mzanini/dingo

Dingo allows to remotely install, execute and keep synchronized a software of choice on one or more machines

Synopsis

Dingo allows to install and execute remotely on one or more machines a software of choice.

After the software has been installed, Dingo will keep all the machines in the computer cluster synchronized, propagating file changes. This allows the user to distribute computation and take advantage of the computational power of multiple machines.

Dingo uses SSH-2 to encrypt the data transmitted over the network.

##Terminology Dingo is made of two main components: the Server and the Terminal.

The Server runs only on one machine in the cluster. Changes made to this machine will be automatically propagated to the other computers in the cluster.

The only way to send commands to the Server is by using the Terminal. The Terminal is a command-line applicatoin that allows a user to connect to the Server and perform operations by sending syntactically correct commands. Examples of these operations are adding or removing a new computer to the computing cluster.

In the context of Dingo, the software that is ran on the computers in the cluster is called Bolt.

##Configuration One settings file is available and allows to configure Dingo, it is placed under settings/dingo.properties.

COMMAND_INTERFACE_PORT

Port on which a terminal can connect to send commands.

BASE_DIR

Base directory on the server to look for changes, the path starts from root (/). Dingo looks for changes recursively.

BOLT_ARCHIVE

Path to the archive file used to install Bolt on other machines, path starts from root (/).

##Software Requirements Java 1.7 or greater The project needs a Java version >= 7 because the thread that is responsible of detecting file changes depends on WatchService API, that has been introduced in this version.

Jsch 1.48 needed for Ssh communication.

SSH Server SSH-2 is needed. Every SSH Server should be fine, I used openSSH.

At the moment Dingo supports only machines running a GNU/Linux operating system.

##Scenarios A machine in the cluster is identified by:

• IP address
• Port number
• Username

The whole application has been developed in order to achieve high performance with a high number of machines in the cluster. Therefore, the application is highly multi-threaded.

Typing

help 

shows available commands.

###Connection to the Server To send commands, the user should use the Terminal. Terminal has to connect to the Server before sending commands. The connection port is specified in Dingo configuration file. Typing

connect IP_address port_number

connects to the Server. Dingo creates a specific thread for every communication channel, therefore supporting multiple Terminals concurrently.

###Adding a machine to the cloud In order to add a new machine, the user has to specify:

• UserName on the remote machine
• IP address
• port (optional, default is 22)
• remote directory where Bolt should be installed

and execute the command:

add_bolt username@host[:port] remote_directory

If password is necessary to access the remote machine, it will be asked.

After the machine is added to the computing cluster, it will be kept updated by with the Server machine.

###Removing a machine Command

remove_bolt username@host

Stops execution of Bolt and removes all files.

###Removing all machines from the cluster remove_all_bolts

It's the same as above, with the only exception that all machines are removed.

###Shutting down the server server_shutdown

This commands shuts down the entire Server, taking care of removing all running Bolt instances.