Company computer utilization?

[Thomas Lovie]

It's pretty easy to do.  On the linux side, you'd have to make the
machines dual boot, and I prefer to do this using lilo as the boot
loader.  So if you had this in place, you might have a lilo.conf that
looks something like this:

prompt
timeout=50
default=linux
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
linear
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-5
        label=linux
        initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-5.img
        read-only
        root=/dev/hda1
other = /dev/hda3
        label = win
        table = /dev/hda

By using the -R option to lilo, like 'lilo -R win' you will cause the
system to boot to windows the next time you reboot.  If you put this and
a 'shutdown -r' into a cron job at 06:00 am for example, the computer
will be up and running for the start of working hours.

The windows version of this is pretty simple as well... You can use the
AT job scheduler to execute a 'shutdown.exe -r' command to cause a
reboot.  The shutdown.exe utility is available for Windows NT, 2000 and
XP, and there is a corresponding method to do this with 95/98/ME, you
just have to search the knowledge base.

The disadvantage to this whole setup is that the computer boots into
linux by default, except when instructed by lilo to reboot into windows
on the next reboot.  If the user manually reboots the computer during
the day, it would come up into linux.  This could perhaps be overcome
with an init script in the default runlevel that checks what time it is,
and reboots into windows if it is inside of normal working hours.  

I've never actually implemented anything like this, just researched it
once...

Best Regards,
Tom Lovie.




> -----Original Message-----
> From: beowulf-admin at beowulf.org 
> [mailto:beowulf-admin at beowulf.org] On Behalf Of Henderson, TL Todd
> Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 11:24 AM
> To: 'beowulf at beowulf.org'
> Subject: Company computer utilization?
> 
> 
> I know this is slightly off topic, but I think most people 
> here would at least be partially interested in this and may 
> already have some ideas.
> 
> Anyway, I do CFD on a cluster and am always looking for more 
> resources, because there are never enough.  We have 100's of 
> P4 and P4 Xeon boxes setting around running windows by day 
> and idle by night.  It was suggested that we start utilizing 
> these resources at night and I'd be happy to do this, except 
> I need or at least prefer them to be linux.  Therefore, we 
> need a way to auto reboot the boxes at some time in the 
> evening to linux and then back to windows in the morning.  
> One of our IT folks is already working on this, but I thought 
> someone out in beowulf land may already have this figured 
> out, or know of some nifty software/freeware to handle this.  
> If anyone has any ideas/suggestions, etc. I'd appreciate it.  
> It has to be automatic because most of the users would 
> probably not do anything as simple as reboot their computer 
> when they go home.
> 
> Thanks ahead of time for any info or ideas.
> Todd
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