1. Preamble

1.1 Disclaimer

We will not accept any responsibility for any incorrect information within this document, nor for any damage it might cause when applied.

1.2 Copyright

Copyright © 1997 - 1998 Jacek Radajewski and Douglas Eadline. Permission to distribute and modify this document is granted under the GNU General Public Licence.

1.3 About this HOWTO

Jacek Radajewski started work on this document in November 1997 and was soon joined by Douglas Eadline. Over a few months the Beowulf HOWTO grew into a large document, and in August 1998 it was split into three documents: Beowulf HOWTO, Beowulf Architecture Design HOWTO, and the Beowulf Installation and Administration HOWTO. Version 1.0.0 of the Beowulf HOWTO was released to the Linux Documentation Project on 11 November 1998. We hope that this is only the beginning of what will become a complete Beowulf Documentation Project.

1.4 About the authors

• Jacek Radajewski works as a Network Manager, and is studying for an honors degree in computer science at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Jacek's first contact with Linux was in 1995 and it was love at first sight. Jacek built his first Beowulf cluster in May 1997 and has been playing with the technology ever since, always trying to find new and better ways of setting things up. You can contact Jacek by sending e-mail to
• Douglas Eadline, Ph.D. is President and Principal Scientist at Paralogic, Inc., Bethlehem, PA, USA. Trained as Physical/Analytical Chemist, he has been involved with computers since 1978 when he built his first single board computer for use with chemical instrumentation. Dr. Eadline's interests now include Linux, Beowulf clusters, and parallel algorithms. Dr. Eadline can be contacted by sending email to

1.5 Acknowledgements

The writing of the Beowulf HOWTO was a long proces and is finally complete, thanks to many individuals. I would like to thank the following people for their help and contribution to this HOWTO.

• Becky for her love, support, and understanding.
• Tom Sterling, Don Becker, and other people at NASA who started the Beowulf project.
• Thanh Tran-Cong and the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying for making the topcat Beowulf machine available for experiments.
• My supervisor Christopher Vance for many great ideas.
• My friend Russell Waldron for great programming ideas, his general interest in the project, and support.
• My friend David Smith for proof reading this document.
• Many other people on the Beowulf mailing list who provided me with feedback and ideas.
• All the people who are responsible for the Linux operating system and all the other free software packages used on topcat and other Beowulf machines.