A parallel processing question

Hi folks.

Does anyone have any ideas as for the best way to send commands to, and update files on, another system within a LAN?

I have looked at NFS and LADP but do not need security since it is the same machine. Security features could be incorporated if it would just be easier to leave them in.

And I have no idea how to send a command to another system other than remote desktop. This is no good (out of the box) because the data and commands will be automaticially sent.

I am currently running 11.3 KDE x64 which seems to be a nice system.

Any pointers would be appreciated. I realize being a newb that my work is cut out for me, but I like challenges and I will learn, albeit with an unorthodox approach.

For remote shell commands use SSH.
For ferrying files up and down use SFTP (part of SSH).
When you mean with “update files” to syncronize files on one system with brothers on another system use rsync.

While SSH (and SFTP) seem to be interactive commands driven by a person behind a terminal, it is possible to make scripts to run these things in the background (e.g. via cron).

Just pointers, as you asked for.

(Your title about “parallel processing” has imho no connection with what you ask for.)

Incidentally this is not parallel processing as it is commonly understood, just remote execution or file synchronisation. Use the correct terminology and you will have better luck with searches.

Yes, my error. I meant multiprocessing as in Helios. However, remote command execution (messages?) and data transfer is necessary.

http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/81154/helios.pdf

I will re-assess and repost more carefully.

Now I’m confused. Are you sending data/commands to another Linux box or a Windows box?
Can you give us an example of what you are trying to accomplish?

Thanks,
Hiatt

Besides my incorrect title selection, I probably should have mentioned the long-term goal.

I wish to build a Helios-like system using all Linux to control a humanoid robot. Speech, locomotion, sight, and hearing would be the bare minumum requring 4 satellites and 1 coordinator.

http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/81154/helios.pdf MS Helios will be using MS Singularity which appears to be MS-Unix.

Here is an example of a working unit but used for another application: http://web-test.ncsa.illinois.edu/~kindr/papers/lci09_paper.pdf

On 03/06/2011 03:36 PM, itphoenix wrote:
>
> http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/81154/helios.pdf MS Helios will be
> using MS Singularity which appears to be MS-Unix.

oh wow…i would say it might be good to read less of the Microsoft
“Research” papers because most of that stuff is just them trying to
figure out which end is up, and trying to catch up…

most of what they talk about there is pure hope and dreams, or
vaporware…while today, of the 500 top supercomputers in the world
<http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36/os> five run something called
“Windows HPC 2008” and almost all the rest run Linux or other
Unix-like operating systems…


DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DD 23 Jan 11

itphoenix wrote:

>
> I wish to build a Helios-like system using all Linux to control a
> humanoid robot. Speech, locomotion, sight, and hearing would be the
> bare minumum requring 4 satellites and 1 coordinator.
>

If I understand what you really want to accomplish (I am not sure I do), you
look for some distributed computing environment with inbuilt IPC.
Have a look at MPI, this should be what you are after.
There are several implementations of MPI available for linux (e. g. MPICH)
and a bunch of programming languages has MPI bindings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_Passing_Interface
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/projects/mpi/
https://computing.llnl.gov/tutorials/mpi/


openSUSE 11.3 64 bit | Intel Core2 Quad Q8300@2.50GHz | KDE 4.5 | GeForce
9600 GT | 4GB Ram
openSUSE 11.3 64 bit | Intel Core2 Duo T9300@2.50GHz | KDE 4.5 | Quadro FX
3600M | 4GB Ram

First I would like to thank everyone for his input, especially in light of my lack of focus. Compounding this is the fact that many technologies and system configurations overlap. For example, the distinction between cloud, grid, clusters, multiprocessing, parallel processing, etc., are blurred.

I am designing a humanoid robot control system that is portable, easy to maintain, error tolerant, scalable, reliable, and fairly easy to program. I am only at the point of the basic outline and have no idea precisely how it will all come together.

The pointers led me to researching the terms at Wikipedia, my first line of offense, and was quite educational.

I have found so far that H-A appears to be a basic starting point. It is necessary for a master control of all “nodes”. I have Pacemaker installed with a GUI, although set up appears complicated. At least the LAN connections and general control of the machine are already implimented in the software.

Message passing appears to be advantagous or even necessary, but it is unkown precisely how it will fit in the H-A system.

Again, thank you everybody for your input. I had no luck with MS Research when I inquired about Singularity. Only one person replied to my initial question about programming. I understand that I am not qualified to develop a kernel, and my question testified of this. But you would hope that someone would at least give a pointer. I am very disappointed with that community.

On 03/08/2011 06:36 AM, itphoenix wrote:
>
> I had no luck with MS Research . . . I am very
> disappointed with that community.

i believe most of the world is disappointed with them also.


DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DD 23 Jan 11

itphoenix adjusted his/her AFDB on Tue 8 March 2011 05:36 to write:

> Again, thank you everybody for your input. I had no luck with MS
> Research when I inquired about Singularity. Only one person replied to
> my initial question about programming. I understand that I am not
> qualified to develop a kernel, and my question testified of this. But
> you would hope that someone would at least give a pointer. I am very
> disappointed with that community.
>
>

I do hope that you keep us informed as to your progress in this interesting
field.

I think you can count on the expertise that these forums hold to give you a
hand if you are stuck even if it is not direct it might give you pointers.


Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum

Thank you. I am inclined to make my notes formal and publish them on the net, at least as far as basic setup. I need to peruse the materials and determine which is better for robotics, Pacemaker or Heartbeat, and proceed from there. The instructions would be good for newbs, and anyone else who wants to get it going fast. The common denomintor for everyone would be extremely powerful computing for cheap.

“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DenverD.

To this I would add, “And did you check the HCL and BIOS settings first?”

(3 hours trying to get audio working. The sound card was unsupported and onboard audio was turned off in BIOS)

On 03/08/2011 12:06 PM, itphoenix wrote:
>
> To this I would add, “And did you check the HCL and BIOS settings
> first?”

yep! there are LOTs of things to check ‘first’…i know an old guy who
used to say “Always check the cables/wires/connectors first.”

sometime the biggest problem is knowing (or correctly guessing) which
‘first’ (of hundreds of possibles) should really be “FIRST!”


DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DD 23 Jan 11

True. Just the other day 11.3 failed to recognize a second drive. The IDE cable was not quite pushed in all the way. Later, it was found that fixing that problem caused the 20 pin ATX connector to dislodge from the system board, while investigating why the machine would not start.