LDAP support on Xeon Phi embedded Linux distro?

[Chris_Samuel]

Hi folks,

A really disappointing discovery with our new Xeon Phi's is that there appears to be no LDAP support in it, which seems like something of an anomaly for a product that will get used in HPC clusters (as ours are).  The README only mentions users in /etc/passwd, of which we have none. :-(

I've found a reference to investigating LDAP support in the errata, so I'd like to flag that as really important for us as we were planning to use them as nodes in a cluster in their own right (for users to experiment with), and that means they've got to have working LDAP!

All the best,
Chris

PS: Apologies if this has been asked elsewhere, there doesn't seem to be any way to search this forum for answers, just the whole Intel DZ site. :-(

[François_V_]

Hi,

We also face the same difficulties here for a cluster integration, and LDAP support would be very usefull for us too !

Best regards,

François

[Michael_H_Intel1]

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/configuring-intel-xeon-phi-coprocessors-inside-a-cluster describes a complete native gcc toolchain. I bet setting up that chain and using it to compile LDAP client will net you a running system.

Or you wait a bit longer - LDAP support is targeted for one of the next releases of the MPSS stack and pretty high on the priority list. Unfortunatley I do not use LDAP in my own cluster, so I can't help with any more details

[Taras_Shapovalov]

Hi,

Yeah, I asked about LDAP befor New Year and Intel support guys promised that it was in TODO and would be implemented in the first gold release (or something like that). Now Update 3 is the latest version, but there is still no LDAP support.

Michael: you are suggesting to build LDAP client by our self, but I see that if Intel has not managed to build it in more then half year, than we should not even try to do that.

[Chris_Samuel]

Any news on native LDAP support in MPSS yet please?

[Michael_H_Intel1]

I'm not sure that in a Xeon Phi equipped cluster LDAP support might not really be the best solution.

a)      It takes up memory
b)      You still need to ensure only selected users gain access to the MIC

IMHO better – use the batchsystem! Every batch system has a the ability to run a “pre-execution” script. In that script use “id USERNAME” to get the UID, restart the MIC and then create an entry in the MIC’s /etc/passwd (either by hand or using micctrl) .  /home should be mounted on the MIC, and you can directly ssh into it

[Taras_Shapovalov]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am against this half-solution, because:

1. When you add a new user to LDAP, then you should restart all cards. This takes time and users cannot use MICs at this time. Intel should get rid of odd restarts as much as possible.

2. Users cannot use ssh via passwords.

A batch system + mounted /home are useful and we are using this combination for our customers (+some scripts), but it does not solve the issues I mentioned.

Best regards,

[TaylorIoTKidd]

Unfortunately, due to a change in priorities, LDAP support has had to be moved down on the list. Though there are still implementation plans, there is no estimate as to when it will be gotten to.

[Chris_Samuel]

Hi Michael, Taylor,

This is very disappointing news, we were very much hoping to be running Slurm natively on our Xeon Phis to allow direct submission of jobs to them and that relies on having LDAP support for an elegant solution (or horrible hacks like pushing out generated /etc/passwd files from our management node).  It does makes me wonder how much real use these can be getting in large HPC clusters without such fundamental functionality..

Chris

[Chris_Samuel]

Having spoken to 3 other Australian sites today at a Xeon Phi workshop, two of which have Xeon Phi already and one that will soon, I can confirm that the common thread was that we all need LDAP support.  My organisation has over 700 users in LDAP and another has many thousands (can't comment on the others, but I could believe that one of them also could have many hundreds).

[TaylorIoTKidd]

Chris,

I will bring this up with the development team.

Regards
--
Taylor
 

[BelindaLiviero]

There are plans to provide LDAP documentation / support in the next dot release of the Intel(R) MPSS (3.2).   The details on the timing of this release are not finalized, but we hope this is within this first quarter of 2014.   We'll keep you posted!

[Vladimir_Dergachev]

Just want to chime in that we would greatly appreciate LDAP support as well. Vladimir Dergachev, BioNanoGenomics

[Marianne_L_]

Hi,

Any news about the LDAP support ?

Regards

[BelindaLiviero]

Hang in there, this is still in plan - as I mentioned in my other post, the hopes are that have this available within this first quarter of 2014 (so, by end of March, provided all of the release changes pass our quality assurance tests).   As soon as that is out, I will come back to this thread and let you know.

[Taras]

Hi Belinda,

Thanks for the confirmation. MPSS developers just have no idea how many customers need LDAP support. So I am glad to here the issue (yes, this is a real issue) will be finally fixed in 3.2.0. We all are waiting for it.

[BelindaLiviero]

All,

Intel(R) MPSS 3.2 is released - with LDAP support.    Read this thread for more info - http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/507590