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DEPLOYING CONDOR USING VIRTUALBOX® ON WINDOWS®

HOSTS

David Herzfeld1, Craig A. Struble, Ph.D2, and Lars E. Olson, Ph.D1

Marquette University1Department of Biomedical Engineering

2Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science

Southeast Wisconsin High Performance (SeWHiP) Computing Consortium (www.sewhip.org)

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INTRODUCTION

Most systems on Marquette’s campus run Windows XP® or Windows Vista®

Most researchers at Marquette require Linux based environments

Most sys-admins have primarily Windows® based experience

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PROJECT GOALS

Allow researchers to use underutilized Marquette systemsRequires Linux environment

Allow researchers full use of the Condor systemcheck pointing, migration, etc.

Do not change Windows® users’ experience

Easy installation and maintenance for Windows® sys-admins 3

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POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Use Condor for Windows®

Very few researchers using Windows® based applications

Most require a GUI Windows® – Linux dual boot systems

Management is difficultWindows® users will be affected

Condor Virtual UniverseVMware® = $Xen does not support Windows® hostsConfiguration Overhead

Virtualization 4

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INITIAL SOLUTION: COLINUX

Based on previous work by Neeman, Serverini (U. of Oklahoma), and Sumanth (Nebraska-Lincoln), 2006

Runs natively in Windows® Near native performance

Small hardware dependencies Open source× Relatively unsupported – small community× Only supports 32 bit environments× No current SMP support× Few recent developments 5

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CURRENT SOLUTION: SUN VIRTUALBOX® Free & “Open Source” Capable or running under 32 & 64 bit Windows® Guest Additions allow for near native speeds

Some disk intensive operations may see a speed up Supported & continually developed Large community support× No current SMP support

planned for future release

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VIRTUALBOX® & WINDOWS®

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CONDORMAC & COMON

CondorMAC: Allows for distribution via images Replaces the VirtualBox® MAC address with a

modification of the host MAC address CoMon:

Determine sec. since last key stroke Determine total processor utilization Determine VirtualBox® processor utilization Write data to file in host-guest shared folder Visual Basic monitor service

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HCLUST_SERVICE

Fork headless VirtualBox® machine at Windows® startup.

Remove any VirtualBox® “remnant” machines

“Nicely” shut down guest system when requested (via ACPI)

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CONDOR VIRTUAL MACHINE

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VIRTUAL MACHINE BASICS

Guest hostname is based on assigned IP address Central Manager name & IP are determined

Personalized text file in shared folder Variables replaced in condor_config.local

For remote administration ssh key in shared folder

Condor launches after guest startup init.d script

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BENEFITS OF IMMUTABLE HARD DRIVES

Defines an upper limit on the amount of space Condor users can utilize (100 GB).

Removal of the snapshots – by hclust_service – returns the VM to an original state.

Returns unused hard drive space back to the Windows® host. This space would not be returned if it were simply a

dynamically expanding .vdi image

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CONDOR VIRTUAL MACHINE

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VM ADDITIONS

Additions included in immutable hard drive Software packages utilized by researchers

Geant, OpenFOAM, AutoDock, etc. Sets up execution path for use in Condor

jobs Package names and versions added to

Condor ClassAds

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INSTALLATION

Distributed as a zip file, batch installer Installs VirtualBox® Creates a new virtual machine

MAC Address set by CondorMAC Memory computed as fraction of total system memory Bridged networking set up

Adds CentOS image to virtual machine Sets services to run at system startup Starts the new VM Installation time is minutes

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VIRTUALIZATION ISSUES

Networking ProblemsCurrent bridged connection requires an

additional IP address for each workerDoubles the on campus IP addresses!

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FUTURE WORK

SMP SupportSupport for different networking

modes using NAT, OpenVPN, etc.

Specific VM updates via repositoriesTailored distributions

BioinformaticsFluid DynamicsNeural Simulations

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ACKNOWLELDGMENTS

Information Technology Services; Marquette UniversityKathy Lang; CIO, Clifford Brown, Patrick

Blume, Aaron Gember, Chad Gorectke Lingtao Zeng; Marquette MSCS System

Administrator Brad Bonczkiewicz; Marquette Engineering

System Administrator Biomedical Engineering Department Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science

Department 18

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QUESTIONS/COMMENTS?Thank you!