MPI application end users require Admin privileges for hydra-service

[Roth__CJ]

I have developed an MPI-enabled application that will be run by end users on their 64-bit Windows machines.  The application and all its files are packaged as a zip file, and therefore doesn't need a true 'installation'.  The Runtime Environment files of the Intel MPI library (as specified by the 'redist-rt.txt' file) are also included in the zipfile.

Tests have shown that, in order for the end users to run the MPI application on their multi-core Windows machines, they require Admin privileges to start the 'hydra-service'.  The key problem is that many of these end users work in *tightly-controlled* computer environments, where obtaining such 'Admin' actions is _very_ difficult.

Is there any way around the requirement for Admin privileges of hydra-service in order to run an MPI application?  Or some user-accessible replacement for hydra-service?

[Roth__CJ]

Since posting this question, I have discovered two ways to avoid the need for Admin privileges (for startiing "hydra_service") when running an MPI application on a multi-core system:

• add the '-localonly' or '-localroot' to the arguments of the 'mpiexec' job startup command; no hydra_service is required at all.
• in a separate terminal window, start the Hydra service in debug mode: 'hydra_service -d'.  The Admin rights are not required when running in this mode, but a lot of output is generated.  It may impact your program performance if there is a lot of MPI communication activity.  I do not know if this would work when using a cluster system instead.

[Artem_R_Intel1]

Hi Christopher,

Another option which may be applicable for you is to use SSH instead of Hydra service. See Intel® MPI Library Developer Reference for Windows* OS for details. SSH for Windows* configuring is not described in the Intel MPI documentation.

[Roth__CJ]

OK, thanks for the info!

So, to put it concisely, the third way to avoid the requirement for Admin rights for running an MPI application is:

• add '-bootstrap ssh' to the arguments of the mpiexec job startup command; it is assumed that this will also work when using a cluster.