[Beowulf] Ineternet cluster

[Eric W. Biederman]

"Maxence Dunnewind" <maxenced at gmail.com> writes:

> HI,
> i'm working on  a way for split Debian/Ubuntu packaging process throught
> internet.
> I'm looking for the best solution does beowulf can do it ?

Package building is essentially an embarrassingly parallel problem.
You communicate at startup the package source that needs to be built.
You communicate when you are done the binary package that was built.

There doesn't need to be any intermediate communication that is
frequently seen on beowulf clusters.  Plus until you get to grid
computing beowulf cluster nodes don't communicate over the internet
(the latency and bandwith both hinder the application).  So your best
solution is likely something closer to the seti at home model.

However I have a problem seeing multiple random machines distributed
over the internet providing you much value either as the big problem
with a distribution like debian is the plethora of architecture it
supports.  So the seti at home model doesn't quite work for you either.

The simplest method is probably to have each maintainer build their
own binary packages, that is the least possible complication and
likely the best feedback for fixing problems.

For a compile farm beyond that you probably still want something like
work requests submitted by the package maintainers, being picked up by
volunteer machines that can perform them.  With some signatures thrown
in some things don't get wildly out of wack.

Trust would seem to be your big problem in this instance.

Eric