Cheap Diskless Seti Crunchers

[Stryfe]

TC, do you think this would be a good idea for your suggestion to build a bunch of Duron machines and then rent out crunching time?
Seems like it would bring the cost of the setup down by quite a bit.

 

[TC]

TC, do you think this would be a good idea for your suggestion to build a bunch of Duron machines and then rent out crunching time?
Seems like it would bring the cost of the setup down by quite a bit.

This is entirely why I'm looking into it, but I don't have the money to build the setup just yet. I've got the ltsp setup running with systems booting over the network, but I have not installed the mosix software yet. I'm waiting on Richard to recompile his slobian package with support for AMD.

 

[Stryfe]

I'd love to set something like this up. Sounds like it'd be fun. But I barely had enough money to build one machine, nevermind several.
Keep us up to date on your progress, this is a really interesting project.

 

[TC]

I had the perfect farm to run this on about 6 months ago, but I had some losses in the stock market, and that coupled with the need to get some cisco equipment to study with forced me to sell most of it off. I'm taking the ccna and ccda this month, and aftwards I'll be selling about 2 grand of cisco stuff. That will give me some money to play with say by early August.

 

[bbdd]

Is there anyway to run a diskless computer in a windows environment?

yes it can be done, but the bottom line is for big bucks aka Windows Terminal Server.

FWIW, here are several FAQ's that describe how to remote boot a windows 95 or 98 machine without terminal server. it seems possible to do for the dos-based windows operating systems (95 and 98), but i couldn't find anything for newer os's, so i doubt it's possible on anything newer than 98.

http://cui.unige.ch/info/pc/remote-boot/howto.html
http://straylight.cso.niu.edu/win95/win95boo.htm
http://netboot.sourceforge.net/english/introduction.html

some of these pages are old, and may have dead links. the first link seems to be the best. i have never tried any of these techniques, so YMMV.

 

[Just shoot]

This is entirely why I'm looking into it, but I don't have the money to build the setup just yet. I've got the ltsp setup running with systems booting over the network, but I have not installed the mosix software yet. I'm waiting on Richard to recompile his slobian package with support for AMD.

Are you just using the K12LTSP server or did you use something else? Did Richard by chance say a time frame for the recompile, as it could get pretty pricey to build a intel cluster.

 

[TC]

He said he would compile some new kernels over the holiday weekend, so perhaps he will have it done in the next day or two. You don't actually have to build the cluster from the same computer parts as the server. For instance you should be able to install the server on an Intel rig, and have all the nodes be durons or xp's. This weekend I setup the server on a duron system, but I have booted a P4 and XP rig from it.

 

[Just shoot]

So If I read into this the code is optimized for a intel system?

 

[Greg M]

it seems possible to do for the dos-based windows operating systems (95 and 98), but i couldn't find anything for newer os's, so i doubt it's possible on anything newer than 98.

Windows Millennium Edition is the last Windows 9x kernel OS.

As to clustering in W2K Advanced Server, that is in relation to the new & improved Wolfpack clustering. You are looking at something that is limited at 2 nodes and the ability to do this is often proprietary due to shared storage. It's expensive and won't crunch SETI any faster than 2 separate systems. It's main function in life is fault tolerance.

 

[Stryfe]

Windows Millennium Edition is the last Windows 9x kernel OS.

Does Win ME really even qualify as an operating system though? It doesn't really operate it just crashes, hehe

I was busy pretending it never exisited until you brought it up, j/k

 

[Greg M]

Just providing info.

I ran Me for awhile. It was ugly.

 

[TC]

You mean windows More Errors edition?

 

[Just shoot]

O.k. guys had alittle time at work today and I remembered a sismiliar post of this in the folding section. It was originally posted by Gator and I believe gator is also the author of the how to with mandrake 8.2.

Here's the thread

and heres the zip file, maybe someone alittle better at linux then my self could modify the how to, for seti.

 

[TC]

If you get the LTSP distro from the K12 project the server is completely configured during the install. You don't have to go through half of the stuff he does. The only thing that's different is running seti instead of folding. I'll look into altering it when I have more time.

 

[muttley]

http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ 

Team Anandtech offers you some assistance.

 

[TC]

http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ 

Team Anandtech offers you some assistance.

That link is dead, but anyway - what does VNC have to do with diskless clients?

 

[{PMS}fishy]

Slghtly off topic, but is there any way to do this with windows. I played with Linux and it beat me down hard.

 

[muttley]

http://www.uk.research.att.com/projects.html

Then look up past projects a little down the page and then VNC

Try this page and see if you get results it seems they have some new system that has a hiccup cause the VNC link is the same address maybne a cookie link??? who knows.

another way http://www.uk.research.att.com/software.html

VNC means
Virtual Network Computing, remote cross-platform access to PC or Unix desktops.

Basicly I can from anywhere in the world with a program from a floppy access on most platforms the desktop in near real time the monitor picture. (Graphics wouldn't be possible. Like a high speed game) I have ran this over a 100mbps and it works great. You can also use the internet. For example you can leave your computer on at home say with a word processing program running and a document started of say 5 pages and then fly to Japan and from another computer work on the document. If you lose your connection over the internet or a broken situtation you just pick up where you left off.
Basicly you see the whole computer screen on the other computer.
I have been on my linux redhat 7.2 and accessed my wifes Win XP home computer. You can do this from other platforms or chrck on a server in the basement.

muttley

 

[{PMS}fishy]

We know how it works. The question is what does it have to do with a diskless cluster.

 

[rogerdugans]

Many of us use VNC

What the Diskless Cruncher Project is about is setting up client computers that do not have a hard drive, or an operating system.
They don't even need a video card unless the motherboard requires one to boot.

The OS is transferred to the Diskless Cruncher via Ethernet, booting either from a bootrom chip or a floppy disk.

The Server also provides hard drive space for the Seti work units

The advantages are less cost and no time spent installing an os.
Disadvantages are that a pc will be a bit slower- TBird 900@1050 is about 15 or 20 minutes slower per wu on my cluster; and also that nobody has found a way to monitor temps and voltages on the clients yet (I'm working on it ) so if you are overclocking the clients, you need to go through all the rigamarole just like always to optimize BIOS and OC.

Adding a machine is as simple as getting the boot image on a floppy, and entering the MAC address of the nic in a text file. Then boot the client- done.

The how-to is in progress, and it will be easy to follow for anyone interested in trying this: I am one step away from being a complete Linux Idiot, and I'm helping

I do use VNC to access my Cluster Server remotely, and also the 233 mhz Mac that I am playing with btw