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John Constantine | 15 Jun 2002 21:47
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Application cluster

Hello,

I'm planning on building a cluster from a few machines, which are by
todays standards considered to be obsolete, to serve X, mozilla and
open office.

This cluster would also double up as the main server and web
cache(squid), off of which a bunch of diskless machines would boot.

Have any of you done something similar ? What software did you use and
why ? Any positive/negative experiences you would like to share ?

Hope that you can help me.

Thanks,

--John

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Greg Lewis | 17 Jun 2002 07:04

Splitting the OpenPBS port

Hi all,

Alan Eldridge has an updated port of OpenPBS pretty much ready to go.
Since I was interested in this as well we started discussing it after
his announcement of this on freebsd-ports.  Anyway, one item under
discussion is whether to split up the port into a "server" port and
a "client" slave port.  The server port would install on the cluster
host and include all the tools, pbs_server and pbs_sched.  The client
port would install on nodes and only contain pbs_mom and associated
config.  Note that one could also install the client port on the host
if it was acting as a node as well.

What we'd like to know is whether this is useful to people or not.
So, we'd like to hear what people are doing (especially) or how
they would like the port to operate in this respect.  Basically
should the port be split or should it be a single port as it is
now and pbs_server and pbs_sched just not be started on the nodes?

--

-- 
Greg Lewis                            Email : glewis <at> eyesbeyond.com
Eyes Beyond                           Web   : http://www.eyesbeyond.com
Information Technology

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Alan E | 17 Jun 2002 07:18

Re: Splitting the OpenPBS port

On Mon, Jun 17, 2002 at 02:34:48PM +0930, Greg Lewis wrote:
>The client
>port would install on nodes and only contain pbs_mom and associated
>config.  Note that one could also install the client port on the host
>if it was acting as a node as well.

The client port would include all the command line utilities as well,
I think. 

Then there's the issue of X windows. I would suggest that the default
configuration on both ports use X and a WITHOUT_XPBS or similar knob be
available to disable it.

--

-- 
AlanE

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Andy Sporner | 17 Jun 2002 09:47
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Re: Application cluster

John Constantine wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I'm planning on building a cluster from a few machines, which are by
>todays standards considered to be obsolete, to serve X, mozilla and
>open office.
>
>This cluster would also double up as the main server and web
>cache(squid), off of which a bunch of diskless machines would boot.
>
>Have any of you done something similar ? What software did you use and
>why ? Any positive/negative experiences you would like to share ?
>
>Hope that you can help me.
>
>Thanks,
>

Hi John,

I have written a failover cluster scheme, unfortunately the FTP site is down
for about a week.  It allows a group of machines to work together in finding
a successor for an application when one of the machines fail.  It does 
not offer
filesystem recovery, only starting an "rc" type script for an application.  

At one point I wanted to make a Hi-Av Samba server in which I had two
machines on the same SCSI channel and the startup would mount the FS and
take over the IP address.  I never had enough time to try it. :-(  If
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Alexander Leidinger | 17 Jun 2002 10:39
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Re: Splitting the OpenPBS port

On 17 Jun, Alan E wrote:

> Then there's the issue of X windows. I would suggest that the default
> configuration on both ports use X and a WITHOUT_XPBS or similar knob be
> available to disable it.

WITHOUT_X11 is what you want to use in this case, see 
"grep -R WITHOUT_X11 /usr/ports".

I don't use OpenPBS, but IMHO a client and a slave port seems to be
usefull.

Bye,
Alexander.

--

-- 
                Where do you think you're going today?

http://www.Leidinger.net                       Alexander  <at>  Leidinger.net
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Derek Barrett | 17 Jun 2002 20:27

Re: Application cluster

Guten Tag Andy,

I would also love to take a look at this failover script.

What types of apps have you used this on so far?

Do you use a serial cable for the heartbeat monitor mechanism?

