Re: A possible idea for Linux: Save running programs to disk

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Suppose Linux could save the total state of a program to disk, for
instance, imagine a program like mozilla with many open windows. I give
it a SIGNAL-SAVETODISK and the process memory image is dropped to a
file. I can then turn off the computer and later continue using the
program where I left it, by loading it back into memory.

Would that be possible? At least a program can be given a ctrl-z and is



there is a LOT of state though.. the moment you add networking in the
picture the amount of state just isn't funny anymore. Your X example is
a good one as well...


There are a few cluster/parallel computing libraries out there that are starting to allow "process migration"...

One would assume that "saving it to a disk" is simply a degenerate case of migrating the process...

Presuming they have process migration working (and it seemed close a while ago when I last looked), saving to a file might already be supported... I'd google "process migration" and you are likely to find a lot of discussion on this topic...

/mike

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In fact moving processes from one machine to another would be a brilliant feature at my work, since we run fairly large and time-consuming simulations on electronic circuits. If the kernel could natively support bouncing jobs back and forth, that would really be something. Since we simulate with proprietary software, I suppose we can't rely on the simulator being rewritten to support such special libraries.

Does any other Unix variant have process bouncing already?

Yes, plenty of proprietary tools in that space... This is something Big-Iron has needed to do for quite a while - if nothing else fault-tolerance requires migrating processes of dead or dying nodes.

More recently some of the gnu stuff has come up to speed - though, I must admit it has been a while since I looked...

For the gnu world, have a look at "mosix" - but again, groups.google.com and search for "process migration"... I am sure there have been developments in the time since I last looked at it... I satisfied my needs with gridengine as the least invasive way to deal with load balance of EDA tools without having to use $LSF. My requirements at the time were - "can I get it running and use it in an hour...", So, I doubt it was the best or only choice...

The goal of most of the clustering libraries is that it is transparent to the tool, but flexlm causes trouble even if you don't do screwy things, so YMMV. At this point I have exhausted my expertise on the subject :-).

search terms:
gridengine
PVM
mosix
cluter
process migration

/mike


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