System information

7 Automatic Cluster Management

model name : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1600+

stepping : 2

cpu MHz : 1410.644

cache size : 256 KB

fdiv_bug : no

hlt_bug : no

f00f_bug : no

coma_bug : no

fpu : yes

fpu_exception : yes

cpuid level : 1

wp : yes

flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep ...

bogomips : 2823.16

CHARM$>_

The crsh.sh script is called on the CHARM but the command more /proc/cpuinfo is executed

on the host system. There is a limitation using the crsh.sh script. A KNOPPIX live

system has to be run on the host computer. But it is easy to adjust the script to use it

for other console based operating system like MS DOS or UNIX. It is important to run an

alphanumeric video mode. In that video mode, the video memory contains ASCII characters

which can be processed like text ﬁles. The script uses two CHARM applications to execute

programs on the host system:

• keyb_cmd to send keystrokes to the host.

• terminal to get a snapshot of the screen content.

Figure 7.1 depicts a functional overview of the crsh.sh program. The crsh.sh script is

executed on a CHARM console to start the command more /proc/cpuinfo on the host

system. The crsh.sh script sends the appropriate keystrokes of the shell command via the

keyb_cmd to the host computer. The output of the command is printed out to the video

card (in our case the CHARM card). The program terminal returns the content of the

screen which is analyzed by the crsh.sh script. It prints out the output of the command

to the calling shell console. The crsh.sh script is mainly used for the automatic setup of

the network connection on the host computer or to perform tests on an unconﬁgured host

system.

7.1.2 Setup of the BIOS CMOS Settings

An important issue of the initialization of a cluster node is to set up the BIOS CMOS

settings. The standard BIOS settings of a PC are adjustable via the I/O ports 0x70 and

0x71 [56]. Nowadays, the BIOS settings are not suited into the standard CMOS memory

which contains 128 bytes in size. Modern chipsets use a second memory bank to store the

BIOS settings. But mostly, the BIOS settings are stored at the same location which contains

the BIOS code. The interface to this memory depends on the chipset and the BIOS. There