[distcc] DISTCC on Scyld cluster

[Marcio Teixeira]

Ihar `Philips` Filipau wrote:
> Essentially, compute nodes are missing external network interface?
Yes :( This apparently is by design. The cluster is supposed to look 
like one machine, rather than looking like a bunch of individual machines.
> Then why not to setup some forwarding - e.g. with SSH or even little 
> custom program - of connections coming from external interface to 
> compute node's interface? On each compute node to run a distccd on 
> unique (for simplicity) port. On master node use the incoming port to 
> tell to which compute node to send task to.
That was one idea I had considered -- a "distcc" forwarding bridge -- it 
seemed like it might have been much more work than I was prepared to 
tackle at the time. I had figured that would have involved understanding 
distcc's protocol and maybe modifying distcc itself -- however, if it's 
just a matter of forwarding data, it may be doable :)

But, I actually came up with a not-too-bad idea just moments ago. 
Re-reading through the "distcc" man page I was reminded that distcc can 
use "ssh" to start a "distccd" on the worker node. I also saw that it is 
possible to tell it what command to use to start "distccd". With this, 
it should be possible for me to have it call some script that starts 
"distccd" using the Scyld's "bpsh" command -- this will cause the head 
node to migrate the daemon to a worker node. If the stdin/stdout get 
connected properly, things may just work without too much hacking. I'm 
going to go see if I can get that to work right now.

-- Marcio