phantomd(1)

PROGRAM
phantomd - starts the phantomd daemon on a host which is used for distributed processing

SYNTAX

phantomd

[-connections]
    Maximum number of connections allowed

[-transport]
    type of transport to start the daemon for

[-timeout]
    number of minutes idle time before quitting

[-daemon]
    spawn process in background and disassociate tty

[-V]
    Gives the version for phantomd

[-U]
    Gives the usage for phantomd

[-P]
    Prompts for command line options

[-A [file1]]
    Creates the answer file called phantomd.ans or file1

[-a [file1]]
    Uses phantomd.ans or file1 as the answer file

DESCRIPTION

The phantomd program is used to start a remote daemon, "phantomd", on a host. The phantomd daemon is used for distributed processing.

Distributed processing means the ability to specify remote machines on which to execute individual Khoros programs. The capability to do distributed processing is implemented via employment of the remote data transport mechanisms. With distributed processing, one needs a method to execute jobs remotely, as well as a mechanism to transport data back and forth from the remote machine. A remote daemon, "phantomd", is started on the remote machine, takes requests to execute a job, and transports data involved with that job using the remote data transport mechanisms.

Before programs can be executed on remote machines, a daemon must be started on that remote machine to run Khoros programs on behalf of the local machine. Cantata will attempt to start these daemons for you, automatically; however, if cantata has problems starting these daemons, you may have to start them yourself. When data transport / distributed processing is to be used via the command line, it is always necessary to start the distributed processing daemons on the remote machines that are to be used. Starting the daemons is a simple process; it can be done in one of two ways. The first way is to log on to each machine on which programs will be executed, and run the phantomd program directly. Suppose we are on machine A, and will be using the distributed processing capability to execute programs on machines B, C, and D. Before attempting to execute programs on the three remote machines, we must log on to each of machines B, C, and D, and execute:
% phantomd

The second way to start the distributed processing daemons on the desired remote machines is to use the phantom shell script on the local machine, see phantom(1).

The distributed processing capability may be taken advantage of either from the cantata visual language, or from individual command line executions of Khoros programs. However, before distributed processing may be utilized, the KHOROS_HOSTS environment variable must be set properly, and the ".rhosts" or ".rhosts.bk" file must be made available at the top level directory of the account on which you are running Khoros.

The KHOROS_HOSTS environment variable simply specifies a file (by default, ".khoros_hosts") in which all computers which are available for remote data transport are listed.

For more information on data transports and distributed processing see Vol 1, Chapter 1 of the Khoros manual.

REQUIRED ARGUMENTS
none

OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS

-connections
    type: integer
    desc: Maximum number of connections allowed
    default: 1
    bounds: 1 < [-connections] < 50

-transport
    type: string
    desc: type of transport to start the daemon for
    default: null

-timeout
    type: integer
    desc: number of minutes idle time before quitting
    default: 30
    bounds: no range checking

-daemon
    type: boolean
    desc: spawn process in background and disassociate tty
    default: false

EXAMPLES

The following example shows how start a "phantomd" daemon on the local machine

        % phantomd -timeout 60 -connections 20 &

the -timeout 60 specifies the daemon sill run for 60 minutes, and the -connections 20 specifies the maximum number of incomming connections on that machine.

This example shows how start "phantomd" daemon with a timeout of 10 minutes, a transport type of socket, and disassociate the tty after starting. The "&" is needed to put the process in background since the -daemon option was not used.

        % phantomd -transport socket -timeout 10 -daemon 1

By disassociating the tty after starting, the phantomd will not be associated with a tty. In other words byu specifing the -daemon 1 argument, phantoms will start as a background process.

SEE ALSO
intro(1), verror(3), vgparms(3), vutils(3), lphantomd(3)

RESTRICTIONS
The "phantomd" daemon currently only works with a data transport type of "socket". Other will be implemented in the future.

COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1992, University of New Mexico. All rights reserved.