Basic Steps to Start a Render Farm

The following steps are just a guideline to start your render farm. It is assumed that you already have the master and client nodes communication, shared filesystem, permissions and usernames synched. Let's take the example of a network with 2 PCs: the master and the client. On the client we set 5 tasks; on the master we set 2 tasks.

1. On the master computer, use Settings → Preferences → Performance tab to set up a Render Farm:
   • check the Use render farm box;
   • in the Hostname box, keyin your hostname or ip address such as 192.168.1.12 or localhost when using a single computer with a multicore CPU;
   • enter in a port number such as 401–405 (only a root user can use privileged ports) or 10650... for non-root and click on Add Nodes. To find a range of free ports to use you can look at the file /etc/services;
   • you will see something like the following in the Nodes listbox to the right:
     

     On	Hostname	Port	Framerate
     X	192.168.1.12	10650	0.0
     X	192.168.1.12	10651	0.0
     X	192.168.1.12	10652	0.0
     X	192.168.1.12	10653	0.0
     X	192.168.1.12	10654	0.0
     X	localhost	10655	0.0
     X	localhost	10656	0.0

   • set the Total number of jobs to create. This number only pertains to client nodes, so we do not need to consider the master node;
   • click OK on the bottom of the Preferences window.
2. For external network nodes, now we must join the nodes created to instances of CINELERRA-GG. On the client computers ( 192.168.1.12), on the terminal, start 5 background CINELERRA-GG tasks via:

   cd {path_to_cinelerra}
   cin -d 10650 
   cin -d 10651
   ...
   cin -d 10654
   

   In practice, at each instance that we start, the cursor will be positioned in a new line ready to enter the next command, without exiting the task. If we have several PCs on the network, repeat these steps for each new client (with its own ip address).
3. Similarly, on the terminal, we must join the local nodes (internal to the Master node) created to instances of CINELERRA-GG. On the Master node (localhost), start the 2 background CINELERRA-GG tasks via:

   cd {path_to_cinelerra}
   cin -d 10655
   cin -d 10656
   

   Similar to the previous point, the cursor positions itself in a new line ready to enter the next command, without exiting the task.
4. When your video is ready, setup a render job via File → Render or File → Batch Render and check OK.
5. The results will be in the shared file path/filename that you selected in the render menu with the additional numbered job section on the end as 001, 002, 003,...099 (example, video.webm001).
6. When finished, load your new files on new tracks via File → Load concatenate to existing tracks or if you used ffmpeg, run RenderMux from the Shell Scripts icon.
7. If you plan on doing more rendering, you can just leave the master/client jobs running to use again and avoid having to restart them. You can also close the terminal, but the jobs will remain active until you turn off the PC. Or you can kill them when you no longer are using them.