Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
From:  ohellwig@scuacc.scu.edu (Oliver Hellwig)
Subject: Question about pvm_mcast on an Ethernet LAN
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 94 20:25:56 GMT
Message-ID: <1994Aug26.202556.13174@enterprise.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com>



I am running PVM 3.2 on an ethernet LAN of HP 9000/7XX workstations.
I have done some comparisons with the pvm_mcast and pvm_send routines
and I have found that pvm_mcast appears to do an individual send
to each PVM process.  I came to this conclusion when after, I
substituted a pvm_mcast call with an equivalent number of pvm_send
calls to 18 other workstations, and got basically the same timing
results.  Now, I'm sure that the ethernet hardware should be able
to handle a broadcast (or even a multicast) so I presume that either
I'm completely off track or that PVM can't or isn't doing the
multicast.  I just want to be able to do a true broadcast to all
of my pvm processes.  Could anyone give me some insights into what might
be happening?

P.S.   I am using all of the default options of PVM. (i.e. I don't
set the routing option).
-- 
Oliver Hellwig
ohellwig@scuacc.scu.edu

