I am a novice with clusters.... but I was planning to
solve the same problem as you in one of two ways:

a) The home directories are automatically shared by
Oscar, so a user could log on to the head node, ssh to
a client node and see her directories (including any
executables she has built there). I get the impression
this is the model used if your cluster is used by lots
of people (e.g. in a commercial setting). After all, a
normal user can probably only write to their home
directory and /tmp.

b) Parallel file systems exist, such as PVFS, which
could be used to distribute a volume across several
nodes. I was considering installing PVFS on all four
nodes of my 'toy' cluster. The way I was hoping to
install this was going to end up with a file system
each node could access locally but which would be
spread across (and shared by) all nodes in the system.

Because the Oscar PVFS package is not currently
maintained, I went for using the shared home dirs. If
I get a bit more comfortable with the cluster, I might
give the package a go and see if I can fix whatever
might be broken in it.

Remember that with either option, the I/O would be
across the network, so file access might be
inefficient (i.e. reading the same file over and
over). I was thinking of copying any such files to
/tmp but, as you say, cpush might be useful here. Is
there a programatic interface to cpush, or just
exec()?

But I am only a novice at this and could have got
entirely the wrong idea...

Steve.


--- Tyler Cruickshank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Hello.
>  
> I have 2 items:
>  
> 1) I believe that I have successfully built,
> installed, and pushed
> MPICH2 using PGI compilers.  Once I am sure that it
> is working Ill write
> it up and send it on.
>  
> 2) I have a question that illustrates my depth of
> understanding of
> clusters (lack of depth).  I am trying to run a
> model where the compute
> nodes need access to the same input/output dirs and
> executables (perhaps
> this is always the case?).  Right now, when the
> nodes try to do a job,
> they cant access the executable that lives on the
> server.  How do I set
> the nodes up so that they are able to access the
> server node
> directories?  I can imagine using cpush in some way
> or fully mounting
> the file systems?
>  
> Thanks for listening/reading.
>  
> -Tyler





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