Brazos Installation: HOW TO

Andréa M. Matsunaga & Maurício O. Tsugawa
[Em Português]

Index

  1. Which are the steps to follow?
  2. How to obtain Brazos?
  3. Which are the requirements?
  4. Installing Brazos: Step by Step
  5. How do I configure the privileges to Brazos users?
  6. Installing the Brazos Remote Access Service: Step by Step
  7. How do I execute the Brazos GUI?
  8. How do I execute programs with Brazos on SPADE-II ?
  1. Which are the steps to follow?

First of all, it’s interesting to verify which are the user needs, in order to follow only the necessary steps. So, try to choose the important steps for you using the figure below, and click on the box(es) for more information.

  1. How to obtain Brazos?

Brazos is available free of charge for non-commercial use at educational and research institutions. It's possible to obtain only the binary code (brazos_bin.exe) or the binary code+source code (brazos_src.exe) of the Brazos software through the acceptance of the Brazos Binary License Agreement at: http://www-brazos.rice.edu/brazos/.

To the users interested in using Brazos on SPADE-II, there is also a copy of the both forms of Brazos distribution at LSI. In this case, the user has to contact ammatsun@lsi.usp.br, or tsugawa@lsi.usp.br or kofuji@lsi.usp.br.

  1. Which are the requirements?

The Brazos software has some requirements:

  1. It runs only on x86 machines running Windows NT 4.0 and Service Pack 3 or later;

  2. It will run only on machines that they aren't Primary Domain Controller or Backup Domain Controller (PDC or BDC), that is, the machines that will execute the Brazos can not be the primary or the backup node;

  3. The user must have administrator privileges in order to install the Brazos software;

  4. The user must have certain privileges to execute Brazos in order to spawn DSM processes, and;

  5. Brazos can only be executed on machines configured with its "setup".

  1. Installing Brazos: Step by Step

The installation of Brazos is reasonably simple, as it's distributed in a self-extracting installation file, that is, you have only to download the distribution file into the desired directory, and double-click on the executable archive in order to install automatically.

However, along the installation, it's necessary to give some information about the machine where the Brazos has been installed. Because of that, you need the administrator privileges to install this software.

On the setup program, there are three types of installations: "Typical", "Custom" and "Minimal". The "Typical" type installation will install the most commonly used components of the system. The "Custom" installation allows the installer to chose which components will be installed and the "Minimal" will only install the Brazos Remote Service and make appropriate registry changes. Usually, the "Typical" or "Custom" installation is necessary only on a single machine in the cluster, while the others machines need only the "Minimal" installation.

Along the installation process you will be prompted to enter with some information of your system:

  1. First, two base address for multicast communication is required. This address consists of the first three bytes of a valid IP multicast address in standard dotted format. It's good to remember that the valid multicast addresses are between 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. An example of a valid address in this case is: 234.5.6 (remember, only the first 3 bytes);

  2. Following, it's necessary to give the port number where the Brazos will connect the 'Remote Access Service' and the user interface. We suggest any free port, and so, a high number like 1270;

  3. Finally it will be necessary to enter with a 16-character string that will generate a key that will be used by the Brazos encryption routines in order to provide security to user. ATTENTION!: This key (string) must be the same for all the machines on the cluster, because if it's not the case, the remote will not start as Brazos will not be able to decrypt correctly!!!

ATTENTION!: At the end of the installation it's necessary to make a small change of files, because there is a little problem on the Brazos installation. The fact is that Brazos installs a DLL (MFC42D.DLL) on the directory \WINNT\SYSTEM32, but the GUI uses the MFC42.DLL DLL (which is a little bit outdated), provoking an error when the GUI brazos.exe is executed. There are two solutions: 1) rename the file MFC42D.DLL that Brazos installs to MFC42.DLL or 2) install a new version of this DLL. New versions of Netscape (version 4 or later) or MSOffice (97 or later) also installs this DLL, with the difference that they are more updated and so they work correctly.

  1. How do I configure the privileges to Brazos users?

First, you need to know that actually the Brazos can only be executed in domain environment. Thus, the machines that are part of a workgroup are not supported by the 'Remote Access Service'.

