Recommended (but optional) first step

Two environment variables should be set: PRM_TOP and ARCH.

PRM_TOP is the "root" of the installation of PRM and it can be in principle any directory you want, but for now set it to: /nfs/gost/

ARCH is the architecture of your machine. If you are running SunOS 4.x or Solaris, set it to sun4; if you are running HP-UX, set it to hp700; other architectures are not yet supported.

Directory where the relevant binaries are

It is: $PRM_TOP/bin/$ARCH, i.e. /nfs/gost/bin/sun4

Starting a node manager

To start a node manager on your machine, first cd to the above directory, then run the start_node script.

The script takes the following switches:

• -s system_manager_host
  • if you are a member of the GOST group, system_manager_host should be new-nii.isi.edu;
  • if you are a member of DIV.7 outside the GOST group, system_manager_host should be darkstar.isi.edu;

• -b idle_period

  the node manager will make the node available for running jobs only when the machine has been idle for idle_period minutes.

• -i [fintvl:nintvl]

  the node manager will make the node available for running jobs only when no user is logged in. If specified, fintvl and nintvl are taken as the intervals (in seconds) for checking whether any users are logged in (in the case when all users are logged out) and whether all users are logged out (in the case when there is at least a user logged in).

• -t stime:etime

  the node manager will make the node available for runnning jobs only within the time window starting at stime and ending at etime. Times must be specified in a 24-hour clock format (e.g. 0000, 0730, 2125).

The switches can be used in whatever combination is more appropriate for the needs of the user (i.e. -t and -b will cause the node manager to allow running of jobs only within the specified time window AND if the machine is idle; similarly, -t and -i will allow running of jobs only within the time window AND if there's no user logged in).

The script checks whether there is already a node manager running on your machine. If it doesn't find any, it starts a node manager; otherwise it does nothing.

To stop a node manager, use:

stop_node your_host_name

or kill it using the Unix kill(1) command.

Running an application under PRM

To run an application under PRM, the job manager must be invoked, specifying the name of a job configuration file:

jobmngr -j jcfile

or

jobmngr -D -j jcfile

The -D option activates the printing of some informational messages.

An example of an application which runs under PRM is crack_des, a program which cracks DES keys by brute force, i.e. trying all possible keys on a (plain text, cypher text) pair.

The job configuration file for crack_des is jcdes. It contains attribute-value pairs among which are the name of the application (t = crack_des_master) and the name of the machine which runs the system manager (s = darkstar.isi.edu in jcdes).

To check the status of the jobs running within PRM, the prm_jobs command can be used. Also, the system manager running on darkstar.isi.edu can be queried using the command:

prm_stat darkstar.isi.edu

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