Using MPICH2 on Debian
1. apt-get install mpich2 (remove other implementation to prevent trouble)
2. create .mpd.conf file under home dir ~/ , add a line “password=qwert” (replace qwert with any other texts)
3. create a hostfile or machine file (e.g. mpd.hosts) with node names listed one per line. (this file can be in any folder)
4. start mpd. There is a script shipped with mpich2 “mpdboot”. It accept some options. “mpdboot -f mpd.hosts -n #” with #<= number of nodes listed in mpd.hosts file. This command will start mpd on all the nodes if ssh or rsh is set correctly (without password).
5 use mpdtrace to verify the node names (nodes having been added to the mpd ring, ready to be used in the following mpirun calls).
6 mpirun -np N -host node1,node2 ./program (it’s not necessary to use all the nodes in the ring, but some of them is fine)