From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 10 13:44:37 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D3FED656 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:44:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-la0-x22b.google.com (mail-la0-x22b.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4010:c03::22b]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6173EB1D for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:44:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-la0-f43.google.com with SMTP id e16so4614075lan.2 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:44:35 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=XEb8F8HUjYMQE1eAAJgQ5nisWXrgJcApzJ5xOSWAsd4=; b=LzyNg4nKpRyyZv/lBTrnVw5t3PeZiB812nvHFHPieh/Xy1bGWUEqFvH8Y6XILmVd7N 6au4A3vUeqzwzAp3ifYxpGXjUoom5+WZzkFBDvHtNaz74BPnZkkES9GjawV+VmId4YOQ nNnuqCWHPQXNaiHbwTcmCcJA0r9TMHV/XDA9+9fb+BUUSdkKkwnJ3hdge/r6bTPmt0B9 IGdzH1cl8WdxcRLTAL7JbFTCvPhr5Lax+5BDLwHyK/35asDoMLS8ZrmnA47ZaAiJ020L PtlXxHgmhFq8iNjzBWJcvJOGUBzzRdoOTUQMCjoWrxfrVhK1HY1nUikvph5ttGVAcvQf 9Swg== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.152.116.43 with SMTP id jt11mr1611254lab.41.1394459075466; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:44:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.114.67.80 with HTTP; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:44:35 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 09:44:35 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Setting up a UNIX cluster From: Brian Kim To: "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.17 X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:44:38 -0000 Dear friends, I am currently a teaching assistant for a freshman programming course at Villanova University. Gloriously enough, we are teaching the C language. The majority of the students have not had any previous experience in programming so the extent of their computing knowledge is limited to the grotesque Windows operating system that they have grown up with. Therefore, before any discussion of programming begins, I want the students to be familiarized with the UNIX environment so that they can gcc all their code and not have to be chained down to IDE's. In order to accomplish this, I have amassed a number of old Dell computers that the department has long abandoned and I wish to set up a computer cluster running FreeBSD. I personally do not have any experience in setting up clusters and was hoping to request any instructional advice in this regard. I have come across this paper ( http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/bsdcon2003/fbsdcluster.pdf) that describes the process of setting up a BSD cluster with 300 nodes but I found the language to be somewhat dense. There is also the fact that I do not have any specialized hardware other than a bunch of old computers. Assuming that I have a network switch, could anyone help me out with a starting point? Thanks! -- Best Wishes, Brian Kim