Submitted by “In this post I show step-by-step how you can setup your own “Super computer cluster” using Ubuntu MPI Cluster from multiple machines with the goal of bruteforcing strong encrypted passwords with John the Ripper for academic purposes. Owners of quad core machines will also benefit from this setup as the “john” binaries found in the Ubuntu Repositories are compiled to run on only one core. I managed to decrease the time required to crack password hashes using this setup.”
Is this true? I honestly thought that most Linux servers ran CentOS or OpenSuse (of the “free” Linux variety)
Edited 2011-03-06 13:50 UTC
He says it’s most commonly used Linux distro.
He didn’t say that most commonly Linux Server distro is Ubuntu.
Ahh sorry. The line I quoted said he was using Ubuntu Server – which isn’t the same as Desktop Ubuntu.
Reading through it again, it’s become quite clear that he’s just using regular Ubuntu. Very poor choice of distro in my opinion (given the point behind cluster servers) but at least he’s been detailed enough where people could translate the same experience to other Linuxes.
Is the Setup and Kernel it uses.
Otherwise it uses same same everything.
Sorry but I’ve read that 3 times now and it still doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.
It’s only real difference…
Is the Setup and kernel it uses.
Otherwise it uses same same everything.
There’s quite a bit difference. For one, Ubuntu Server doesn’t come with Xorg and thus no XWindows apps. Ubuntu, on the other hand, doesn’t even come with OpenSSH-server pre-installed.
I mean realistically, half the time the only thing that separates one distro from another is what comes pre-installed. Particularly when tutorials like these are easily transferable from one Linux to another.
You should be able to use Debian if that suits your needs any better.
Which distribution would you like to see used instead?
Debian Stable, openSUSE or a free Red Hat clone.
Ubuntu is based off Debian unstable, thus it makes a poor choice as a server distro (IMHO, it is too unstable even for a desktop distro).
Not speaking from experience, I see.
You must be joking. I have tried every new Ubuntu release, starting with the early betas, 7 years ago.
Trying != run in production for a long time. As someone who has actually run ubuntu Server in production for years without any problems I seriously contend that “it’s not stable enough”.
Happy with the distro upgrades?
(It’s a honest question)
Since it’s production I use LTS so distro upgrades aren’t that common. Havent had any problems with them though.
There are some issues with using ubuntu as server distro, including hardware certification and tech support. Enterprise distros may seem boring but they go through hell lot more QAs and certifications and take bugs found on supported hardware pretty seriously.
I’ve seen quite some headaches people were having with ubuntu with completely generic dell servers certified for RHEL and SLES. Their solution? Just try installing different versions of ubuntu and use whatever which doesn’t crash. It almost felt surreal.
On the server? probably not.
Boy, dont even get me started on too-cheap-to-pay-for-RHEL and OpenSUSE. CentOS is getting seriously long in the tooth and SUSe is just, eh, meh.
Ubuntu Server kicks their asses by not being bloated with a gazillion things in the default install and by being generally leaner. No fricken Yast, thank God.
Nobody uses a default install on servers anyway. I mean who wants XWindows on a headless system, for example?
The nice thing about CentOS (and OpenSUSE IIRC) was how easy it was to just do a minimal server install. In fact I have a CentOS webserver running on 256MB RAM right now and that only took my a few mins to set up, yet it’s been lean enough to manage 2 virtual hosts – albeit neither with heavy traffic.
I hear people moan about Yast constantly but I can’t say I ever had a problem with it. Granted it has it’s short comings but nobody is forced into using it (you can configure the system the old fashioned way in vi / nano if you want) and and Yast actually quite good for some some jobs.
I know it’s all horses for courses though (I’m running CentOS, ArchLinux and FreeBSD servers) so I was just polling to see what others use / thought
Edited 2011-03-06 22:54 UTC
Well, my point was that it’s even easier with Ubuntu Server. It’s entirely barebones *by default* and you don’t get any additional stuff unless you chose to install it. Other than Slackware it’s probably the most BSD-ish of Linux distros.
You should give it a try.
I’m just a sucker for simplicity and vi, I guess. Plus Yast becomes obsolete as soon as you start doing serious configuration management.
But IIRC all I did in CentOS was select the ‘minimal install’ radio option. It was hardly a difficult process and I certainly wasn’t there unticking all the programs and daemons I didn’t want.
In fact one could even argue that CentOS had a few “default installs” and you just select which default profile you wanted.
In fact I seem to recall Ubuntu Server wasn’t as “one click install” as you make out. I found there was still a lot of stuff pushed during the default install that I had to deselect (their cloud tools, auto-updates, etc).
However who even cares how few clicks a server install takes? You should only need to install the damn thing once. I don’t even want to see the units reboot more than once a quarter – and even then only for critical kernel updates. So spending a little longer during the install is neither here nor there.
