WinNT/Linux hybrids?

[Jim Lux]

Your headless nodes, are they also diskless?  Or, do you have a disk on each
node, from which Linux boots, etc.?
Getting the data in and out isn't as big a problem (at some point it is just
a binary or ascii file, which can be read by whatever means.. I can't
imagine wanting to create native .xls files, for instance), but can the
WinNT box serve as the NFS (or whatever) server, and also handle the boot
requests from the nodes.


From: Phillip D. Matz <matz at wsunix.wsu.edu>
>
>This is sort-of what I do with my clusters.  I have 12-nodes running linux
>and a 13th node running WIN2000 for the exact reasons you mention (data
>formatting and presentation).  The 13th-node (or head-node) rsh's into the
>other nodes with Starnet's xserver on an internal network in addition to
>providing the connection to the outside world (2 NICs in head-node).  Now,
>the windows box (13th node) does not contribute cpu per-se to the beowulf
>but it is used for data assembly and for launching the jobs on the 12-node
>cluster (which are headless nodes).
>
>
>
>> What would be the possibility of building a cluster using WinNT
>workstation
>> (or NT server) on the head/worldly node and Linux on the (diskless)
>cluster
>> nodes.  You'd use one of the many NT ssh or Xwindows servers to talk to
>the
>> nodes.  Is it possible to netboot Linux from a NT server (what has to be
>> running on NT to make this work)?