This is in respect of some very old mail, but please read on ...
I've been working on a new PCP component (pmproxy) that can be used
as a surrogate pmcd. In the Mark's picture below, pmproxy would
be deployed on the Head Node and forward requests from the Workstations
onto the Compute Nodes, responses from the compute nodes are returned
to the Workstations.
Some libpcp changes use PMPROXY_HOST and PMPROXY_PORT environment
variables to change the behaviour of pmNewContext() so that it
connects to pmproxy rather than pmcd on the Compute Nodes.
This code is now working, and I'd like to enlist any volunteers who'd
be willing to try it out before we include it in the mainstream PCP
releases.
If you're interested, please contact me directly.
On Fri, 3 Aug 2001 Mark_H_Johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> We are looking at using PCP for measuring information on our cluster of
> PC's and have a few questions...
>
> To set the stage, our network looks something like...
>
>
> Workstation(s)
> | | | |
> ---------+----------
> |
> Head Node
> |
> Switch (private LAN)
> |
> ---------+----------
> | | | |
> Compute Nodes
> | | | |
> Other Equipment
>
> The head node is NOT a router - workstations can't see the compute nodes
> (nor the other equipment) with TCP/IP.
>
> We would prefer to run the monitoring tools on one or more workstations. We
> would prefer to run the agents on both the compute nodes and head node. We
> would prefer to collect the data at the head node for distribution to the
> workstations. [I think I got the terminology right...] All the machines are
> running Linux, and we have PCP 2.2.1 downloaded and installed on all of the
> machines that will be doing this.
>
> (1) In a few places, the documentation says that the collector works with
> local agents. But in the man page for pmcd(1), it indicates that socket
> connections are supported. Is there some way we can gather key data items
> from the compute node, send them to the head node [socket connection?] &
> include them in the head node's name space? If not, do you have suggestions
> for implementing such a capability?
>
> (2) In lieu of an elegant solution to (1) - could we use remote shell to
> the compute nodes, use pminfo to the dump data & import w/ the ASCII
> interface to pmcd?
>
> (3) We want to measure data transfer rates to the other equipment. We were
> looking at getting data out of /proc, but we have function interfaces
> available as well. Should we just filter the /proc output similar to that
> done by the Linux agent or use code instead?
>
> (4) Was there additional work done in ACE (Advanced Cluster Environment)
> that may have implemented this already? If so, who should we contact at SGI
> for more information?
>
> Thanks.
> --Mark H Johnson
> <mailto:Mark_H_Johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
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