Danke,

Derek

----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Sporner <sporner <at> nentec.de>
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 09:47:05 +0200
To: John Constantine <constant <at> rootshell.be>
Subject: Re: Application cluster

> John Constantine wrote:
> 
> >Hello,
> >
> >I'm planning on building a cluster from a few machines, which are by
> >todays standards considered to be obsolete, to serve X, mozilla and
> >open office.
> >
> >This cluster would also double up as the main server and web
> >cache(squid), off of which a bunch of diskless machines would boot.
> >
> >Have any of you done something similar ? What software did you use and
(Continue reading)

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Andy Sporner | 18 Jun 2002 10:02
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Re: Application cluster

Hi Derek,

>
>I would also love to take a look at this failover script.
>
It's a daemon and some scripts.

>
>
>What types of apps have you used this on so far?
>
You will laugh, but simple scripts that say "I am starting, I am stopping"
because I never had enough time to get out of the test phase

>
>Do you use a serial cable for the heartbeat monitor mechanism?
>
Actually not.  It uses network interfaces to send heartbeats.  I had up to
6 machines running once (different architectures IE: Sparc, VAX, and I386).
But lately I have been only working with two and three machines (all I-386).
In the early days it was multi platform (people who used linux was also
using it--which was a surprise because I never thought it was that 
portable).
These days I am focusing on FreeBSD only--again because of time--but
mostly also because I am starting to use some system specific stuff as it
becomes more elaborate.

>
>Danke,
>
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Andy Sporner | 18 Jun 2002 10:13
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Dead Email address

I don't know who is responsible for this, but here seems to be a dead 
email address....

etrifft: Ihre Mail an 'shup <at> netzmarkt.de'
Datum: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 10:02:13 +0200
Ihr Subject: 'Re: Application cluster'

Der Account existiert nicht mehr.
Ihre Mail wurde ungelesen geloescht.

Wenn Sie die aktuelle Emailadresse des von Ihnen
angeschriebenen Adressaten erfahren wollen, kontak-
tieren Sie bitte die Netzmarkt-Kundenbetreuung unter
Tel. +49-9131-974760.

Zur Spamvorbeugung sind Antworten an
die Absenderadresse dieser Mail nicht moeglich.

-------------------------------

Regards: your mail to 'shup <at> netzmarkt.de'
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 10:02:13 +0200
Your subject: 'Re: Application cluster'

This account doesn't exist any more.
Your mail has been deleted unread.

If you want to know the current EMail address
of the recipient you mailed to, please contact
us by phone: +49-9131-974760.
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Andy Sporner | 18 Jun 2002 12:38
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Re: Application cluster

Evgeny Dolgopyat wrote:

>You wrote:
>
>>If 
>>you are
>>interested in this, maybe I can mail you a zipped copy of the sources in 
>>a day
>>or so (I was looking for an excuse to put more time in that project 
>>again and
>>this might be the right thing... ;-)).
>>
>
>I 'm interested! Can you put me a copy, please?
>
>
OK, In the next day or so (realistically on Monday) I will send it. 
 What I would
like to do is get a working group together to really work on this--this 
is largely
because of my lack of time.  

This has been a rather dead group and since there is interest perhaps 
this can
really start to grow here.  This is the third reply I have had in a few 
days, which
I have to say is encouraging...

Will anybody interested in helping make this a group (in other words sharing
in the development and progress) effort please announce themselves.  We can
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Derek Barrett | 18 Jun 2002 19:28

Re: Application cluster

hahahahaha well as a fellow American then I should
have replied, "Thanks partner! USA!"

I don't think you should dismiss your scripts that 
"only start and stop" as being laughable. To me,
that's 75% of the battle. I know I've spent hours
at times just getting my startup scripts to work 
properly, missing a switch here or there, the trial
and error involved in that is alot sometimes. And
getting a RELIABLE method of monitoring the other
servers has still been a challenge for everyone.

Truly, getting a failover
server to successfully take over means:

1) Reduced late night phone calls
2) Not having to make as many late night phone calls :-D

And most of these types
of scripts depend on having a second network card
and a serial cable as well. The Linux HA
servers even have a controlling server for the entire
cluster called a Director. That your mechanism goes 
across a network card is nice, the less overhead, the better.

I mean, a couple thousand dollar hardware failover solution
is nice, but so would a Ferrari as a company car. I recently worked
in a high uptime enviornment, and every single server there had 
an identical backup, run by a hardware failover switch, and 
let me tell you, I got really SPOILED. The amount of
(Continue reading)

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Gmane