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Computer Center News
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Issue 2 |
March 1999 |
News
Computer Center Staff Relocation
The majority of Computer Center staff members have been relocated to Trailer City. The entire MIS, operations (including hardware and telecommunications), support services, and scientific computing groups have been moved into Trailer City. All Computer Centers phone extensions and email addresses are unchanged.
The Computer Center helpdesk (http://cc.jlab.org/support/docs/helpdesk.html) has been moved from Cebaf Center to Trailer City room 172. This is the new location to drop off any forms or to visit between 1:30-4:30pm if you need personal assistance.
Computer Center Web Pages
The Computer Center web pages are currently being remodeled and revised. As part of this upgrade the home page of the Computer Center has been moved to http://www.jlab.org/CC/ . Under the new home page there are new, improved, and updated Computer Center webpages. The old Computer Center webpages ( http://www.jlab.org/ccc/ ) will remain available for a period of several months before being retired. No futher new information will be placed into the old pages. Any new Computer Center webpage development will take place under the new location. All of the functionality previously provided in our old web pages will be in the new web pages. It will be necessary to update your bookmarks to reflect the new location of our web pages. If during this period you have difficulties finding information that was previously available please call or email the helpdesk with the details.
MIS Web Pages
There
is a new MIS web page available for onsite users at http://mis.jlab.org/.
The
following is a list of applications available on the new web site:
Web Based Applications:
General
information about MIS is available through the MIS Staff, MIS Committee, DB1
applications and the Computer Center links. The MIS staff can be contacted
through this web site. Problems in MIS applications may be reported using the
Problems link displayed at the bottom of the screen. To request NEW software
changes, the user may submit them using the Software Change Request application
link.
General Computing
Fileserver Upgrades
There were many changes made to the Computer Center's central fileservers over the December shutdown. Most of the data on the central file servers, including all user home directories, were relocated to make use of our new Network Appliance (NetApp) F760 fileserver with an additional 113GB of storage. Then the other Network Appliance fileservers, used to store mail, group data, and the databases, were reassigned to spread the load more evenly across them. Finally, the mount points and underlying mechanism for distributing CUE filesystem information to UNIX workstations was changed to make it more manageable. The result is improved performance in the most noticeable area, user home directories, more expandability, and better management of our online disk resources.
First, all the home directories were moved from a NetApp F540 to a new NetApp F760, which uses higher capacity fiber channel disk drives. The CPU in the F760, which does all the RAID calculations, is several times faster than the F540. This allows faster writes to home directories. We have the ability to expand the F760 into the multi-terabyte range using new 18 and 36GB disks. This is a marked improvement over the F540, which used 4GB disk drives.
There were software changes as well. All central fileserver operating systems (Data OnTap) were upgraded to version 5, which adds year 2000 compliance, better interoperability between NT and UNIX, and more expandability. Post-upgrade operating system bugs caused some reliability problems with NT systems during the first weeks of January, but by working closely with Network Appliance we were able to pinpoint the problems in their implementation of CIFS and patch the operating system to remove the bug.
Additional configurations changes were made to the UNIX automounter. In the past, when accessing directories like "/home/username" it would not be uncommon to have "pwd" return "/net/fs1/home/username." Now you may see something like "/u/home/username." Although this is a change from direct automounter maps used previously, the advertised and recommended paths to resources remain the same: /home, /mss, /work, /group, /wbs, and so forth. The changes to the underlying mount points give the ability to make changes to the physical location of files with less disruption to application programs and users. Any such changes are now made to the automounter maps using NIS in the same way that group and password information is managed, making changes visible on all machines as soon as a change is made. The new automounter maps also allow better integration of Linux into the CUE environment by using Linux autofs.
Work fileserver upgrades
In the first week of January the work-area Symbios fileservers were upgraded. This involved complete replacement of the communications head-units and complete rebuilds of the 2.5 TB of filesystems. Although this took somewhat longer than anticipated the work was nevertheless completed within the week that was allotted. A number of small problems were resolved over the following few weeks.
The reason for this upgrade was to enable a greater flexibility in the provision and allocation of space, provide features that had been promised, and to fix some of the problems with the original systems:
We expect to expand these areas by another 500 GB in the next few months, bringing the capacity to some 3 TB.
Ongoing CUE UNIX software changes in /apps
A large component of the common user environment (CUE) at Jefferson Lab is the software maintained on the central file servers. There is an ongoing project to more actively maintain the CUE software in /apps. The project has several aims: To update and expand the available software, to make the software more easily accessible, and to document the available software more completely. Continuity is important: We intend to make no changes that will disrupt day-to-day activities or add additional complexity for the average user.
Most of the software in /apps will now be accessible via the /apps/bin directory. This directory is part of the standard CUE PATH variable. Prior to this, the "setup" utility was used to add paths for specific software to a user's environment. Although setup provides a very flexible method for maintaining the user's path, for production software it is not needed. A single directory, /apps/bin has been established to hold links to all the production versions of CUE software, and to wrapper scripts, if needed.
There have been several improvements to documentation. First, the /apps/man directory is now updated nightly to include man pages for all the most recent CUE software. If /apps/man is in your MANPATH, you will access current man pages. Additionally, the Computer Center web pages include a list of production CUE software, detailed by operating system. This list is automatically updated each night. Work on it continues; soon it will be expanded to list both production and non-production software and the necessary commands. The working version is viewable at http://cc.jlab.org/services/cue/cuesw.html.
/apps is structured so that multiple versions of a particular package can coexist. The user can choose among versions of a software package. This is especially useful during transition periods from one version of a complex product to another.
