[MPICH] MPICH2 through Windows XP firewall?

[David Ashton]

Ray Pelletier,

By default, all ports are required to be available.  MPI applications ask
the OS for any available port.

With the Windows firewall you can allow individual applications to be
exempted from the firewall.  You could allow smpd.exe and your user MPI
application through the firewall.  This is the easiest solution but it
requires each application to be individually exempted.

MPICH2 also allows you to restrict the ports used by MPI applications
through an environment variable: MPICH_PORT_RANGE.  Set this variable to
min,max or min..max and then the MPI applications will only use ports in
that range.  Example: mpiexec -env MPICH_PORT_RANGE 10000..11000 -n 3
cpi.exe

If you want to restrict smpd to a port range you will need to set
MPICH_PORT_RANGE in the system environment variables (smpd uses more socket
connections than just the main 8676 port).  If you go this route, make sure
8676 is in the range.

-David Ashton

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-mpich-discuss at mcs.anl.gov
[mailto:owner-mpich-discuss at mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Ray Pelletier
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 12:56 PM
To: mpich-discuss at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: [MPICH] MPICH2 through Windows XP firewall?

Which ports do I need to enable to allow MPI to work through a firewall.

I assume at least 8676 for smpd but cannot figure out which ones will
be used by individual applications.

Thanks in advance. -r

Ray Pelletier
Senior Informatics Scientist
BodyMedia Inc.
4 Smithfield St.
Pittsburgh, PA, 15222, USA
+1-(1)412-288-9901 x1012
www.bodymedia.com