Now that my work load has stablized, I’ve been able to afford a better connection (1MB/S both ways) to my flat. While this isn’t a great connection, it’s better than the 768kbps/256 kbps D/U of my DSL line. (Which I still have for personal use. The 1MB/s is a business cable line dedicated to the Xgrid controller)
The grid controller will enable Mac OS users to connect and render projects. To submit projects, one will need the Xgrid feeder sample from the Xcode developers. (If someone could get this into a .App for folks to download, that would be great!)
Other OS users will have to use one of the JAVA clients from sourceforge to connect and redner projects and submit projects via an online form and FTP the files and I will have to add them to the queue manually. One user = one project on the grid at any one time.
I am willing to fund bandwidth out of my pocket so long as I am able and maintain the controller. If people want some method of easily being able to submit projects from Blender, then someone else can volunteer to help program that. There is a limit to my time.
If 1MB/s is too slow to run the network, then we’ll need community support in terms of money to pay for more bandwidth.
As part of the project, there will be the normal T-shirt sales through CafePress and Paypal donations. I would like to raise about $6500 this year to fund upgrades to OSX 10.5 server (when released) and add some Mac Mini’s to the grid as full time rendering agents.
BlenderXgrid.com is down for a while as they upgrade the account to one with more Bandwidth/space, but should be back online tomorrow.
Unix users shouldn’t have a problem. There are a couple JAVA clients available from sourceforge that will allow any system to connect, receive, and process tasks. Also, if you know your way around *iux you can compile the application Xgrid uses to manage tasks onto a Linux/BSD machine.
I’ve only tested this approach on a windows machine over a LAN. It was able to connect, but returned eror messages when trying to process Blender related tasks. Specifically that it couldn’t find blender.
As a non-Mac user, I encourge you to try connecting and use the grid so I have an idea where I need to finance bounties to improve the operation.
And I should clarify that was with an old Windows 98 POS box too. So with newer versions of windows, who knows. Plus if we actually raise enough funds, I’ll purchase a cheap Windows box for testing. And it fails, slap on FreeBSD and use it as a fill time render agent.
hey unimatrix, i am willing to be the lab rat for your windows XP/2000 and Intel mac tests. PM me if you ever need help Can’t wait to put my Core 2 Duo to use…
To join the project, register at http://www.blenderxgrid.com and then log in. Once you are logged in you will provided with the controller IP and agent password.
If you need help with the site design/development by all means grab me to help out. You using Xoops so I figure you are linking the clients to the mysql DB… but out of all the CMS’s Xoops!? -__-
Anyways I am so installing the client on my computer when I get home,
I probably need to move the information, but there is a password for agent. Currently we turned off agent athuntication for this weekend to enable broader testing with JAVA client. Currnetly it is unable to pass the password variable. This is to enable Windows and Linux/BSD users to connect without having to compile BEEP core and do a 100 other things. We have the source code to Xgridagent-Java and will be working to figure out a way add the password string into the code. First I’ve got to figure out the code and find a nice book on JAVA.
Anyone should be able to connect with Xgrid or Xgridagent-Java, but to actually pass a job to the controller still requires a password (seperate from agent athentication). And jobs have to currently be manually added by myself or another admin. Simple reason being security at first.
I’ll attempt to clean up the site a bit this weekend and post a FAQ section to help clarify things a bit. However we’ve been up to 8 people able to sucessfully connect to the grid.
I’ve been working on a web-based interface written in PERL to enable job submission to the grid. However that’s not quite ready yet and I may go back and rework it in PHP so we can create a XOOPS module. Right now the site and server are being hosted at 2 different locations until we can intergrate the two.
Can’t wait to put my Core 2 Duo to use…