Administration Guide

Chapter 5. Remote execution of SP commands

This chapter describes commands provided with the SP system which are useful for performing common tasks on multiple nodes in parallel. These parallel commands, which work cooperatively with AIX authenticated remote commands |or secure remote commands and the sysctl function, facilitate secure management of the SP system from a single point of control.

This chapter discusses the following:

The AIX authenticated remote commands, some of which are used by PSSP parallel command processes.
|Secure remote commands.
The AIX remote command authorization files that control who can run these commands.
|Secure remote commands authorization.
How to use the PSSP dsh command to run parallel management commands.
The parallel management commands. ¹

Enhanced security options:
As of PSSP 3.2 you have the option of running your SP system with an enhanced level of security. The restricted root access option removes the dependency PSSP has to internally issue rsh and rcp commands as a root user from a node. Any such actions can only be run from the control workstation or from nodes configured to authorize them. PSSP does not automatically grant authorization for a root user to issue rsh and rcp commands from a node. If you enable this option some procedures might not work as documented. For example, to run HACMP an administrator must grant the authorizations for a root user to issue rsh and rcp commands that PSSP would otherwise grant automatically. With PSSP 3.4 you can use a secure remote command process to be run by the PSSP software in place of the rsh and rcp commands. Each of the licensed programs discussed in this chapter might be affected in some way with these enhanced security options enabled. See Restricted root access and Secure remote command process for descriptions of these options and limitations.

Enhanced security options:

As of PSSP 3.2 you have the option of running your SP system with an enhanced level of security. The restricted root access option removes the dependency PSSP has to internally issue rsh and rcp commands as a root user from a node. Any such actions can only be run from the control workstation or from nodes configured to authorize them. PSSP does not automatically grant authorization for a root user to issue rsh and rcp commands from a node. If you enable this option some procedures might not work as documented. For example, to run HACMP an administrator must grant the authorizations for a root user to issue rsh and rcp commands that PSSP would otherwise grant automatically.

With PSSP 3.4 you can use a secure remote command process to be run by the PSSP software in place of the rsh and rcp commands.

Each of the licensed programs discussed in this chapter might be affected in some way with these enhanced security options enabled. See Restricted root access and Secure remote command process for descriptions of these options and limitations.

Footnotes:

¹: The parallel management commands described in this chapter were influenced by, but are not an implementation of, the tools described in Gropp, William and Ewing Lusk. 1994. Scalable UNIX tools on parallel processors. In Proceedings of the Scalable High Performance Computing Conference, 56-62. IEEE.

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