[BProc] beowulf demo cluster

[Janez P. <jan...@fe...>]

Hi all.

I am trying to set up simple beowulf (1 master, 1 node) system,
for demonstrational (educational) purposes. Therefore, I do not
need real supercomputing power :> just the ability to show to 
the students the parallel processing with bproc_rfork, as part
of exercise for the course "Parallel systems" which is teached
by my supervisor. In ideal case I would set up the student boxes 
in our lab to work as a nodes, so the students do some 
experimenting...

I've been trying every possible combinations of bproc distributions,
kernels and various linux distributions (yes, and I even tried
scyld beowulf - did not work out) for one week now an I am 
really frustrated. (yes, Vmware rocks and is the only bright point
there, otherwise I would quit it long before)

The point where I really stopped and I see no way out is 
combination of kernel 2.2.18 and bproc 2.2.2 on redhat 7.0

* it patches ok
* kernel compiles ok 
* after installation kernel works, but complains it cannot find
module dependencies during boot. However, network card works without problems,
and is compiled as a module)
* bproc compiles ok  (make)
* it installs (make install) (I see no obvious warnings)

However, bpmaster refuses to run, it complains that 

/dev/bproc: no such device.

I find it utterly stupid, as the entry /dev/bproc is there, it
was created by the install script... 

Also, insmod /usr/src/bproc/kernel/bproc.o says:
Cannot find module bproc.o ... BUT IT IS there!

What I am doing wrong ? I know I will be getting responses that
i am using old version of bproc, however, I suspect that is not
the problem, I think I screwed up somewhere along setup and new 
versions of bproc/kernel would make no difference.

The bproc documentation on sourceforge is ok, although many steps
in installation are missing, so can anyone write down step-by-step
instructions which make options should be executed and in which
order (sort of "bproc install for dummies").

Thanks in advance, Janez.