Patent ID: 7624163

Claim:
A method for configuring a distributed computer network, the method comprising: providing, by a client, a job containing a list of tasks to a controller, the tasks including a bootstrap tool and configuration information related to the computer network; providing a task containing a bootstrap process to each of a plurality of agents on the distributed computer network, each task being one of the tasks of the job, wherein the controller provides a unique identifier to each task; and executing code by each of the plurality of agents based upon the provided task, wherein the code provides configuration information for a master process and a plurality of slave processes within the distributed computer network, wherein the task that generates the master process opens a network port and advertises the port via a multicast signal, and wherein each of the tasks for the slave processes browses for the network port and sends the network port an address associated with the agent hosting the slave process, the master process returning a base port number for a new address and the master process returning a last port number returned to the address incremented by one for a subsequent task using the same address.