Contents

• General
  • What is PVM?
  • The history of PVM
  • What machines does PVM run on?
  • What languages does it work with?
  • Is there a book on PVM?
  • Is there a list of published material related to PVM?
  • What support exists for PVM?
  • How do I contact the authors?
  • Is there a server for contributed software?
  • Who is using PVM?
  • Does PVM version 2 still exist?
  • Are you working on version 4?
  • What is XPVM?
  • What are ... (related topics and add-on systems)
    • What is HeNCE?
    • What is pvmfs?
    • What is tpvm?
    • What is PIOUS?
  • How do I get files from Netlib?
• Installation and the System
  • How do I get PVM?
  • How do I get documentation?
  • How do I get updates to the software?
  • What is the most recent version of PVM?
  • What versions of PVM are interoperable?
  • What do I have to type to install PVM?
  • I get errors when building the PVM release
  • What does PVM_ROOT do?
  • What are ``machine architectures''
  • How do I apply patches
  • What should I tell my new users about using PVM?
  • Machines at my site share a single /tmp directory
  • Can I have two different versions of PVM on the same machine
  • How do I start PVM?
  • What are these files in /tmp?
  • What do I call the host file?
  • Hostfile defaults aren't getting set
  • Hostfile options aren't taking effect
  • What does ``speed'' in the machine configuration mean?
  • How do I read the on-line manual pages?
  • How do I shut down PVM?
  • Does PVM use shared memory?
• Common error messages
  • Error messages printed by libpvm
  • Error messages in the pvmd log file
  • Can't start pvmd
  • Can't contact local daemon
  • Version mismatch
  • No such host
  • Duplicate host
  • libpvm [t40001]: mxfer() EOF on pvmd sock
  • No such file
  • failed to start group server
• Programming
  • Writing Programs
    • What is aimk?
    • How can I build my programs for different architectures?
    • Is message order between tasks preserved?
    • How can I pack a struct in a message?
    • The compiler can't find the PVM header files
    • What libraries do I need to link with?
    • Missing symbols when I try to link my application
  • Running and debugging programs
    • The sender doesn't get a copy of multicast messages
    • My tasks can't read input from the keyboard
    • My tasks can't open input/output files
    • Where does stuff printed in tasks go?
    • I don't see printed output from tasks right away or at all
    • In what directory do tasks spawned by PVM run?
    • How can I spawn a process with a nice priority value?
    • What does ``mc pkt ... scrapped'' mean?
    • What does ``message scrapped'' mean?
    • Memory used by the pvmd increases when programs run
    • My program is hanging
• Advanced programming
  • How can I get input from PVM messages and e.g. X?
  • I'm not getting notify messages
  • My application needs to start PVM itself
  • Can I spawn shell scripts
  • Can a task fork and the child be a task?
• About this document ...