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Cluster Management Software
 
Author(s): Nicolas Bonvin
Supervisor(s): Pascal Junod
Date: Summer Semester 2003
 
Abstract: The aim of this project is to compare the different solutions of cluster under GNU/Linux. The two main solutions are Beowulf cluster and OpenMosix cluster. Due to hardware restrictions, I've chosen to install OpenMosix. First of all, I've installed Gentoo Linux on the three available computers. In a second step, I've installed and configured OpenMosix.

The second part of the project was to check the security of OpenMosix in an untrusted environment. In order to make the proof that running an OpenMosix cluster with security goals in mind in such an environment is irresponsible, I've coded two proves of concept :
  • A process that is encrypting a file migrates to another node. With the help of a sniffer, it is possible to recover the encryption key.
  • A program that make infinite fork() overloads quickly the entire cluster, so that the computers become unusable.
The last part of the project shows the big advantage of deploying a cluster : getting a lot of computing power in a simple and cheap way. The demonstration uses a program made by Thomas Baignères for factorizing numbers and a program to recover the key of a DES encrypted file.