When executed, the TakTuk engine establishes a logical interconnection network between remote hosts. Then, it executes commands given on the command line (batch mode) or read by a simple command interpreter (interactive mode). TakTuk is able to:
TakTuk is a tool especially suited to the administration of parallel machines because it eases the handling of groups of hosts. It might be used in batch mode for simple machine state tests (e.g. test hosts responsiveness simply by letting the engine setting the network up using its default connector - ssh) or in interactive mode for deep investigation on several hosts, using the TakTuk command interpreter to execute multiple commands on multiple hosts (standard test sequence on a group of hosts, ping pong test between several machines, ...).
Notice that if your intended use is just to execute the same command on a set of identical hosts (e.g. a regular cluster), the kanif wrapper is probably more suited to you. kanif is also able to spread or gather files to/from remote hosts.
During the development and the exploitation of a parallel code TakTuk eases the work of the programmer. It constitutes a fast and scalable deployment solution (which enables quick tests of an application in development: no need to wait ten minutes to experiment the result of a code modification). It also provides a portable control network (which eases the initial setup of a parallel application by providing to processes a way to communicate - it can even cross firewalls as long as a gateway can be accessed).