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Resident Render Clients

Author: [email protected]
State:

Overview

Resident render clients are used to minimize the time for initializing a configuration. They are pre-launched by an external mechanism, and connected by the server during config initialization. They allow pre-loading of application data and using the same process for multiple configuration 'runs'.

Render Client

The render client has to be started on a known address. Any Equalizer application, including eqPly, can be started with the --eq-listen [description] option, and it will create a listening socked using the specified TCP/IP address and port. In addition, the --eq-client parameter puts the application into client mode, that is, eq::Client::initLocal never returns. Provided with these two parameters, eqPly acts as a render client executing one configuration run. The eqPly example provides in addition the -r option, which overrides the client loop to keep it running for multiple configuration runs.

Example Options

Pre-start client for one run, with default Equalizer listening port (conflicts with server on the same machine):

  ./eqPly -- --eq-client

Pre-start client for one run on the address 10.1.1.1, port 4243::

  ./eqPly -- --eq-client --eq-listen 10.1.1.1:4243

Pre-start client to run 'forever' on the address node1, port 4243::

  ./eqPly -r -- --eq-client --eq-listen node1:4243

Configuration

Once the render clients have been started, the relevant port have to be used in the node connection section of the configuration file, e.g.:

    config
    {
        node
        {
            connection
            {
                hostname "node1"
                TCPIP_port 4243
            }
        }
        ...
     }
  
The server will first try to connect to this address, and only auto-launch the node if the connection fails. If auto-launching the clients is undesired, a launch command which always fails can be configured.