Some basic Questions...

[Nacho Ruiz]

Hello to everybody,

I'm building a Beowulf cluster with a bunch of oudated computers and I've
some questions.
The cluster consists in 8 nodes:
- 486 DX33
- 16 MB Ram
- 200 MB HD
- SMC 8013 Ethernet NIC (Coax connection)

And a server (that also acts as master node):
- Pentium 133
- 32 MB Ram
- 2x500 MB HDs & 200 MB HD
- 2 Ethernet NIC's: The SMC for the cluster and a 3c509B for the outside
world.

I have already managed to setup RedHat 6.2 to all machines, but now I'm
facing more Beowulf oriented questions...
Considering my system:

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

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

- I haven't setup yet the NIS, nor the MPI/PVM on the nodes. In order to
make them work should I install NIS?
   To acces the Beowulf you should acces the Master node and login, then you
should be able to use the cluster via MPI/PVM.

- Here we already have a SUNs COW, it's possible to use this COW & the
Beowulf?
   I mean, if I configure the PVM/MPI node file to include the COW nodes and
the Beowulf (master node). Can the Beowulf master node use the nodes
automaticaly without having to include the client nodes in the node file,
and make then "knowlegeable" to the world?
  In other words, van I treat the cluster as a whole instead of as a cluster
of client nodes?

- Any other hint or help?

Thank you to all of you.

Nacho Ruiz
The Retro-Beouwulf Master.