HMCS-G (Grid-enabled Heterogeneous Multi-Computer System for Gravity) 1.1 Trial Kit

Installation Guide for HMCS-G Client Library

Table of Contents

Links to other contents

OmniRPC installation

 To use HMCS-G, OmniRPC must be installed. The latest version of OmniRPC is also included in this CD-ROM (/Software/OmniRPC-1.1). However, it may be updated, so please check the home page of OmniRPC (http://www.omni.hpcc.jp/OmniRPC/) before you proceed.

In OmniRPC, two kinds of authentication to invoke grid-RPC on remote host are supported, Globus and SSH (Secure Shell). The installation kit of OmniRPC can be configured with our without Globus feature. To install OmniRPC with Globus feature, your system must be ready to use Globus, of which installation kit is not included in this CD-ROM. SSH authentication feature is always supported by OmniRPC in any configuration, that is, with/without Globus. So, if you are not familiar to Globus nor your system is not Globus-ready, you can install OmniRPC without Globus feature.

HMCS-G trial account only supports SSH authentication, so just for trial usage of HMCS-G, it is enough to install OmniRPC without Globus feature.

Client API installation

 You can find the source files of HMCS-G 1.1 client API routines in this CD-ROM as:
/Software/HMCS-G_Trial_Kit/libsrc
  1. Copy all files under the source directory into your favorite directory with the same file name. Let name it as TOPDIR.

  2. Check the contents of "Makefile". There are two system-dependent paths in this file:

    If you have installed OmniRPC as default setting, you don't have to modify OMRPCTOP term. Otherwise, modify this term in Makefile. If you want to change the directory to contain HMCS-G client API library, modify HMCSGTOP as you wish.

  3. Compile it just typing:
    % make
    Here you don't have to be root user.

  4. After successful compilation, install it to the system directory with typing:
    % make install
    You may have to be root user for writing files to system privileged directory.

That's all. Enjoy !

HMCS-G Trial User Registration

 To receive the trial service of gravity calculation engine GRAPE-6 in HMCS-G, you have to register yourself through our web-site.
http://www.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp/people/Research/HMCSG/register.html
The registration is very simple. All you have to do is only giving your name, affiliation and valid e-mail address. Just after registered yourself, an automatic e-mail which contains the instruction to use the trial kit will be sent to the registered e-mail address. After you receive it, you can run the sample code or your own program under HMCS-G service.

SSH Authentication

 Since HMCS-G is based on OmniRPC system, you need an authentication qualified to access remote host service on grid-RPC. This trial kit only supports SSH authentication. We use RSA authentication for SSH which is supported by ``ssh-agent'' process to avoid password or pass-phrase typing-in at each grid-RPC invocation.

After you registered yourself to our trial kit service through the web site

http://www.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp/people/Research/HMCSG/register.html
you will receive an e-mail from the system to give you the private key and pass-phrase to access the special account for HMCS-G trial kit. After you get this key, prepare to run the sample codes or your own code as following steps.

  1. Save the private key to any file. Let the file have a name of RSAKEY. (The private key file is in binary, not a text one.)

  2. Execute ssh-agent process with your favorite shell as its argument.
    % ssh-agent bash
    (You can specify any shell instead of bash.)

  3. Ssh-agent invokes a new shell. Then, execute ssh-add command with the private key file as the argument.
    % ssh-add RSAKEY
    Then, the system requires you to type-in the pass-phrase for RSA authentication with this private key. The pass-phrase is also sent to you with this private key after your registration.

  4. After the above command, you can access the HMCS-G server host for this trial kit with a special account by SSH without further typing-in of pass-phrase. Test this feature with the following command.
    % ssh hmcsg@hmcs-gw.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp
    The reply from system should be something like:
    Last login: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    This shell does not work as interactive login shell, sorry.
    Connection to hmcs-gw.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp closed.
    You cannot directly login to our HMCS-G server as shown above, but don't worry. This is correct response of the system because we don't allow any user to login our server with interactive shell.

    If the system requires a password with following message:

    hmcsg@hmcs-gw.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp's password:
    It means you failed to record the pass-phrase for your given RSA private key. Maybe the private key was broken or you made a mistake to type-in pass-phrase.
You have to do Step 1 just once. When you want to run HMCS-G client, you have to do Steps 2 and 3. Step 4 is just a test, so you can skip if you are sure to the pass-phrase matter. After Step 3, you can run HMCS-G client program any time until you exit from SSH which is invoked by ssh-agent command in Step 2. I mean that you don't have to do Step 3 anymore until you exit from SSH.

Server and Account for Trial Kit

 We prepare a special server host and an account for this Trial Kit. There is only one entry-server to accept OmniRPC call from all trial users, and it will send your request to a GRAPE-6 board which provides approximately 1 TFLOPS peak performance for gravity calculation. The server and account names are:
server:hmcs-gw.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp
user:hmcsg
There is no plain password available for this account. You have to use RSA private key to access it as described in above section.

How to run sample codes or your client

 After the authentication cleared, you can run HMCS-G client including sample programs with this kit. To compile your own program, see "How to compile your program" section.

All client program (including sample codes) of HMCS-G is under control of OmniRPC, so all of them accept option flags for OmniRPC. These flags must be placed just after the program name in command line. So, the typical syntax of command line for HMCS-G clients is:

% program [OmniRPC-options] argument ...
For SSH authentication which is available with this trial kit,
you always have to provide ``--ssh'' option as OmniRPC flag.
(Be careful that the option requires two hyphens before word of "ssh".) Otherwise, OmniRPC tries to apply Globus authentication, but it is not supported by the account for trial users.

In gg6start function (see "HMCS-G client API manual") you have to specify the name of server and user account to request OmniRPC service. If the user name of you is same as that on the server, you just have to provide server host name only. However, with this trial kit the user name on server side is fixed as ``hmcsg''. Therefore, you have to specify the server name according to the syntax of SSH with user name and host name. It is

hmcsg@hmcs-gw.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp
(See "Server and Account for Trial Kit" section.)

Both sample codes require this name as an argument on command line.

Last Update: November 7th, 2005
HMCS-G Research Team: Taisuke Boku (taisuke@cs.tsukuba.ac.jp)