Render farm

[Peter Milner]

I've followed the instructions for setting up the render farm, but the farm monitor only shows my own machine. How do I get it to find the other machines with the farm installed?

All the machines are on the same LAN.

 

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

The nXtFarmer application needs to be running on every node (it should show up as an icon on the tray) - AND- each one needs to be configured to point to the same folder.

[Peter Milner]

That's exactly what I did.
I've tried it on 2 other machines and neither of them show up.

[Peter Milner]

Interesting.
When I launch Farm Monitor on either of the other 2 machines, they also only show my machine.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Can you see the icon in the tray?

[Peter Milner]

Yes.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Also-- make sure everyone has write access to the folder.

[Peter Milner]

Write access wasn't enabled for general users.
I've changed this but it hasn't made any difference.
Might it be a problem that my machine is 64 bit and the other 2 are 32 bit?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Nope-- make sure you restart the nodes after you've changed the write access. They need to write a machine file when they start up.

[Peter Milner]

Still nothing.
How does the farm software detect the other machines?
Might it be that there is a security setting which is stopping information being transmitted?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

It's all file based.

When you start up a node it creates a file called
%ComputerName%.nXtMachine in the farm folder.

If you look in yours, I'm pretty sure you'll only see the one from your machine.

Open NotePad on one of the other machines and save a text file to the farm folder just to make sure you've actually got write access.

I'm going to reinstall the 32 bit version on a slave node here just to make sure it's working (I'm pretty sure it is.)

[Peter Milner]

That pointed me in the right direction.
There were some odd security settings preventing file writing which I've got our IT manager to sort out.
All working now. Thanks for your help.
It may be worth adding a note to the setup instructions to check that the folder is write enabled by sending a file to it.
Even better would be if the software could flag up "Can't write file" or something.

[Peter Milner]

I think they're failing to write the machine file.
In the farm folder there is only a file for my machine.
Might this be a problem with the 32 bit version?