Construction and Application of a Pentium II Beowulf Cluster

I plan to construct a super computing cluster of about 15-20
or more Pentium II computers with the OpenMosix kernel patch. Once constructed, 
the cluster could be configured to transparently aid workstations with 
computationally expensive jobs run in the lab. This project would not only increase the computing power of the lab, but it would also be an experiment in building a lowlevel,
lowcost cluster with a stripped down version of Linux, useful to any facility with old computers they would otherwise deem outdated.

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relevant links:

Paper on distributed computing:
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=9562&group_id=46729
Openmosix home page: http://www.openmosix.org
OpenMosix howto: http://howto.xtend.
be/openMosixHOWTO/ Background
OpenMosix is a fairly common patch. Sufficient documentation of it can
be found via my links page:
(http://www.tjhsst.edu/ sditmore/techlab/links.html)
or at OpenMosix's sourceforge website, 
where the patch can also be downloaded. 
Truly groundbreaking work in supercomputing is done by groups such as 
the Earth Simulator in Japan or the G5 cluster. This is not a project designed
to answer a question in the field of supercomputing or demonstrate 
groundbreaking research. It is simply to provide the lab with
a valuable resource and also to allow myself to research OpenMosix and
parallel computing to the fullest extent at a very low cost.
The construction of a small cluster with OpenMosix is fairly common
practice. What is not so common practice is allowing it to transparently 
take on the load of other machines. So far I have found no documentation concerning this. If at the end of my project I still have extra time, I may write a howto
concerning the transparent loadsharing so that others will not have to struggle with it.
Susan Ditmore
Thomas Jefferson High School
for Science and Technology
Computer Systems Lab
20042005
Materials and Subtasks:
tasks and subtasks: I will need to repair the hardware, configure a network, set up a netinstall, set up a golden client, install Debian, configure OpenMosix, and configure and implement the transparent load sharing. 


materials and tools: Materials will consist of the Pentium II MCWs, the 16port switch from the storeroom, KVM switch, monitor, keyboard, Ethernet cables, etc. OpenMosix, Debian packages, Linux Kernel, will all be utilized. A small amount of programming,
probably done in Perl, may be required.

testing: The cluster will be benchmarked if possible. It will also be evaluated using OpenMosix view package, which will allow myself to view the load sharing process. It will be open for remote access to other students. If time permits I will try to implement an extension of a grid computing network such at SETI at home.