As said before, it's necessary to give certain privileges to the Brazos users. So, in this example, assume a domain called DOMAIN, a local machine called MACHINE and that all the users are domain users and not local machine users.

Create a user account on DOMAIN and give a secure password. Assume that this account is called 'brazos' and that the password is 'passwd'. The Brazos service will be executed on the context of this account.

On each MACHINE it's necessary to give privileges to the account 'brazos' on DOMAIN, following these steps:

  1. Execute the program "User Manager For Domains" (or "User Manager" if you are using Windows NT Workstation), choosing "StartProgramsAdministrative Tools";

  2. Select "UserSelect Domain" on the menu and enter with the MACHINE name (ATTENTION!: the actual machine name, not DOMAIN name);

  3. Again, on the menu, select "PoliciesUser Rights";

  4. When the "User Rights Policy" dialog box appears, click on "Show Advanced User Rights";

  5. Give to DOMAIN\brazos account the following user rights:

  • Act as part of the OS
  • Increase quotas
  • Logon as a service
  • Replace a process level token
    1. For each user that will run Brazos processes, give also to DOMAIN\username account the "Logon as a service" right, or create a group with this permission and insert all the users to this group.
    1. Installing the Brazos Remote Access Service: Step by Step

    The installation of the Brazos service must be done on a local disk and not on a remote disk, therefore firstly, copy the 'service.exe' file on a local drive.

    Install the service using the following command line:

    service DOMAIN\brazos passwd -install

    Then, go to Windows's Control Panel and click on Services. Select the "Brazos Service" and initialize it. In this moment, you also need to choose between initialize the service automatically on the boot time, or require it to be started manually.

    If you want to uninstall the service, you only have to enter with this command prompt line:

    service -remove

    It's also possible to run the service on the debug mode in order to debug your programs, by this command line:

    service -debug

    This command must be executed on all nodes that you want to use the debug mode, but it will not be possible if the service is already started by the "Services" (Control Panel). In this case, it's necessary to stop the service first. To stop the service process on debug mode, you have to kill it with "CTRL+C" on the command prompt screen.

    1. How do I execute the Brazos GUI?

    Finally, to run the Brazos GUI (Graphic User Interface), you only have to execute 'brazos.exe' that is at 'gui' directory.

    To use the Brazos GUI, the user name and its password is required on a login window. Then, on the menu "FileNew Configuration" the user can configure the session, choosing: the path of the program that will be executed in parallel, the application arguments, the machines that will run it and the number of processors that each machine will use, and the adaptive and statistics options.

     ATTENTION!: the name of the user executable file must be given by the "network path name", that is, although the user program is local, it's necessary to give the complete path, including the machine name. For example, "\\MACHINE\brazos\apps\lu\lu.exe".

    More information about the GUI can be obtained on this site:

    http://www-brazos.rice.edu/brazos/BrazosHelp/BrazosGUI.htm

    And, more information about the Brazos adaptive characteristics and options can be obtained on "Efficient Runtime Support for Cluster-Based Distributed Shared Memory Multiprocessors" thesis, on this site:

    http://www-brazos.rice.edu/brazos/papers/evanthesis.pdf

    1. How do I execute programs with Brazos on SPADE-II?

    If you do not have an account on the ORION-NT cluster of SPADE-II, ask for an account, and if you only do not have permission to use Brazos, send an e-mail with the request to ammatsun@lsi.usp.br, or tsugawa@lsi.usp.br or kofuji@lsi.usp.br.

    With the account on ORION-NT cluster of SPADE-II and with the permission to use Brazos, the user must request for a Terminal Server Client software and install it on your machine in order to remotely access the nodes ORION09 to ORION16 of the ORION-NT cluster.

    Using the Terminal Server Client, the user can use the graphic screen of the choosen node to run the Brazos GUI. This can be done by the icon on the desktop of all the nodes, or by choosing "StartProgramsBrazosBrazos User Interface". To use the graphic interface of Brazos, follow the step 7.