One problem to report: was working on one WU and it said memory allocation failure.
Increasing my VM to 768MB let the WU pass through and hopefully a big chunk of points for UGN. So it looks like 512MB is a bit tight? I have turned the RAM allocation in the VM back down to 600 and we will see if it works, now that I have backup+restore capability.
Going back on (my) topic: after some struggle with my networking noobness, finally I have set up something that allows me to run the diskless SMP client with backup and the
ability to restore the backup if necessary. Yay! As fellow TR Gerbil Ragnar Dan noted, one could install a full Linux and then run the SMP client. Then the WU files can be transported off and such. However, due to my laziness to learn Linux, I'm not prepared to do that. I want to remain as much Windows as possible. notfred's excellent diskless setup seems like a relatively simple way to get into Linux SMP under a VM for more points. However, there are only 2 ways to do backup+restore: a) download the backup.tar file from the web interface, but you need the ability to un-tar the files on a real Linux setup to resume, or b) use TFTP and it will automagically do backups, and on reboot will pick up right where the backup file left off.
I have picked (b), but there are a few problems:
- I use a consumer grade router and its built-in DHCP server doesn't dish out the proper information for the automatic TFTP to work (it uses a similar setup to PXE boot, needing extra information during the DHCP lease process).
- OK, I lied in the above
, I actually don't use the DHCP server on the router anyway. I had my file server+domain controller serve DHCP request. However, that DC is the key to the home LAN and I don't want to mess it up. So I will need a separate DHCP server, possibly pointing to a new subnet.
- I would also like the Folding clients to seamlessly connect to the internet for WUs and stuff as well. So if I want a separate subnet underneath the home LAN, yup, you know it, I basically need a router for the 2nd subnet.
So after some trial and tribulations (part due to my general networking noobness, part due to me struggling with VMware's networking setup), here it is (ASCII art ftw).
Internet
^
|
+------+ w.x.y.z (ISP assigned)
|Router|
+------+ 192.168.0.1/24
^
+--------------+---------------+-------------+
| | | |
+------+ +-----+ +----------+ +---------+
|Server| |Other| |My Machine| |Router VM|
+------+ +-----+ +----------+ | |
192.168.0.10 192.168.0.20 192.168.0.30 | 192.168.0.31
| ^ | +----------+
| +------+---------+SMP FAH VM|
| | | +----------+
| 192.168.10.5/24 192.168.10.100
+---------+
Since I am more familiar with Windows, the Router VM ended up using up more resources than it could have been. It's ok, I'll trim it or use a smaller Linux setup eventually. The 2 VMs live on my machine. The Router VM is set up to have a bridged NIC and a private NIC (the tricky part was to tell VMware not to use NAT nor DHCP on that NIC).
Router VM:
- Windows 2000 Server (those who don't want to dabble with Linux and have some spare licenses lying around, this is for you
)
- Setup DNS to forward to the subnet above the router, in my case 192.168.0.10. Those with a more capable software router (could be any OS really) will usually take over 192.168.0.1 and be the one to set for forwarding.
- Setup DHCP to dish out IP addresses with the 2nd subnet, and include the necessary info for PXE boot and pointer to the TFTP server (self). See note 1.
- RRAS: in NAT mode to properly route packets in and out of the subnet. Essentially nodes on the 2nd subnet pass through 2 layers of NAT to get to the internet.
- TFTP: Part of the reason why I chose Win2K over Win2K3. I can use the tftpd that is included, without using tftpd32. I created the folder for tftpd to hold files, then I can get to the files by either using Windows file share or drag 'n drop via VMware Tools (only VMware Workstation has this ability). See note 2.
SMP FAH VM:
- This one is easy, and in theory can be replicated very quickly (that's the whole point) if you are building a farm. I mounted the generated ISO from notfred's site, use the .vmx file from the website, fire it up, and voila!
- Every 15 minutes it will save the backup via TFTP. I check the Router VM and the .A and .B files are both there. Nice.
- Remember the problem I mentioned in the beginning? Well, I just restart the VM after the memory allocation failure, the "new instance" picked up the backup file from TFTP, loaded the backup and restarted, from 93%. Yes!
Notes:
1) I followed the instructions
here to set up tftpd.exe and the proper extensions that I need for DHCP. Then I realized I did too much. I could have used tftpd32 and get away with not touching Windows DHCP. Well, lesson learned.
2) The reason why I thought I needed MS tftpd instead of the excellent tftpd32 is that I needed something that can also do NAT+DHCP+DNS. So I took the long route and do them separately on Win2K server. However, I have since found out that tftpd32 can do good enough DHCP. As long as it is in its own subnet, I can mess it up to my heart's content anyway. And you don't need to manually add those extra info for DHCP to dish out.
3) Should you decide to use tftpd32, then all you need is RRAS for the NAT, and DNS so the FAH clients can go on to the internet on their own.
4) 30-50megs a backup is quite an amount of data travelling on my subnet. The RRAS applet showed the incoming and outgoing bytes.
Hope this helps or inspires others for their own setup. I think we need something like an Overclockix that is designed to work with notfred's stuff. What I have in mind is a distro that has these:
- DNS
- DHCP
- TFTP
- SMB
- (optional) its own folding client
Which should help people build their own farm on its own subnet without interfering with other real computers in a home LAN environment. I have installed Damn Small Linux and it's really small, but I don't think I need all the client apps, plus I need to add back dhcpd, dnsd (bind?), iptables and tftpd. The problem with a regular Linux distro is that all are not part of the default and needs some hardcore setup process. If we can build some of those graphically driven (or just ask a bunch of questions in text mode?) screens and it then configures all that stuff, it seems like an easy way to build a farm? /dreaming
Or if someone knows of a less convoluted way to deal with one consumer router and tftpd32 without affecting other nodes on the home "main" LAN, I'm all ears too.
The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.
Gerbils unite! Fold for UnitedGerbilNation, team 2630.