0400 From: Joseph Mack mack.joseph@epa.gov Subject: hard disk reliability Christoph Wasshuber wrote: > Hard disks are > the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody > have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time > between failure)? I was at a talk by a systems integrator, where he said that if the same proc