iglesias@UCI-ICSA.ARPA (Mike Iglesias) (09/07/85)
Our VMS system manager has recently left UCI and left another person and myself to fumble our way thru making our 780 system into a cluster with a soon-to-arrive 785. Here are some questions for all you cluster experts out there: 1. Got any suggestions/warnings/words of advice/incantations/prayers that would be useful. (neither one of us knows a great deal about about VMS, but we're both experienced system mangers) 2. What we want to set up in the cluster is this: A common user disk (we already have this on 2 RA81s) A sort-of-common system disk, with: separate SYSUAF files for each system separate accounting for each system a common directory for FORTRAN, DCL, etc separate directories and appropriate protections so that some third party software can only be run on one of the systems (i.e. we only want the 785 users to be able to run SAS, and prevent the 780 people from running it) The system disk will be an RA81 also. This setup is kinda in between a homogeneous and a heterogeneous cluster, I guess. Is this going to work? The one thing that I can really figure out is the separate directory/protection stuff to restrict software to a specific machine, and it's one of the more important things that needs to be done for this cluster. Our previous manager mumbled something about access control lists before strolling out the door, so I'll have to look into that. One other thing, people who will be authorized to log on to either system will have the same UIC, etc. since there will be a common user disk. Words of encouragement, "Good luck, you're going to need it"'s, "I've been there too"'s, etc are welcome, as is any advice. Thanks, Mike Iglesias University of California, Irvine iglesias@uci-icsa.arpa
Tli@USC-ECLB.ARPA (Tony Li) (09/08/85)
1. Got any suggestions/warnings/words of advice/incantations/prayers that would be useful. (neither one of us knows a great deal about about VMS, but we're both experienced system mangers) When it happens, you'll need to delete JBCSYSQUE.DAT. You'll know when... Before you get started, triple check the settings of SCSNODE and SCSYSTEMID... 2. What we want to set up in the cluster is this: A common user disk (we already have this on 2 RA81s) For your sake, I hope it's not a multi-volume set... A sort-of-common system disk, with: separate SYSUAF files for each system separate accounting for each system a common directory for FORTRAN, DCL, etc separate directories and appropriate protections so that some third party software can only be run on one of the systems (i.e. we only want the 785 users to be able to run SAS, and prevent the 780 people from running it) This sounds fine. Build your system as a homogeneous system. The only difference is that after it comes up, you'll need to create copies of sysuaf in [SYS0.SYSEXE] and [SYS1.SYSEXE]. Similarly, SAS should go in [SYS0.SYSEXE]. This will almost do what you want. A clever 780 hack can get around it unless you want to set up an ACL for everyone in the 785 SYSUAF. Is this going to work? Sure, have faith. The one thing that I can['t] really figure out is the separate directory/protection stuff to restrict software to a specific machine, and it's one of the more important things that needs to be done for this cluster. I don't see an obvious (ie. easy) way of doing this. Since you're splitting your SYSUAF files, you can do something, but it would be pretty rough. Something that you should consider doing is building a prived 'front-end' to SAS that would check the system id and then chain (with SYSPRV) to SAS. That would fix things, but good. Our previous manager mumbled something about access control lists before strolling out the door, so I'll have to look into that. One other thing, people who will be authorized to log on to either system will have the same UIC, etc. since there will be a common user disk. Yea, but you can get that from a single SYSUAF.... ;-)