R help - Dec 2012 - problem with opening more than one SOCK cluster with package snow

Dear list,

i have some problems using the snow package to create a SOCK cluster. 
The errors just occour irregularly but it seems to me that they occour 
when I try to create more than one cluster on the same machine via 
different R instances started via submitting LSF jobs to a cluster. Does 
anyone have an idea how to solve this or where to start digging for 
solutions?

The error messages are:

library(snow)
cl <- makeCluster(8, type = "SOCK")


Error in socketConnection(port = port, server = TRUE, blocking = TRUE,  :
   cannot open the connection
Calls: run.call ... makeCluster -> makeSOCKcluster -> newSOCKnode -> 
socketConnection
In addition: Warning message:
In socketConnection(port = port, server = TRUE, blocking = TRUE,  :
   port 10187 cannot be opened


R version 2.15.1 (2012-06-22)
Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)

locale:
  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
  [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
  [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
  [7] LC_PAPER=C                 LC_NAME=C
  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  utils     methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] snow_0.3-10


Thanks a lot
Jannis

On 19/12/2012 18:57, Jannis wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> i have some problems using the snow package to create a SOCK cluster.
> The errors just occour irregularly but it seems to me that they occour
> when I try to create more than one cluster on the same machine via
> different R instances started via submitting LSF jobs to a cluster. Does
> anyone have an idea how to solve this or where to start digging for
> solutions?
Yes.

My guess is that you are starting snow clusters simultaneously.  The 
message gives you a pretty big clue: use different ports for different 
clusters (it is an option to makeCluster).

Also that that it is over a year since snow was superseded by an 
improved version in package 'parallel', so why are you still using the 
original?
>
> The error messages are:
>
> library(snow)
> cl <- makeCluster(8, type = "SOCK")
>
>
> Error in socketConnection(port = port, server = TRUE, blocking = TRUE,  :
>    cannot open the connection
> Calls: run.call ... makeCluster -> makeSOCKcluster -> newSOCKnode
->
> socketConnection
> In addition: Warning message:
> In socketConnection(port = port, server = TRUE, blocking = TRUE,  :
>    port 10187 cannot be opened
>
>
> R version 2.15.1 (2012-06-22)
> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>
> locale:
>   [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
>   [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
>   [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
>   [7] LC_PAPER=C                 LC_NAME=C
>   [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  utils     methods   base
>
> other attached packages:
> [1] snow_0.3-10
>
>
> Thanks a lot
> Jannis
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595