Help with crack rack

[vprime]

Well, I have been saving some money to build my first "baby" crack rack(4 duron nodes). I have been to the TA cube site and seen Russ' setup. I have read some threads where people say you don't even need a floppy drive. Does anyone have any info on this? Also, do you need a video card? Anyone have any info about how to set everything up?

Thanks,

vprime

 

[blade47]

I've been wanting to see some good sites on the how to build a crackrack myself.

 

[joeyd]

well i would assume that u need a motherboard , cpu , ram , cheap video card and a small hardrive. Everything else u can just swap in and out as u need it , like a cdrom drive to install windows and a floppy drive when u need to transfer blocks

 

[blade47]

The bare essentials are:
Motherboard
cpu
ram
floppy or small hd
video card (you can run a linux node without a video card or so I'm told)
nic
ps

 

[RaySun2Be]

You will also need a hub or switch to connect the nodes together unless you plan on sneakernetting the blocks for each node.

Kilowatt's Klinux distribution eliminates the need for a hard drive.

 

[cory]

yep you do not need a video card to run linux.

if you are doing rc5 get that floppy based klinux

its will save some elec usage if you use a floppy
with rc5.
you could boot across network but would need a server
to run linux and act as a nfs server

 

[Kilowatt]

Well, with Klinux, you'll need a video card , unless you can login blind. :Q

I guess you could wait until there is no floppy drive activity, type root to login.
Then you'll need to change to the rc5 dir, and start the client.
If you have all the dnet client config settings memorized, you shouldn't have a hard time adding your email and setting the contest you want. </ Kilowatt chuckles at thinking this could be done blind

A video card is cheap, and guarantees you'll get the settings right the first time.

Klinux-v.3 will have telnet capabilities, letting you login over your LAN, from basically any machine, and start the client.
Then booting Klinux blind won't be so hard to do.
All you'll need to do then, is login after the floppy light goes out.

 

[cory]

could you not have it run the rc
without having to login?

that is what i did with my cluster.

all i do is turn it on and as
soon as it finishes boot it starts seti

 

[Kilowatt]

Yeah you can, but seeing how the Klinux versions, that are available for download don't have the dnet client configured yet, it'll be tough.
I'd have to build everyone their own version with all that info already filled out.
That's not going to happen, I have a business I'm trying to run.

I am incorporating the ability to save the dnetc.ini file to another floppy, so people don't have to spend the three min it takes to fill it out again.
That was the most requested feature.

Mine I can do alot with, as I know my different IP's, dnet client config and what machine my pproxy is on.
It makes a lot of difference, knowing all that in advance.

My own version for instance, dosen't have the DHCP feature built in the kernel, because I want a static IP for each node, and the dnetc.ini file is already filled out before tarballing it.

 

[blade47]

You could always drop the video card in when you built it. Boot it up and configure everything. Power down remove the video card and reboot. That way you could just have one cheap video card and use it when you configure the nodes for the first time.

 

[vprime]

Thanks for the info. Here is what I was thinking. I once saw someone who had a whole research lab set up with linux nodes. At each node, there was a cpu, ram, video, ethernet, monitor, and power. When he turned the computer on, it somehow booted off the server and used that as storeage. Are there any guides on how to do this?

Thanks again,

vprime

 

[blade47]

That's how cory is running his setup I believe. Just minus the video cards I think.

 

[cory]

yea my setup is

one full linux box.

and 8 nodes that are just ps, mb, cpu, ram, nic and floppy.

i have a boot floppy that is just a rom image
that tells the machine to boot from the linux server
and load the kernel from there along with all info then
mount a filesystem and then start all the
normal processes and then start seti.

i can login to all the nodes and also have
a few programs that monitor the nodes.
( i also have it setup with the main linux server able
to power off and on any node using X10 devices that
each ps is plugged into)


but before you do anything you need to have on linux box up and running to assign ip's and act as a nfs server.
and you need to use this box to create the kernel's and other
stuff.

so get a main linux box up and running and then i can help
you with the node stuff.