Update - the design below is simple but does not scale well. All nodes should be controlled from a single host, or the administrative burden would become too high. In the current setup you have to copy and execute ppss manually on every node.
The goal is to make PPSS distributed. So a large number of host can be used to process items, not just a single host. These hosts will share one list of items to process.
The basic concept is that PPSS is installed on client nodes. The server is used by the clients to communicate which items are in use and/or have been processed. There is nothing more to it.
A dedicated server isn't strictly necessary, one of the nodes could act like one. However, if PPSS is used, it is often for jobs that put a heavy load onto a system. So PPSS should better not be run on the master server.
The server can also be used to distribute files to nodes. If configured, PPSS will download an item to the local node and start processing on the local item. The output can be uploaded back to the server, if specified.
On the master server, a directory exists that contains the lock files for items that are in use or have been processed. If a PPSS node selects an item and detects a lock file, the next available item will be selected. If there is no lock file for this item, it will be created and PPSS will start processing the item.
* using scp within scripts to (securely) copy items (files) to the local host and copy the processed items back to the server. Please note that copying files using scp is more resource intensive (CPU) than SMB or NFS.
The funny thing is that if scp is used for file distribution, it doesn't matter where clients are physically located. They may be scattered all over the wold. The only thing that is required: enough bandwidth between clients and server.
