RUSH RENDER QUEUE: HOSTS FILE
(C) Copyright 1995,2000 Greg Ercolano. All rights reserved.
V 102.40d 10/28/02
Strikeout text indicates features not yet implemented


Hosts File
$RUSH_DIR/etc/hosts


  hosts  

The $RUSH_DIR/etc/hosts file must contain the names of all hosts that participate in rendering.

The hosts file can be updated on the fly. Simply edit a copy, make changes, then rdist(1) the copy to all the machines, and the daemons will pick up your changes within one minute.

To make changes to this file and update this to the network, use the GUI rushadmin, or these commands.

The format of the hosts file is single lines of 5 white space separated fields, one line per host:

Blank lines and lines starting with '#' are ignored.


Example Hosts File
# RUSH HOSTS
#
# The 'Host' field should contain short names for hosts (aliases are ok),
# and must be unique.
#
# The 'Criteria/Hostgroups' field must *NOT* contain white space, and words are 
# comma delimited. All hosts must contain '+any' in the Criteria/Hostgroups field.
#
#Hostname   Cpus  Ram   MinPri  Criteria/Hostgroups
#--------   ----  ----  ------  ------------------------------------
tahoe       2     256   0       +any,+work,sgi,irix,irix6.5
superior    2     256   0       +any,+work,sgi,irix,irix6.2
ontario     1     128   0       +any,+work,linux,linux6.0,intel
erie        1     128   0       +any,+work,sgi,irix,irix6.4
rf1         2     1024  0       +any,+farm,linux6.2
rf2         2     1024  0       +any,+farm,linux6.2
rf3         2     1024  0       +any,+farm,linux6.2
rf4         2     1024  0       +any,+farm,linux6.2
rf5         2     1024  0       +any,+farm,linux6.2
eval1       2     1024  0       +any,+eval,linux7.2
eval2       2     1024  0       +any,+eval,linux7.2
      

Hostname
This is the name of the host, and should be the shortest name possible (e.g., host aliases can be used here).

This is the name that will be used in jobids and other cpu reports, so it is best if short names are used (10 chars or less). Longer names are ok, but will misalign columnar reports. Avoid using FQDN hostnames (e.g., foo.domain.com).

You can optionally specify an alternate network interface other than the default. Just append to the hostname a ':' followed by the name of the interface, e.g.:

    tahoe:tahoe-eth

This says 'tahoe' is the actual name of the machine (ie. hostname(1)), but rush should use tahoe's 'tahoe-eth' network interface for all communications.

Cpus
This should be the number of cpus the host has. This is how many processes the host will run at the same time. This value can be larger or smaller than the actual number of physical cpus the machine has.

'0' is an acceptable value that effectively disables the machine from participating in rendering, while allowing the host to remain in the hosts file.

Ram
This is the amount of ram the machine has. This value can be less or more than the actual ram the machine has; usually this value takes into account some percentage of the host's swap space as well. This value is used when accepting frames to render; a frame that asks for more ram than the machine has will be turned away.

On multiprocessor machines, this value is a total from which rendering frames subtract their estimated ram use. For instance, if a 4 cpu machine is configured with a Ram value of 512, and 2 frames are currently rendering each with ram values 200, then only 112 will be left for rendering on the other two processors (112 = 512 - ( 200 x 2 ) ).

MinimumPriority
Use this value to set a limit on the minimum priority a job must have to render on this machine.

Useful where you want to prevent people from rendering on workstations unless they are of at least a certain priority, or if you want to allow only the local workstation user to submit to their own workstation using a policy enforced priority value.

A value of '0' allows all jobs. A value of '900' will only allow renders with a priority of 900 or above; renders with less than that will be turned away.

Criteria/Hostgroups
This is a list of comma separated strings that define platform or operating system specific features for the host. These can be arbitrary alpha-numeric strings that may also contain dashes, underbars and periods, but must not contain any white space. '+' characters have the special purpose of leading off a Host Group specification.

The <Criteria/Hostgroups> field might be set to:

+any,linux,linux6.1,prman3.7
These strings can then be used in TD's submit scripts to limit which hosts will render their frames. See the Criteria Submit Script command for more info. All hosts should have a criteria entry that at least contains +any.

Host Group names are configured in this field, too. To add a hostgroup called +servers to the above example:

+any,linux,linux6.1,prman3.7,+servers