C.1. Using the 411 Service

The 411 system intentionally mimics the NIS interface for system administrators. Of course there are elements in 411 which are not present in NIS, namely RSA cryptographic keys. However we have attempted to make 411 as easy to use as an NIS replacement.

Files listed in /var/411/Files.mk are automatically serviced by 411. This means that any file listed there will be kept up to date by the 411 agents on all compute nodes in your cluster. This is done using the makefile /var/411/Makefile in a similar fashion to NIS. To force the 411 system to flush all changes, execute the following on the frontend node:

# make -C /var/411

Note that this command is run by cron every hour on the frontend to propagate changes to compute nodes. New files can be added to Files.mk as necessary for custom services on the cluster.

To force all 411 files to be re-encrypted and change alerts sent to all compute nodes, run this on the frontend

# make -C /var/411 force

The 411 service uses IP broadcast messages on your cluster's private network to achieve optimal performance. To force all compute nodes to retrieve the latest files from the frontend, execute: # rocks run host command="411get --all"