Building a Beowulf Cluster...
 

Has anyone here created a Beowulf Cluster? I'm looking to build one out of a few spare parts I have laying around. When I get a good design and a feel for the intricate details... I am looking to buy more updated equipment (faster processors, ram, etc) to create a higher performance cluster. I just didn't want to smoke new equipment right off the bat while I get things figured out, hence the design of the guinea pig cluster.

If you have built such a system before... I'd be interested in the unix/linux distribution that you used and any articles / utilities that you may have found beneficial in the development process.

Re: Building a Beowulf Cluster...
 

I've also been interested in building a Beowulf Cluster,

So far, I'm thinking of using DragonFly BSD as my OS and using a setup similar to this

http://www.calvin.edu/~adams/research/microwulf/design/

The wikipedia article on beowulf clusters has a fair bit of information and links to resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(computing)

Re: Building a Beowulf Cluster...
 

I'm also interested on building a beowulf cluster just for fun, but for now I still live in my dorm so I am planning after my graduation to build one (depends on time and money), but for now I've found some resources for you so they may be helpful :):

http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/beowulf/.../tutorial.html
http://www.dl.ac.uk/TCSC/DisCo/TechPapers/Beowulf/

Re: Building a Beowulf Cluster...
 

Considered ClusterKnopix? It's based on the mosix patch, which allows processes to migrate among machines. Could be interesting.

Re: Building a Beowulf Cluster...
 

Mikus: I haven't heard of the DragonFly BSD, I'll take a look at that soon.
I came across that article about the Microwulf cluster setup at Calvin University during my initial research. I wouldn't mind mirroring their setup as well.

Milot: Thanks for the links, I've added them to my collection to review as well.

Dameon: I took a look at ClusterKnoppix after someone recommended ParallelKnoppix, if my current setup fails... I'm going to switch to using one of the *Knoppix distros.


I did not have sufficient older parts afterall... I didn't want to waste time with 200-400Mhz processors and 64mb machines... so I decided to purchase some older systems off the Net in the 866Mhz to 1.2Ghz range. Currently, I'm utilizing OSCAR (open source cluster application resources) to install the cluster. (http://oscar.openclustergroup.org/). I'm still in the beginning phases. However, what I do not like is the fact I had to blow away my updated distro on the server node and install an older version of Fedora Core 4 because of the lack of compatibility. For this reason alone, I'm thinking about scrubbing it and using the a *Knoppix approach. I am going to allocate this weekend to try and to get the cluster with at least 4 nodes off the ground.

Re: Building a Beowulf Cluster...
 

Do you have any plans in mind for what the cluster will be used for? I'd like to see how this turns out.

Re: Building a Beowulf Cluster...
 

use it to generate big rainbow tables, i want to read dameons sig.