You mean other than Slackware, Gentoo, ArchLinux…. :p
Seriously though I had installed Ubuntu Server last year and I really don’t see what was BSD-ish about it. For one thing, it’s the same SysV inits as Ubuntu desktop. One of the things that attracted me to ArchLinux was the elegance of it’s BSD-like design – more so even then Slackware (not that I’m in anyway criticising the excellent work Patrick has done with Slackware). Ironically it’s also more barebones than Ubuntu Server.
I don’t mean this to slag off Ubuntu Server. It did surpass my preconceptions. But for me it just didn’t bring enough to the table to make me want to switch my servers over.
Hmmm…can’t recall seeing that option when installing CentOS 5.x but maybe it’s just something I missed. I quickly learned NOT to select the “Server” install though.
Welk. I mean in terms of minimalism. Naturally it still have the SysV stuff. Also I am comparing it to monstroisities like RHEL, Centos and SUSe
It is of course not as simple and elegant as OpenBSD.
Nope, they’re all deselected during the install and you have to manually select them.
Those of us who install a lot of servers care
. Well, not that much really I just like the fact that I dont have to deselect anything during the install.
Yep, Slackware is awesome although I do find the lack of proper package management more of a con than a pro.
http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/CentOS5#head-c79c201900d22f163a445f134fc…
^ hmmm, maybe you were right.
Maybe it was OpenSuse and/or Debian (which I also installed around the same time) that had the “minimal install” option and I’m getting my wires crossed.
I still think you’re over baking your argument massive by calling CentOS a “monstrosity”. If it were really that bad then it wouldn’t be run smoothly on 256MB RAM (which it does)
I’m pretty sure I was getting nagware about installing them when I was “road testing” Ubuntu Server.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s what drove me away from Slackware (and very nearly away from Linux as a whole up until I stumbled across Arch)
Having installed some 15 or so Ubuntu Server (both 10.04 and 10.10) in the last couple of months I can say: no, you didnt.
I do belevie you get a question about automatic updates but I think the default choice is not to enable them.
Maybe you got it confused with CentOS
I just REALLY don’t like CentOS, how it works and is configured and what it’s defaults are.
Pop up messages are nagware. I don’t care what the default option is, its still an intrusive addition dialog nagging me for additional options. So you’ve basically just proved my point.
I just REALLY don’t like CentOS, how it works and is configured and what it’s defaults are. [/q]
I appreciate that, but let’s not let our personal bias get in the way of facts. Centos is not a monstrous beast. I’ve said before that I don’t like ubuntu server but atleast I stayed objective about it
I guess by that definion all distro installers that ask you questions are nagware. Hmm..that’s pretty much all of them. Heck, even the barebones openbsd installer asks you questions.
Not really. It’s a question you get asked during the install, just like how you get asked for a keyboard layout and the questions you get about how to partition the disk. No cloud software etc is preselected for installation.
Ok, it’ s not a beast but that comment was at least half a joke. It still comes with an awfull lot of stuff installed by default though.
[/q]
Ok, it’ s not a beast but that comment was at least half a joke. It still comes with an awfull lot of stuff installed by default though. [/q]
But as I already said, nobody uses the default config when building a server.
Your point about default installs smacks a little of laziness. If you’re building a production server then any OS will /need/ to be customised to fit its role.
Take ubuntu server, I’d be there removing sudo and setting up proper root and user accounts because ubuntu way of managing root access is terrible if you need a secure system. So by the time I’ve undone all of that, I might as well have installed centos or any other distro with custom settings on install but the correct approach to user accounts.
Another example of where your argument falls short is if I need lamp, then I can load that in centos at install time rather than with ubuntu where i would have to install the base OS then apt-get the relevant binaries.
Now I’m not saying that centos is perfect by any means, but your whole argument about defaults is insane when the discussion is about servers (by their very nature a bespoke system) and the OSs make it very easy to deselect packages prior to install.
Yes, that might certainly be true. To paraphrase Arthur C Clarke (in Childhoods End, I think): laziness is good, sloth is bad.
Sure, to a certain extent but that doesn’t mean I want to have to repeat the same identical steps if I don’t have to.
Well, I guess this is one reason you like CentOS and I don’t. sudo is integral to good security and the first thing I do on platforms that doesn’t have it is to install and configure the server to be secured properly.
I disagree. Sane defaults is a definite boon since it reduces the amount of work I have to do over and over again.
My view is that I shouldn’t have to de-select packages before install, I should instead add any needed pacakges after (or during) install. but that’s just me and as you pointed out I am lazy.
I don’t know where you get the idea that sudo makes for good security, but any system that allows super user access with a standard user password is not secure. Period.
Sudo is great for convenience, but that’s about it.
Oh and re repetitive set up processes, that’s where disk images and/or shell scripts come into their own.
I’ve been out of the HPC game for a bit, but not so long ago (which I suppose is ages in the HPC world) Rocks, a Red Hat derivative, was the soup de jour.
my teacher did this a couple years ago to teach Paralell programming. We started off with Boost threads, moved on to MPI and finally we talked about GPU computing ( we didn’t actually do any, that would be expensive). He used a lab of ubuntu computers running OpenMPI and an NFS shared home directory running on OpenSolaris ZFS. Excuse me while I … *Yawn* …