Array

Just a quick general query. I have a LAM-MPI cluster made of
"spare 
parts" that's spent the last 8 months impressing the
hell out of 
everyone in the lab and generally exceeding expectations.
But my needs 
have changed once again. I need to set up a BOINC server. To
cut a long 
story short, for network administrative reasons, the head
node of the 
cluster is the prime candidate to act as the BOINC / web
server.

Unfortunately, I'll need to install Linux on the head node
to make this 
work. I've tried and tried to compile the BOINC server on
FreeBSD, and 
I'm giving up. Life is too short.

So, the question. Does anyone know any reason why I
shouldn't be able 
to run LAM with Linux (probably FC5) on the head node and
FreeBSD on 
the slaves? I'm not worried about setting it up, - I
installed and 
configured the FreeBSD cluster manually from source. But if
there's 
some obvious reason why it's not going to work, I'd REALLY
appreciate 
someone piping up and telling me.

For information, the cluster is based on unwanted i386
machines using 
an NFS share for "/home", and running an old
beta version of LAM-MPI.

As far as I can tell, everything required for a working
cluster is 
either a standard *NIX feature, or it's a part of LAM-MPI.
So it 
shouldn't be a problem. In theory. Right?

Thanks in advance...

James

-- 
Dr. J.R. Dorsey
ESPM - Ecosystem Sciences
105 Hilgard Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3110

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On Fri, 2006-06-30 at 08:24 -0700, James Dorsey wrote:
> Just a quick general query. I have a LAM-MPI cluster
made of "spare 
> parts" that's spent the last 8 months impressing
the hell out of 
> everyone in the lab and generally exceeding
expectations. But my needs 
> have changed once again. I need to set up a BOINC
server. To cut a long 
> story short, for network administrative reasons, the
head node of the 
> cluster is the prime candidate to act as the BOINC /
web server.
> 
> Unfortunately, I'll need to install Linux on the head
node to make this 
> work. I've tried and tried to compile the BOINC server
on FreeBSD, and 
> I'm giving up. Life is too short.
> 
> So, the question. Does anyone know any reason why I
shouldn't be able 
> to run LAM with Linux (probably FC5) on the head node
and FreeBSD on 
> the slaves? I'm not worried about setting it up, - I
installed and 
> configured the FreeBSD cluster manually from source.
But if there's 
> some obvious reason why it's not going to work, I'd
REALLY appreciate 
> someone piping up and telling me.
> 
> For information, the cluster is based on unwanted i386
machines using 
> an NFS share for "/home", and running an
old beta version of LAM-MPI.
> 
> As far as I can tell, everything required for a working
cluster is 
> either a standard *NIX feature, or it's a part of
LAM-MPI. So it 
> shouldn't be a problem. In theory. Right?

This should work without any problems.  The only thing that
can be a
problem is that you can't run FreeBSD binaries on Linux and
vice-versa.
One useful feature of LAM is that you can boot a node but
not have it
used for scheduling MPI jobs.  You can do this in the app
schema with
the schedule=no option to the host.  Something like:

  headnode schedule=no
  compute_node1
  compute_node2

Then you can run lamboot / mpirun / etc from the head node
and have
everything actually executed out on the compute nodes.


Brian

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