[tech] searching for DEC-compatible network cards

[Cameron Patrick]

(Davyd: Replying on-list since nothing in the reply seemed like it
should be personal.  Feel free to LART me next time we meet if
otherwise :-P)

On Sat, Jul 02, 2005 at 06:19:34PM +0800, Davyd Madeley wrote:

> > Another option (perhaps easier?) would be to drop in leftover drives
> > to boot the kernel off and $generic GigE cards for everything else.
> 
> Indeed, that may be an option. With the challenges of clustering, ie.
> making sure machines are running the same kernel version and tools etc.
> Network booting would be a really nice thing to have. I seem to recall
> that version 7 of SRM was released recently. Perhaps this plays nice
> with more things.

Perhaps.  We'll see what works, I suppose.

> Research is proving it challenging to actually find free/libre
> clustering software that works on Alpha. It looks like something called
> OpenSSI.org is adding support for Alpha, but I can't seem to find out
> what the status of that port is.

There's warewulf, which is vaguely popular: 
    http://warewulf.lbl.gov/pmwiki/

I've never used it, but it looks an initrd that handles most of the
pain for you.  If it's not already ported to Alpha, it shouldn't be
_too_ hard (famous last words).  Then you can plop on something like
SGE (Sun Grid Engine - openish libre software), and/or use apps which
know MPI/PVM clustering libs.

> I suppose there is always the classic favourite of OpenVMS, or we could
> try going to HP to get a license for TruCluster.

Well, we don't have any OpenVMS machines at UCC (at least not
user-accessible) so these Alphas could buck that trend :-)

Cameron.


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