[Planetlab-devel] questions abouting running an independent myplc

Sue Moon sbmoon at kaist.edu
Wed May 28 01:59:23 EDT 2008 

Hi Faiyaz,

> Wifi for use as the primary network is already supported in MyPLC via
> the NodeNetworkSettings API calls.
Aha!  Thank you!

> Support for a 3G modem would clearly be a nice addition.  I suppose
> discussing what needs to be done on here on devel at planet-lab.org is a
> good place to begin.  After we've discussed the scope of your changes
> and have had a look at a prototype, I (or anyone else at PLC) can accept
> patches and add them to our SVN.
OK.  We'll try out a few modems and report when some progress is made.

> A few questions:
> 1 - What kind of device does the 3G modem show up as on a standard Linux
> machine?  Is it a serial interface one would run PPP over?
Yes.

> 2 - I have used a WAN card before (GPRS modem) and it required loading a
> firmware (via hotplug) before the device could be detected by the
> kernel.  Does this card require any special drivers or initialization
> before use?
We don't know yet.  We'll try.

> Aside from bootstrapping the device, and perhaps setting up PPP, the
> attributes necessary to support the device by the API already exist.
> The additions to make use of the attributes in the BM would likely be
> small and mostly involve writing the proper network init scripts.
> Additions to NM will likely be unnecessary.
Cool!  Thanks a lot!!  You'll be our main contact point for BM work. ^^

