Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
Path: ukc!uknet!EU.net!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!lehman.com!newshost!rethingt
From: rethingt@orange.NoDomain (Russell Ethington)
Subject: $HOME Dependency
Message-ID: <RETHINGT.94May4103409@orange.NoDomain>
Sender: news@lehman.com (News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: orange
Organization: Lehman Brothers
Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 14:34:09 GMT
Lines: 30


Running PVM 3.2.6 for SUN4, I discovered that 'pvmd' cannot spawn 
'pvmgs' for a user whose environment is identical to mine, except
for the value of the HOME environment variable.

Looking over the code, I noticed that 'pvmd' changes directory at
startup to whatever HOME points to. When the group server starts,
I believe that 'pvmd' is assuming the 'pvm3' directory is directly 
below $HOME.

Judging from the documentation for pvm_spawn(), I have a feeling that 
ALL attempts to pvm_spawn() will fail for other users in this way:

         "The default location PVM looks in is:
          $HOME/pvm3/bin/architecture_name/filename"

Shouldn't that be "... $PVM_ROOT/bin/architecture_name/filename ..."?
Otherwise anyone wanting to use PVM will have to change $HOME to some
other account name, or make a link to 'pvm3' in their home directory.

Has anyone else seen this problem? If so, do you know of a patch?

Thanks, -r

P.S. The specific error message (for what it's worth, what file?) is:

  libpvm [t40002]: gs_getgstid() failed to start group server: No such file




