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eating 02-14-2006 08:18 PM

Networking basics
 
Hi.

I'm trying to configure a small network with the following hardware:
1. 4 HP Workstations: (2 WinXP x64/32Bit, 3 RHEL WS 4 32/64-Bit)
2. Buffalo Airstation AG54 Router with USB 2.0 adaptor set
3. Buffalo Terastation (1.6 TB) disk
4. HP laser jet 4000 printer
5. Fast Ethernet switches

I want to (at the least) access the disk (Terastation) from any workstation (Windows/Linux) and allow printing over wired or wireless network.

The ultimate plan is to carry out parallel processing over a wireless network. Is this possible? Or is it better to stick to wired connections?

Aside from the fact that i don't have good networking knowledge/experience, the manuals and softwares are all Japanese so, i can't follow the instruction (and worse, i can't read the characters in my English OSs). So can anyone help me with the setup? Or suggest a good site to follow..

Thanks a lot

btmiller 02-14-2006 10:58 PM

Plug everything into the switch. Then configure NFS/Samba for file sharing (I think the TeraStation runs Linux internally and it's possible, with some knowledge, to gain access to the underlying OS and set it to run NFS as well as SAMBA). You can probably access the print server via SAMBA too, but it depends on exactly how it works.

As for parallel processing, what kind? Do you have any code that is specifically written to work in parallel? If so, how much intercommunication does it need? How big are the exchanged messages? If you have an embarrasingly parallel job that just needs to be distributed at the start, it should work fine. If you have a highly communications dependant parallel application, running it over wireless (or even fast Ethernet, is likely to be painful).

eating 03-15-2006 07:57 PM

sorry for this late reply..i've been busy doing something else.

i got it all configured except for some small problems. How can i mount a folder to a terastation shared folder? i tried this link but can't get it to work for my set-up

http://topeka.cpge.utexas.edu/storage.html

any other suggestions?


Now, im back with the main problem on parallel processing. i am using MPICH-2 and have tried to run sample programs that i got from the MPICH-2 forum. So now, I am studying how to re-write the original code of a relatively large application so i can carry out computations on my linux cluster. My question is

what implementation of MPI (or PVM) will allow me to run a program
that is sequential in nature (e.g. numerical integration using RK4)
faster in a multicomputer set-up? is it possible?

btmiller 03-15-2006 08:30 PM

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do with the storage -- can you post your exact errors with that and what you've tried?

If your problem is sequential as the RK method seems to be (from a quick look at Wikipedia), it's very tough to get a parallel speedup. Normally, to achieve a speedup you have to distribute a different part of the program on each processor. However, is step n+1 depends on the result of step n, then they obviously can't be done in parallel. What you have to do is see if each individual step can be decomposed into smaller problems. For example, it looks like each step of the RK method requires several terms to be computed and summed. You could try to distribute these terms to individual processors to speed up their calculation. If calculation time for each term is slow, though. you may waste more time on communication overhead. I would suggest googling for something called Amdahl's law or read the Wikipedia page on it,

eating 03-16-2006 06:20 AM

btmiller, thanks for reply.

I tried to issue the following commands and get the error with smbmnt..

[eating@sagami ~]$ which smbmount
/usr/bin/smbmount
[eating@sagami ~]$ which smbmnt
/usr/bin/smbmnt
[eating@sagami ~]$ mkdir terastation
[eating@sagami ~]$ vi .smbpw
[eating@sagami ~]$ chmod +600 .smbpw
[eating@sagami ~]$ /usr/bin/smbmount //KIBANFILES/eating ~/terastation -o "credentials=$HOME/.smbpw,uid=eating,gid=kiban"
smbmnt must be installed suid root for direct user mounts (501,501)
smbmnt failed: 1

is there any other way of doing this?

eating 03-16-2006 07:41 AM

i got it working already...i just have to log-in as root.=) now, im looking for a way to mount it permanently. how can i do this?

thanks again.


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