[el.mustafa]

Hi

Is it possible to distribute render jobs over the net?

I have installed Maxwell on an external server and connected the server
through a VPN network to my home computer. Both run licensed maxwell instances.

If I run the rendernode on the external server and bind it to my home computer's IP address
it is ignored by the network manager and never shows up on my render node list.

Only the render nodes on machines physically connected to my computer via Ethernet or
wifi get recognised, not the internet/cloud server one

Kindly advise.
El

[voxelpictures]

interesting...

[el.mustafa]

I don't know why the Maxwell Network manager has the limitation of
not allowing you to configure your network manually and relying
on automated detection of nodes instead.

Not designed with cloud computing in mind?
I hope this will change as it will make it much more attractive to new users and gain
better market share with the animation industry.

For the time being I think the way forward is to forget about VPN. Just invest in a cloud computer cluster
(easy bit) and then figure out how to scale Maxwell among the cluster nodes (scary bit!!)

[Aji Enrico]

I dont think maxwell has that limitation

Edit:
let me elaborate a bit.

The limitations are the internet transfer speed, ping and packet loss if you want to consider quality in usage.
Maxwells own network manager has been improved alot over the years but it is not 100% "unattendable" and you sometimes even need to restart the nodes manually.

In your situations, you have probably firewall and/or NAT issues to fix in order to get what you want. Try to have a word with your administrator, he or she can read the Maxwell manual (or play with the app) and figure out what ports need to be used from where.

I haven't tried this with Maxwell (but I have with other renderers before) but I can not imagine how this could not work over VPN.

[el.mustafa]

Hi Aji

I hope you're right about the Firewall.
There's nothing in the documentation about which ports to configure.
It's all supposed to happen automatically.
There is no option to nominate a server by IP in the network manager
so you rely on the application to pick up the connection and hope for the best.

I think it would be helpful if we had the option to do that.
At least it would help us debug the connection issue but as things stand we're at the mercy
of the automated network detection process.

I'm sure the programmers meant well to take care of things for you but sometimes you
need that extra bit of control to solve the occasional networking oddity.

[el.mustafa]

Another way to put it is,
if I have a net based Linux server running Maxwell render node
and I can easily communicate with using SSH terminal
how can I make the Maxwell Network manager on my desktop aware of it?

That would avoid the VPN router altogether.


El

[Aji Enrico]

...There's nothing in the documentation about which ports to configure...

It can be hard sometimes to find the specific technical things if you don't already know exactly what you are looking for, kinda "catch-22" I guess
Looking in Maxwell manual at page 87 they have written about ports, where to set it up in manager, node and monitor (File -> Preferences) and that you should only use the default ports.
Default ports are 45454 - 45474 btw if you look it up in manager/node/monitor

....There is no option to nominate a server by IP in the network manager....

Page 86 in the manual,

...• Type in mxnetwork –help for more information about advanced command line flags to
connect a Render Node or a Monitor to a specific Manager...

And if you type the -help command in mxnetworks..

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell 2>mxnetwork.exe -help
-help
MAXWELL NETWORK

OPTIONS:
  -manager                             Launch Maxwell network manager
  -node | -rendernode | server         Launch Maxwell render node
  -monitor                             Launch Maxwell monitor
  -rendernode:ip                       Launch Maxwell render node and bind it to
 the given manager ip
  -rendernode:name                     Launch Maxwell render node and bind it to
 the given manager name
  -monitor:ip                          Launch Maxwell monitor and bind it to the
 given manager ip
  -monitor:name                        Launch Maxwell monitor and bind it to the
 given manager name
  -addjob:scene                        Add the given scene to the job queue


EXAMPLES
i.e >   mxnetwork -manager
i.e >   mxnetwork -node
i.e >   mxnetwork -node:192.168.0.99  binds to manager with IP:192.168.0.99     <----- *** This is what you are looking for I guess :) ***
i.e >   mxnetwork -monitor
i.e >   mxnetwork -monitor:mymanager binds to manager with name:mymanager
i.e >   mxnetwork -monitor -addjob:/users/scene.mxs


 Press any key to continue.

...easily communicate with using SSH terminal
how can I make the Maxwell Network manager on my desktop aware of it?...

Well the best help I can give here http://www.google.com/search?q=samba%20ssh
You need to at least have the SMB protocol enabled in your SSH setup. After that you need to enable the Maxwell ports... don't know if it will work but let me know if you're going for it.

That would avoid the VPN router altogether.

There are (free) software alternative VPN solutions instead of the costly hardware alternative, Windows has one build in and there are several out there that are easy to setup like Hamachi. This solution is easier to setup than SSH I guess, maybe because I've done it my self so many times

Hope this will help you.

[el.mustafa]

Thanks Aji

That was very helpful.

I was aware of the mxnetwork command line but remember I'm
trying to communicate with an external server so without the option
to set some security credential over the ssh e.g a key pair or similar
then the bind-to-ip option is bound-for-failure.

I'm now thinking it's back to VPN !
(I actually meant to write...it would avoid the VPN route altogether...not the router )

Take care

[el.mustafa]

I noted your suggestion for using the SMB protocol

Sorry I overlooked it the first time reading the post
never heard of it before.

I'll look into learning about it but..
honestly...
!!!!!


(edit thanks for pointing page 86, as I mentioned that would not suit my cloud server connection,
what I wish for is a connection wizard like the one on page 84 for specifying a proxy for connecting
Studio the to MXM gallery only to connect Network manager to the render node that is not part of your
network).


Thanks so much for digging up these resources for me
All the best
El

[el.mustafa]

Yippppeeeee !!!

Got it working over pptp !!

Amazon cloud server instance running openSUSE Linux connected to my Mac OSx Lion via pptp VPN.

Hoping to network via openVPN if possible as I heard pptpd was not as secure
(in fact the only way I got it to work is on disabling encryption...very bad)


Now imagine if I could learn how to work the Hadoop computer clusters
I'd be rendering in seconds....

[Bubbaloo]

http://www.greenbutton.net/

[el.mustafa]

Thanks Bubba
I'm checking out the site
It could well be the answer to my dreams !

Just finished doing a cooperative job on the cloud with five render nodes running 8-core intel xeons 2.4GHz

Dumped pptpd for poor connectivity but openvpn is running smooth (and slow)....

The problem now of course is upload speed, it's offsetting the benefit of having all those extra node.
Can't do any better than 112kb/sec on the vpn (on 20Meg broadband).

My humble Mac in control of all those powerful Linux render nodes across the Atlantic...
good stuff!!! Each costing just over half a dollar per hour.... that's just obscene...in a good way of course



So if I manage to setup a self contained cluster on the cloud through the GreenButton solution or something like Novell's SUSE studio (think I found a favourite Linux distro !!) then all I need to do is to upload the scene files once and render out efficiently over the cluster and make up for the lost time uploading the scenes.

Mate, I'm all about cloud computing now