[Paraview] Re: Documentation for Paraview Distributed Options?

[Jeremy Stout]

After doing a lot of experimentation yesterday, I believe I found the
commands I need to use, but have come across a new problem (see
below). Let's say I want to run the client and server on COMPUTER1 and
the render server on COMPUTER2. I think I need to use the following:

COMPUTER2:
paraview --render-server

COMPUTER1:
paraview --server
paraview --client-render-server --render-server-host=COMPUTER2 --host=localhost

The problem with this arrangement is that the render-server on
COMPUTER2 thinks the server is running on COMPUTER2 and waits for a
connection from it. Also, it seems that the server program is looking
for the render server program locally. Needless to say, that doesn't
work and I get the following error message from the server program:

Process id: 0 >> ERROR: In
/usr/local/packages/paraview-1.6.1/VTK/Parallel/vtkSocketCommunicator.cxx,
line 453
vtkSocketCommunicator (0x9737b78): Can not connect to localhost on port 32850

In case it helps, here is the output from each of the programs:

[stout at COMPUTER2 stout]$ paraview --render-server
Listen on port: 22221
RenderServer: Waiting for client...
connected to port 22221
Client connected.
open with port 0
WaitForConnection: id :0  Port:32850

[stout at COMPUTER1 stout]$ paraview --server
Listen on port: 11111
Waiting for client...
connected to port 11111
Client connected.
Connect: id :0  host: localhost  Port:32850
Process id: 0 >> ERROR: In
/usr/local/packages/paraview-1.6.1/VTK/Parallel/vtkSocketCommunicator.cxx,
line 453
vtkSocketCommunicator (0x9737b78): Can not connect to localhost on port 32850

Process id: 0 >> ERROR: In
/usr/local/packages/paraview-1.6.1/VTK/Parallel/vtkSocketCommunicator.cxx,
line 536
vtkSocketCommunicator (0x9737b78): Could not send tag.

(repeat the error message ad nauseum)

[stout at COMPUTER1 stout]$ paraview --client-render-server 
--render-server-host=COMPUTER2 --render-port=22221 --host=localhost
Connect to localhost:11111
Connect to node27:22221

What do I need to do in order to get the server and render server to
connect to one another? I've tried lots of different combinations of
commands without any success.

Jeremy Stout


On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 10:25:00 -0400, Jeremy Stout <stout.jeremy at gmail.com> wrote:
> After resolving yesterday's issue, I'm moving on and trying to figure
> out how to use Paraview on my organization's computer cluster. I've
> been looking through the 1.4 User's Guide at the different options
> that can be given on the commandline. Unfortunately, some of the
> explanations for the options I am interested in are sparser than what
> I would like.
> 
> Before I go any farther, let me briefly explain my computer cluster
> setup. It consists of one main node and 20+ computation nodes. The
> main node has Internet access and is primarily used to submit jobs to
> the cluster. The computation nodes can communicate with the main node
> and each other. MPI is used to provide parallel support.
> 
> I'm primarily interested in using my computer cluster for rendering
> work. I'm thinking that I will have to setup one of the computation
> nodes as a render server and have the other nodes connect to it. I
> would then have the server and client run on the main node.
> 
> Looking through the options for the program, I am not sure how to make
> this happen. So, let me ask the following questions:
> 
> 1.  If I want to run the rendering process on 4 nodes, what options
> would I use to do that? Do I have to tell one node to be a "render
> server" and the others to be a "render node" that connects to the
> render server? In the user's guide, I saw mention of a "machine file,"
> but I didn't see any mention made for the format of the file or how it
> was supposed to be used.
> 
> 2.  Going through the mail archives, I saw mention of support being
> integrated for a render server/server/client mode. What would be the
> options for the client to connect if the servers are running on
> different machines? It seems like "host" only lets you specify the
> server you are connecting to.
> 
> Any help that can be offered would be appreciated.
> 
> Jeremy Stout
>