From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 10 18:07:09 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3D3089C2 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 18:07:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-wg0-x22f.google.com (mail-wg0-x22f.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:400c:c00::22f]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CD5DBAD6 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 18:07:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-wg0-f47.google.com with SMTP id x12so9099694wgg.6 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 11:07:07 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=tm2M2cf6GtOGfWhHb+lWWzSRyTEIWmBbsJ++B+QRh5E=; b=mce59D7DOHOGjDfNETX+Ju65J8CKayuD/EVHPvlUMkt4ZikROfzoky++GWxjJBiXkA idnaUI0jffCA34JDiWBJ8Y1kuY9e8/v3B2AdH1V/K8ilkw+smnMROxn4cyHJX+jwNwpo dyAnF/kBZJJRbEtdB+h7bCc8/GwqEHWkaznaL25kG86ETpOtRAwsGt+828be9Wh5zPG4 P7p39jrUkqNbqgpw8FdKWSWEJB5A9M1vb382O04J5aCt/zskX3L9F0TYZUfyOQ+oZIkB QNWNUSXhVRDHNd9KHZSjKdoULEUeJjql9JafiSBCt8q+t2Fx9gydCXGzmL55F+R+Ktut V6sQ== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.194.48.100 with SMTP id k4mr3400774wjn.49.1394474827208; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 11:07:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.194.187.168 with HTTP; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 11:07:07 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:07:07 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Setting up a UNIX cluster From: Rayson Ho To: Brian Kim Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Cc: "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" 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 18:07:09 -0000 (I was involved in the FreeBSD port of Grid Engine, which is used by the "Fellowship" cluster documented in the paper.) The paper documents the experience in setting up a FreeBSD cluster for High-Performance Computing & High-Throughput Computing. The cluster runs parallel jobs that use MPI. I believe for your use-case, your students are not developing HPC jobs. So you don't really need to set up all the software like Grid Engine, MPI, PXE boot, Ganglia that's mentioned in that paper. Rayson ================================================== Open Grid Scheduler - The Official Open Source Grid Engine http://gridscheduler.sourceforge.net/ http://gridscheduler.sourceforge.net/GridEngine/GridEngineCloud.html On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Brian Kim wrote: > 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 > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"