[Testbed-admins] 1. What is a Widearea testbed and 2. Installation of Power Controllers

["Manuel Requena" <mrequena@cttc.es>]

Hello,

We have built a wireless and heterogeneous Testbed
(http://www.cttc.es/en/project/EXTREME.jsp) and now I'm installing your
Emulab software to manage the testbed. We have developed some basic tools
for configuring and running experiments in the testbed. We already use
Frisbee software to load and save disk images in the current testbed. 

I have already installed ops and boss, and I'm trying to install the first
node.

I have one generic question and one more specific, I don't know if this is
the right place or you can point me some docs. 

1) A widearea testbed

In the Installation documentation (Initial Switch Setup), you say:
"These instructions are LOCAL ONLY, meaning if you are only a widearea
testbed, you can skip this page".

I would like to know more about what a widearea testbed is. What are the
main differences between a widearea testbed and a local testbed? What I can
manage or configure in this widearea testbed? I guess that I cannot
configure characteristics of the links, but there are some other
restrictions?

To test the basic functionalities of your software, could I initially
configure my nodes as widearea nodes (that I guess it will be simpler) and
after reconfigure them as local nodes?

2) Power controllers

We have NBB-1600 power controllers from WTI. I'm trying to install them.
What kind of entries should I add to 'tbdb'? I have added an entry in
'outlets' table, but I guess I need more entries in 'nodes', 'interfaces'
and 'node_types' tables describing my power controller. 

In 'power' file, different functions are called depending on the type of
power controller. Here I should add my type of controller. I will use
'power_rpc27.pm' as an example to integrate my power controllers. Are there
more examples? I miss anything?

Thank you and best regards,
Manuel

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Manuel Requena Esteso
Research Engineer
Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC)
Parc Mediterrani de la Tecnologia (PMT) - Building B4
Av. Carl Friedrich Gauss 7 (formerly, Av. Canal Olímpic s/n))
E-08860 - Castelldefels (Barcelona)
E-mail: manuel.requena@cttc.es   URL: http://www.cttc.es
Telf: (+34) 93 645 29 12         Fax: (+34) 93 645 29 01
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