Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 08:20:07AM +0200, Vim Visual wrote: Hi, I'm not concerned about the library, I'm almost sure it'll work in OpenBSD -it was written to be very portable-; it's the raid controller what will finally be the key to the OS... I forgot to give details, sorry. It's an Areca Raid Controller arc-1220 that card works fine in openbsd. it even has bio support out of the box. Yes, the OS is not that important, the cluster will not have a public IP and is already sitting behind a firewall (don't ask me which one, please, it's a RHL one, it was not my personal choice) and I've got obsd installed on my laptop to do the data analysis of the results but I was looking forward to having obsd on the cluster... i suspect the library that talks to the GRAPE card requires access to the hardware registers. if it uses the same mechanisms as X, then it might just work, but i don't like your chances. Today I'll boot the cd and see whether the controller is configured... it'll be fine :) dlg
Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
Hi, I'm not concerned about the library, I'm almost sure it'll work in OpenBSD -it was written to be very portable-; it's the raid controller what will finally be the key to the OS... I forgot to give details, sorry. It's an Areca Raid Controller arc-1220 Yes, the OS is not that important, the cluster will not have a public IP and is already sitting behind a firewall (don't ask me which one, please, it's a RHL one, it was not my personal choice) and I've got obsd installed on my laptop to do the data analysis of the results but I was looking forward to having obsd on the cluster... Today I'll boot the cd and see whether the controller is configured... Thanks! Pau Amaro-Seoane
Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 08:20:07AM +0200, Vim Visual wrote: Hi, I'm not concerned about the library, I'm almost sure it'll work in OpenBSD -it was written to be very portable-; it's the raid controller what will finally be the key to the OS... I forgot to give details, sorry. It's an Areca Raid Controller arc-1220 Well, arc(4) suggests that a lot of similar controllers are supported; so I'd hold out hope for the future. It *might* even be the case that it 'just works', but you'll have to ask someone who has a clue about hardware (dlg@ wrote the driver, so should know). Yes, the OS is not that important, the cluster will not have a public IP and is already sitting behind a firewall (don't ask me which one, please, it's a RHL one, it was not my personal choice) and I've got obsd installed on my laptop to do the data analysis of the results but I was looking forward to having obsd on the cluster... Today I'll boot the cd and see whether the controller is configured... Well, if your library runs on OpenBSD, it's almost certainly possible to get the rest working. You can almost certainly get the RAID card to function as plain IDE or something similar, which means you can boot and play around. A RAID card is quite useful, though, so I wouldn't recommend sticking with an OS that doesn't support it. (Alternately, I'd recommend picking a RAID card that the OS supports.) Joachim -- TFMotD: ypserv.acl (5) - ypserv(8) configuration file
Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
On Fri, 13 Apr 2007, Joachim Schipper wrote: On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 08:20:07AM +0200, Vim Visual wrote: [snip] I forgot to give details, sorry. It's an Areca Raid Controller arc-1220 Well, arc(4) suggests that a lot of similar controllers are supported; [snip] Well if I'm not missing something obvious.. It doesn't support just similar but exactly 1220: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=arcapropos=0sektion=0manpath=OpenBSD+Currentarch=i386format=html - ARC-1220 PCI Express 8 Port SATA RAID Controller -- Antti Harri
Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
Hey Antti, thanks a lot for the input... yes, I saw that one... exactly 1220. I think obsd would just run out of the box Unfortunately the IT department boss here is one of those people who uses linux and feels cool doing it because it's not windows She's got the last word and it's going to be a debian :( Well, at least they cannot touch my laptop... I'm going to order now the cds for obsd 4.1 Thanks for everything, Pau Amaro-Seoane 2007/4/13, Antti Harri [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Fri, 13 Apr 2007, Joachim Schipper wrote: On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 08:20:07AM +0200, Vim Visual wrote: [snip] I forgot to give details, sorry. It's an Areca Raid Controller arc-1220 Well, arc(4) suggests that a lot of similar controllers are supported; [snip] Well if I'm not missing something obvious.. It doesn't support just similar but exactly 1220: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=arcapropos=0sektion=0manpath=OpenBSD+Currentarch=i386format=html - ARC-1220 PCI Express 8 Port SATA RAID Controller -- Antti Harri
GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
Hi, my home institute has bought (for me) a cluster of 4 nodes with the special-purpose hardware called GRAPE; it's for astrophysical simulations. The cards (the GRAPEs) just calculate the gravitational forces and accelerate the calculations a lot. In parallel the cluster can achieve a peak performance of 0.5 Teraflops. This is the GRAPE card http://www.metrix.co.jp/grape6A.html Now... I'd like to install OpenBSD on the cluster, of course... all I need is in the OS. But our IT department is not that happy... they want a debian and I'm very crossed. According to them, there aren't any drivers for the Raid Controller... Is that true? Thanks, Pau
Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
On 4/12/07, Vim Visual [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is the GRAPE card http://www.metrix.co.jp/grape6A.html Now... I'd like to install OpenBSD on the cluster, of course... all I need is in the OS. But our IT department is not that happy... they want a debian and I'm very crossed. According to them, there aren't any drivers for the Raid Controller... Is that true? What RAID? This is a PCI card. It might be that there are no drivers for the card itself. The webpage says the CD contains an interface library but doesn't explain that and the link at the bottom is dead. It might be that the library talks directly to the PCI bus? In that case it would probably be linux-specific. It might actually be simpler to go with debian. If you really want OpenBSD, you could do the data analysis on the debian and pipe it over a socket to OpenBSD, though depending on your usage this might be a bottleneck, completely eliminating the use of having hardware acceleration in the first place. -Nick
Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 08:12:20PM +0200, Vim Visual wrote: According to them, there aren't any drivers for the Raid Controller... Is that true? OpenBSD has drivers for RAID controllers, but you'll need to provide more details to answer the question of whether OpenBSD has drivers for your RAID controllers. Alternatively, just try booting the OpenBSD CD image and see what it detects.
Re: GRAPE cluster supercomputer + OpenBSD
On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 08:12:20PM +0200, Vim Visual wrote: Hi, my home institute has bought (for me) a cluster of 4 nodes with the special-purpose hardware called GRAPE; it's for astrophysical simulations. The cards (the GRAPEs) just calculate the gravitational forces and accelerate the calculations a lot. In parallel the cluster can achieve a peak performance of 0.5 Teraflops. This is the GRAPE card http://www.metrix.co.jp/grape6A.html Now... I'd like to install OpenBSD on the cluster, of course... all I need is in the OS. But our IT department is not that happy... they want a debian and I'm very crossed. According to them, there aren't any drivers for the Raid Controller... Is that true? I dunno about the RAID controller, but that overclocked calculator of yours looks iffy. I don't think its interface library going to work, unless the library was written in a *very* portable fashion. OpenBSD doesn't allow random user programs poking random bits of hardware (X being a notable exception, in most cases). I'm sure you *could* port the software, but that looks like a lot of work. And it's not like those boxes will be doing much else than calculations; just run Debian, isolate them from the net if so inclined (or allow access only via an (OpenBSD) firewall), and sit at your favourite OpenBSD spot. Joachim -- TFMotD: lpq (1) - spool queue examination program
