Selecting an Engine Host

Before installing, select a host to run the Tractor engine. This host will need to run on Linux or Mac OS X; the supported versions are listed on the RenderMan Products download page. Blade hosts can be Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows.

Hosts with faster CPUs, more cores, and faster storage will be able to schedule faster and handle more throughput.

Larger disks tend to be important to are possible and as more completed jobs can be saved for analysis.

Modest commodity drives are sufficient for large queues; 1 GB will store approximately 200,000 tasks. However, larger drives may be desirable if jobs will be archived in perpetuity for historical analysis. Also, disk space is required to store log files under the default configuration.

Virtual machines are not usually recommended for running tractor-engine unless care is taken to allocate CPU, disk, and network resources with nearly “bare metal” performance.

For simplicity, the engine host should not be running a web server or other server using port 80. The engine by default uses port 80, though it can be configured to use a different one.