[Bioclusters] Any issues porting applications to OS X?

[Tim Cutts]

On 5 Mar 2004, at 17:01, Chris Dagdigian wrote:
>
> I can actually answer Tim's question somewhat although my partner Bill 
> knows best -- I've seen him make apple clusters thousands of miles 
> away jump through hoops with nothing but a text based ssh connection. 
> heh.
>
> When it comes to the real hands-off management that Tim and people 
> like his group need (lots of hardware, physically located elsewhere, 
> no GUI access desired, etc) this is what I have personally seen:
>
> 1. Anything that can be done via a GUI on OS X can now be done via a 
> command-line or via automated scripting. The inclusion of a serial 
> port on the rackmount version of Apple's hardware means you can do 
> this via a standard getty attached to a cyclades terminal server or 
> equiv box.

I know about that.  Which is why I asked how to reboot a crashed 
machine remotely.  i.e. a kernel panic, when your serial console and 
ssh are both useless.  On all of our farm machines (AlphaServers, RLX 
blades, and IBM blades) we can perform a full power cycle remotely to 
get out of that situation.  I want  to know whether there's some sort 
of similar out-of-band management on the XServe.

> 2. remote power on a dead/crashed apple system is only possible with 
> out of band power devices like smart powerstrips from APC or Baytech

Ah, OK, thanks, that's what I was after.   Not possible without third 
party kit.
Our IBM blades, in particular, have some nice CLI tools for this sort 
of thing.

rpower -a off

is a somewhat abrupt way to stop the cluster in its tracks.  :-)

> The fact is though, regardlesss of Apple vs X68 I'd still probably be 
> using a Digicom or Cyclades terminal server as well as a nice network 
> addressable powerstrip. This gives me remote console access and remote 
> power control (very desirable for most clusters, absolute requirement 
> for large systems) without having to rely on any sort of technolgy 
> from the server vendor.

That's a fair point.

Tim

-- 
Dr Tim Cutts
Informatics Systems Group
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK