Beginning Folding Farm

[monkeywrench]

This is my very first thread so I will do my best. PLease give any informmation you might have including any tips on creating and posting threads. Anyways, I have just very recently learned about this new world of Folding. I downloaded D2OL and joined Free-DC about a week ago and I already want to go further and learn more. I have heard about "folding farms, diskless nodes, diskless net botting and thin client technology throught misc. forums and websites. I want to start my own farm but I need the know how to accomplish this. I know I need a MOBO equiped with a PROC, Ram and PSU. I have all of those items including a linksys 10/100 NIC for the network part. I also have my main computer (in which I am guessing will be the server) that runs XP with an AMD 3100+ Sempron and 512MB Ram. I live in a duplex that required me to purchase a Linksys wireless-G broadband router and wireless card for the computer (the cable guy will not install cable into this bedroom). The router is in my bedroom connected to a cable modem. So, do I connect the client (node correct?) to the router also? I think I can handle the physical part of the farm but now how to get everything to work!?! I keep seeing Linux everywhere and how does that come together with a windows OS? Do you have to use Linux? Why not XP?

PLease someone help me build the beginnings of a folding farm! I need the know how!

[Bok]

Short version.

I'm not aware that you can do this with XP. What this involves is having a linux server running a PXE server or LTSP.

Look here for information on this.

Once installed and running, you can then boot up a 'node' which is a diskless PC (mobo,proc,cpu,nic). The boot settings in the BIOS have to be set for boot LAN first, it will then search for a server. The ltsp server is waiting for it, so will attach and it will download a linux kernel and boot into it, it then uses some of the disk space from the server for it's files.

It's not that difficult, but you need to know some linux first.

In the meantime, it's just as easy to have a farm but have disks on each of the nodes, or even boot them with a cd drive using [url=http://www.knoppix.net[/url]. They can all be monitored remotely without the need for a monitor/keyboard/mouse. You only need some old 2Gb+ drives.

Hope this helps for starters.

Bok

[monkeywrench]

Thanks for the help BOK, but I am extremely interested in the diskless option of "farming." Mainly because its cheaper and I already have the makeings of an extra client at this time. So to run linux, I need to partition my current hardrive with a program such as partition magic correct? Am I able to download Linux anywhere? Are there any versions written just for building farms? HOw about a beginners Linux?

Also I have a Linksys 10/100 Lan card with Wake-on-Lan and a Boot ROM socket for Optional Boot ROM with PXE support. Explain please? Do i care that is has wake-on-lan? Or is it the Boot ROM that boots the mobo from the server? Do I need a ROM to insert into the socket for Boot-on-lan? If so, where do I find this?






Monkeywrench

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

monkey Linux CD's thee linux resource point, got a load of them, knoppix is there too, forums for each flavour to read as well as for the other stuff - i think there is a sticky for PXE here or maybe bok knows, I'm learning *nix just like you.. well I will do as soon as i figure what node I'm gonna use for it..

[MerePeer]

I believe that "wake-on-lan" is a way that a computer that isn't running can be turned on via a lan signal, i.e. its not what you are looking for. It is the PXE boot support that you need, and apparently have.

Over in this thread Longbow has been talking about a nice bootable distribution:
http://www.free-dc.org/forum/showthr...0415#post80415
There are many distributions, each with pros and cons. There is another Free-DC thread where folks have posted their favorites. In addition to the link Gopher posted, here's another place you can download Linux: http://distrowatch.com/.

In this thread I have a link to partitioning software I have used before (no matter what you use remember to *do a backup first*...if the power fails, for instance):
http://www.free-dc.org/forum/showthr...&threadid=8186.

[monkeywrench]

hey, what do you guys recommend for a Linux OS. Mandrake, Knoppix, Suse,freebsd, redhat? Remember I know nothing of the linux world

I also noticed that they have multiple .iso downloads. Do I need all of these and can I download them onto a DVD instead of a CDR (I'm currently out of cdrs). What is the difference in all of the versions. EX- version 10 compared to Beta 10.1 and so on. Do I want the most frequent one?

And we will follow that with can I boot the client from a floppy instead of buying a ROM to install on my NIC?
If so where can I do this and how is it done?

Thanks for all the help


monkeywrench

[MerePeer]

Take a read over at the OS Discussion Forum . The top 10 items include some discussion of pros and cons of different distributions and other topics about linux.

I don't know about booting from a DVD, I imagine it would work if you setup your BIOS to do so

Not sure what you meant about buying ROM. The basic premise of a PXE farm is that there is a linux server running an FTP server, an NFS server, and usually a DHCP server and possibly a DNS server. Then there is the diskless client PC. When it boots it uses the LAN connection to ask the DHCP server for an IP address and the name of a file to boot from. Normally that is a PXElinux file from the Syslinux pkg. The client PC then retrieves the file using a special TFTP request to the FTP server, and it boots from it. At this point things can take different directions, but generally the back and forth continues until the client PC is running the operating system you want and accessing files over the NFS file system.

A farm of computers does not have to be setup as PXE nodes, for instance each client PC could boot from a CD drive but still use its network connection to communicate with distributed computing project hosts. You've got plenty to learn with just Linux at this point including both screen and command line stuff as well as playing with distributions until you find one you like. I would suggest you consider just booting up your diskless client PC from a CD drive instead of the LAN -- that's a good way to get started with Linux AND run a distributed computing project under Linux to get your feet wet. In the OS forum there is a thread where someone has replied with the name of a distribution that *includes* a DC project or two so you wouldnt have to do much setup if you started with that one.

[rsbriggs]

You don't generally need to install a special boot prom on the NIC card, most modern cards have PXE boot built in.

You will need to have one machine that has two NICs. That machine will serve up your internet connection to the rest of your network by providing IP masquerading for the entire network, act as a firewall, and be the main PXE boot server. There are several long, sticky posts about this from back when several of us started doing this - read through all the threads in the networking discussion section to get a good background on what all is involved. The whole process is pretty well spelled out, start to finish. By the time you're done setting up a couple of machines this way, you'll be about 1/3 of the way to being a linux system administrator...

Nearly any distributiion will do. Mandrake is known as being a good starting distribution. Several of us use Gentoo, which is much harder to start with, but gives you a system that you can custom build specifically for whatever task you are trying to accomplish. How you build Gentoo is well documented, but you need to already know your way around a Linux system before you try it, IMO. Debian is pretty popular and fairly easy to install new packages on - I believe they use the apt-get system of installing. Mandrake and RedHat varieties linux use RPMs for installation. Gentoo downloads source code and compiles it via the emerge command.

Yes, you need to download multiple CDs. Some distributions have DVD images available (SuSE and Fedora, come to mind). You could easily spend months installing various flavors of Linux to learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the distros. Suggestion - pick something (anything) mainstream and stick with it for a while. After a few months, you'll know what you like and what you hate about it and be better able to choose between distributions based on those likes and dislikes.