I need to set up aLinux Cluster as a High School Projekt, to show people one of the many thing you can do with linux. But i'm not sure what programs to use. I would like to be able to use different systems (but same distributions, Debian i think - but you guys may have a better idea which i would gladly use) with different hardware only connected by local TCP/IP LAN.
The purpuse of this cluster should be to show raw computing power by running some kind of test program very fast or something like that - to illustrate the power of the computers combined.
All i need now is a program to combine the computing power of the client machines into executing one program on a server.

Anybody know of such a program or a program to illustrate or benchmark such a cluster?

Any thougts welcome :-)

You might take a look at Beowulf:

http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/beowulf/.../building.html

http://www.beowulf.org/

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

power to linux

Linux Central has a Scyld Beowuld CD for sale for only a few bucks. It's an excellent start for anyone interested in Beowulf clustering. I set up a 13-node cluster using this software in minutes.

ok
what is a linux cluster and what do they do?

checkout the links jailbait posted.
Basically it's connecting a bunch of computers in parrallel so you get more processing power.

I wrote a small page about the construction of my cluster and it shows instructions on how to build a similar cluster. It also shows benchmark results and upgrades as I added more nodes and administration and monitoring packages.

http://home.attmil.ne.jp/a/jm/

You might also consider Cluster Knoppix, a Knoppix/Debian based live CD with OpenMosix.

jcm,

Your Talon Cluster report is extremely well done.

------------------------
Steve Stites

PikkeMand,

there's a lot of stuff out there on how to set up a cluster. That's the problem, there's almost too much information.

Here's a good overview:

http://www.phy.duke.edu/brahma/Resou...owulf_book.php

You'll almost definitely need a version of MPI. There's LAM or MPICH. I prefer LAM, but I used MPI to start with.

www.lam-mpi.org

www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/mpi/mpich/

Here's a dead simple guide that used freebsd, but the principles are the same.

http://blizzard.rwic.und.edu/~nordlie/miniwulf/

I followed this for my first cluster on FreeBSD using mpich, but now I use Slackware 9.1 and LAM. This is probably the best "Getting Started" guide I've seen. Post back here if you have trouble with the ssh setup or anything else, I can help you. You will probably have to do some funky stuff with your /etc/passwd file too. I strongly suggest using ssh, not for all the good security reasons but because I found it easier than rsh as described on the website. There's loads of good links there on the website as well.

Good luck and post back here if you need help.

Damien

@jailbait-
Thank you for the support. I am glad to see people find it interesting. Since it's construciton, I have tried to get back into programming so I can make programs to test out on it for possible future clusters.

I am probably going to switch from RedHat to slackware or a bsd to see if it will run any faster since the hardware is older.

Slackware <might> be a bit faster than RedHat based on what's set up by default in the kernel. You'll probably get more out of tweaking your RedHat kernel than changing distributions. FreeBSD supposedly has a faster TCPIP stack, but if you're not network limited that won't make any difference. I don't know if the floating-point is any faster.

Check out www.beowulf.org.

Damien

sorry to be using somebody else's thread to ask my doubts.

but i have to build a cluster damn fast (in 2-3 days) and all i have in hand is a brand new set of hardware and SuSE 9.1 ..... now, can anybody help me out please??

thanx a bunch in advance and sorry for all the inconvenience caused.

regards,
scam.

This year we made a project about clustering... We have used Mandrake Clic 2.0 which as a distro designed for clustering... Here is the website... http://clic.mandrakesoft.com/index-en.html
How it is special? It has two different installation options like server and node installation... They have different packages such as benchmarking tools...

Cheers......