WinNT/Linux hybrids?

[Phillip D. Matz]

Hello Jim,

> Your headless nodes, are they also diskless?  Or, do you have a disk on
each
> node, from which Linux boots, etc.?

Yes, the headless nodes have disks for booting linux and they contain the
executables for the parallel code they run.

> WinNT box serve as the NFS (or whatever) server, and also handle the boot

My systems are not setup to do this (no NFS) but it is certainly an
interesting proposition.  Can linux mount a partition, through an ethernet,
that exists on a WinNT box and vice versa?  Personally I would find this to
be a very handy option if it can be done.

Respectfully,

Phil

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Lux" <James.P.Lux at jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Phillip D. Matz" <matz at wsunix.wsu.edu>; "Beowulf (E-mail)"
<beowulf at beowulf.org>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: WinNT/Linux hybrids?


> 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)?
>
>