When an application is to be run in parallel, the user has the machines to be used for the parallel run and the location of the executable on each of the specified machines. The application user must be able to give this information to TCPMPL. For this purpose, a configuration file is present. It is called process-config. Each row consists of the specification of a job to be run on a machine. The machine name is given first followed by the path of the executable to be started on that specified machine. An example configuration file would look like this:
machineOne.ececs.uc.edu /user/warped/TimeWarp/RAID/RAID machineTwo.ececs.uc.edu /user/warped/TimeWarp/RAID/RAID machineThree.ececs.uc.edu /user/warped/Timewarp/RAID/RAID
Processes started by a message passing layer are assigned an identity number by which each process identify each other during their execution. The process with the identity number zero is called the master process. All other processes are called slaves. The user must be able to specify the master process. The first entry in the process-config denotes the master process. In the example shown above the process RAID that is to be started on the machine machineOne.ececs.uc.edu should be the master. The other processes are slaves.