-Sue

> 
> 
> Faiyaz Ahmed
> 
> Sue Moon wrote:
> > Marc, Scott, Thierry, and Roberto,
> > Thanks all for your replies!
> >
> > We'd like to replace the role of Ethernet with a wireless interface,
> > be it WiFI or a 3G modem.
> >
> >>> - Dynamic IP address support
> >> 1) we don't have a dynDNS solution to automatically register and
> >> update a node's hostname<->ipaddr binding,
> >> 2) the registered ipaddr is currently a component that is part of the
> >> node key that is used to authenticate the node to MyPLC,
> >> 3) we currently do not dynamically update a slice's /etc/resolv.conf
> >> if dns servers are changed dynamically, and
> >> 4) ssh issues when the ipaddr changes.
> >> The first three require some engineering presumably on both our
> >> BootManager and NodeManager (and ideally volunteers to do this).
> >
> > We volunteer to work on BootManager and NodeManager for the various
> > scenarios
> > we envision for our case.  Whom should we contact?
> >
> > -Sue
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: devel-bounces at planet-lab.org
[mailto:devel-bounces at planet-lab.org]
> >> On Behalf Of Roberto Canonico
> >> Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:20 AM
> >> To: PlanetLab Development; Keon Jang
> >> Cc: alessio.botta at unina.it
> >> Subject: Re: [Planetlab-devel] questions abouting running an
> independent
> >> myplc
> >>
> >> Hello Keon and all,
> >> here at Univ. of Napoli, in the context of the European OneLab
> >> research project,
> >> we managed to support (at least in a primitive way) UMTS/HSDPA PCMCIA
> >> cards
> >> in a PlanetLab-derived deployment.
> >> Access to these nodes is not open so far, but the pieces of software
> >> needed for this purpose have been integrated in the OneLab codebase,
> >> thans to the support of Thierry Parmentelat.
> >> The biggest problem we found are:
> >> - one conceptual: how to share the card among experiments;
> >> - one practical: how to run commands that need root privileges.
> >> While the second problem has been solved with the use of vsys
> >> the second problem was solved in a first-come-first-served approach.
> >> More complex time-dependent policies have been investigated but not
> >> implemented so far.
> >> You may find more info in the following two public deliverables
> >> D4B.1 and D4B.2 available on the www.one-lab.org web site
> >> in the "Public Deliverables" section.
> >> In case you desired more info on this, please do not hesitate to
> >> contact either me or Alessio and Giovanni.
> >> Best regards
> >> Roberto
> >>
> >>
> >> Quoting Keon Jang <keonjang at gmail.com>:
> >>
> >>> Hi Thierry and Marc,
> >>> Thanks for the reply.
> >>> I'm Keon and Sue is my advisor.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 1:43 AM, Thierry Parmentelat
> >>> <thierry.parmentelat at sophia.inria.fr> wrote:
> >>>> On May 19, 2008, at 5:16 PM, Marc E. Fiuczynski wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hello Sue,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On May 14, 2008, at 9:20 PM, Sue Moon wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> - What versino of MyPLC should we run?
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't know for the Princeton build, but here at Onelab we publish
> the
> >>>> 'stable' builds that relate to 4.2 at
> >>>> http://build.one-lab.org/4.2/
> >>>> I expect to build an rc3 in the next coming days, that might well be
> >> the
> >>>> final 4.2 release
> >>>> the combination that you want to check first is probably
> >>>> planetlab-4.2-rc2.1lab-f8-32/
> >>>>
> >>>>   We have tried the f8/v4.2 (May 12) build-out.
> >>>>
> >>>>   We could not create a user nor a site.
> >>>>
> >>>>   What is the most reliable version at this point?
> >>>>
> >>>> The web gui that is part of the MyPLC release currently does not
> >> include a
> >>>> web page to create sites.  Site creation is currently handled offline
> >> for
> >>>> the public PlanetLab, and for this reason there was a decision in the
> >> past
> >>>> to not include this in the current MyPLC web gui.  You can certainly
> >> create
> >>>> sites using the API.   I will bring this up with Reid (our resident
> web
> >> gui
> >>>> person) to see whether we should include a site creation page as part
> >> of the
> >>>> web gui release in MyPLC.
> >>>>
> >>>> You should have been able to create a user given the default site.
> >> Again,
> >>>> if its not there you can do so via the API.
> >>>>
> >>>> I believe the onelab build has more flexibility for this kind of
> things
> >>>> you may either directly use
> >>>> onelab-4.2-rc2.1lab-f8-32/
> >>>> or alternately just pick the PLCWWW rpm in there and use it to
> replace
> >> the
> >>>> one that comes with the planetlab build
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> - MyPLC user's guide seems to be out of date.
> >>>>
> >>>>  Any plan to update it soon?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Need to add this to our to do this.
> >>>>
> >>>> I've done that 2 weeks ago; it took a while until the changes made it
> >> into
> >>>> the build as part of the new myplc-docs package (so I think the 12
> may
> >> build
> >>>> was still missing that), but with recent builds you should have the
> >> right
> >>>> stuff available at
> >>>> <yourplc>/db/doc/myplc.php
> >>>> <yourplc>/planetlab/doc/myplc.pdf
> >>>> <yourplc>/planetlab/doc/myplc.html
> >>>> If there remains any significantly inaccurate information in here,
> >> please
> >>>> let me know
> >>>>
> >>>> - Dynamic IP address support
> >>>>
> >>>>  We read somewhere that dynamic IP support is one of the
> >>>>
> >>>>  future to-do items.  Is there any progress on it?
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm backing Marc's question here, it'd help if you were more explicit
> >> on
> >>>> what you mean by 'dynamic IP'
> >>>>
> >>> By dynamic IP address, we mean dynamically allocated IP address.
> >>> This is the case when we use commercial network such as ADSL or 3G
> >>> wireless networks.
> >>>
> >>>> - In order to use a non-ethernet network interface,
> >>>>
> >>>>  what parts in the bootscript should be modified?
> >>>>
> >>>> Good question.  I don't think we've ever done this.  Thierry @ OneLab
> >> used
> >>>> WiFi at one point.  Would need to dig deeper to figure this out.  Out
> > of
> >>>> curiosity, what kind of device are you using?
> >>>>
> >>>> right, what sort of device are you thinking about ?
> >>>>
> >>> We're thingking about using 3G(CDMA/HSDPA) modems.
> >>> Big difference is this kind of modem does not have a MAC addresss.
> >>> It requires different initialization process compared to ethernet,
> >>> and also requires to re-establish connection when it is lost.
> >>>
> >>>> Marc
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Devel mailing list
> >>>> Devel at lists.planet-lab.org
> >>>> https://lists.planet-lab.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Devel mailing list
> >>>> Devel at lists.planet-lab.org
> >>>> https://lists.planet-lab.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Devel mailing list
> >>> Devel at lists.planet-lab.org
> >>> https://lists.planet-lab.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> ===========================================
> >> Prof. Ing. Roberto Canonico
> >> Email: roberto.canonico at unina.it
> >> Phone: +39 081 768 3831
> >> Fax: +39 081 768 3816
> >> Web:   http://wpage.unina.it/rcanonic
> >> Universita' di Napoli Federico II
> >> Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
> >> Via Claudio 21, 80125, Napoli - Italy
> >> ===========================================
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Devel mailing list
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> >> https://lists.planet-lab.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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