For the curious, here is an example of the layout of /apps. Although there is a lot of structure (and many symbolic links) the goal of maintaining a clean user interface is preserved, and this provides a strong framework for managing the software structure. Consider a fictional software package, "foo." We have two versions, foo-1.2.3 which is the production version, and we also have foo-1.2.2, which is the older, but still useful version of foo. Here we use indentation to show the subdirectory structure and "->" to denote symbolic links:
/apps/foo
PRO -> foo-1.2.3 [foo-1.2.3 is the production version]
foo-1.2.3
bin
BUILD -> foo-1.2.3
[complete source tree under BUILD]
lib
man
include
etc
[...and so on...]
foo-1.2.2
bin
BUILD -> foo.1.2.2
[complete source tree under BUILD ]
lib
man
include
etc
[...and so on...]
bin -> PRO/bin
lib -> PRO/lib
man -> PRO/man
include -> PRO/include
etc -> PRO/etc
The
symbolic link in /apps/bin, which the user would pick up in his/her path, is /apps/bin/foo
-> /apps/foo/bin/foo. Consider the symbolic link expansion of this:
/apps/bin/foo
-> /apps/foo/bin/foo
-> /apps/foo/PRO/bin/foo
-> /apps/foo/foo-1.2.3/bin/foo
So what's the point of all these links? For the Computer Center to change the production version of a software package, only one symbolic link is altered, the PRO link. This allows us to change software versions on maintenance days with an easy fall back should there be complications. The directory hierarchy described above also allows us to install multiple versions of a software product without any interference between them. This modularity makes for smoother transitions.
Another component of the CUE environment is the setup utility. Since setup works only with c-shell variants, it has been a limitation for users of ksh, bash, and zsh. We have a tool, still in testing, that will replace setup in most cases. It allows dynamic re-pathing, and it also supports all known shells. It is less complex than setup, and is primarily intended for access to older/alternate versions of software.
Suggestions for software that should be centrally maintained, especially open-source software, should be sent to bhess@jlab.org.
Printing Upgrades for UNIX CUE Systems
Have you ever wanted to print to tray2 on a JLAB HP printer? Specify single-sided copies? Double-sided copies? Now you can.
As of March 2, 1999, the CUE HP and Sun systems have been modified to support the passing of print options to the HP printers on site. You can find which options a particular printer supports by examining the list of printer specific options printed on each banner page.
Some of the most common printer options are:
-o tray1 to print to tray1 of the printer
-o
tray2 to print to tray2 of the printer
-o
tray3 to print to tray3 of the printer
-o
simplex to print in simplex mode
-o
duplex to print in duplex mode on those printers that support duplex mode
printing
-o nb
to disable printing a banner
-o yb
to enable printing a banner (this is the default on most JLAB printers)
-o 2up
prints two pages side by side on a single sheet of paper
-o
portrait prints in portrait
-o
landscape prints in landscape
If you have any questions, please contact the Computer Center helpdesk at ext. 7155, between the hours of 1:30pm - 4:30pm, or through email (helpdesk@jlab.org).
X-terminals and Font Services
Over the past few months, a number of changes have been made to the configuration for the NCD x-terminals in use at Jefferson Lab. The new configuration will be more reliable and provide improved login performance. In order to take advantage of this new configuration, it is necessary for you to make some configuration changes on the x-terminal itself. This procedure is documented at:
http://cc.jlab.org/desktop/xterminals/Reconfig1999.html .
There are a number of terminals on site that are not reflected in our central configuration and may encounter problems booting under this configuration. This is generally a very minor problem that can be corrected very quickly.
If you have not yet reconfigured your X-terminal, we urge you to do this now. It will dramatically improve the performance.
Try to schedule your reconfiguration during a time when you are able to tolerate small delays in the event of problems. If you do happen to encounter difficulties, contact the Computer Center Help Desk at extension 7155, or by email (helpdesk@jlab.org) for assistance. Overall, problems encountered have been very few.
Macintosh Support
The support for Apple Macintosh computers over the past year or so has been less than optimum, mainly because of a lack of expertise within the Computer Center. We do recognize that there are a significant number of Mac systems on site, and while we do not encourage the purchase of new systems we will however in future support them in a more consistent way as explained in this article.
Several of our support staff are currently undergoing Macintosh training – particularly related to troubleshooting problems. We are also in the process of integrating Macintosh systems into the Common User Environment (CUE) that was introduced last summer for PC systems. This will mean that from the central fileservers it will be possible to transparently share files between Unix, Windows, and now Mac systems. The old central repository on CCNT1 will be moved onto the fileservers and CCNT1 and CCNT2 will be retired. A new MACDIST directory for centrally supported software will be created on the fileservers. We will also centrally provide a limited set of applications – for example the recommended versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer that can be used to run some of the new web-enabled applications, and supported mail clients and terminal emulators.
We will limit our support to the most recent versions of the MacOS operating system:
The Computer Center will purchase a number of copies of these OS versions and make them available in the MACDIST directory on the fileserver. We will not be able to support older OS versions, but will provide advice on upgrading your system. This policy is in line with our support for all other operating systems.
Support for Mac systems will be available in the same way as for PC’s – requested via the problem reporting system GNATS. (http://cchelp.jlab.org/gnats_home/) or by e-mail to pcmac_support@jlab.org. Hardware support will be done on a limited basis by Computer Center hardware technicians. We will assist in the diagnosis of hardware problems and provide assistance in their resolution. We will maintain a small stock of certain common Macintosh hardware (mainly power supplies and disks), and will replace them in-house where necessary and possible. For other problems we will recommend off-site repair and maintenance.
Remote Access
Dial-in connections to the JLab network are now being provided entirely through the RAS (Remote Access Server). The RAS is a Cisco AS5300 providing 72 56k-Flex/ISDN modems for analog and digital access. The RAS has been upgraded to support the V.90 standard. The old terminal server modems and LanRovers have been removed from service.
Please remember that before using the RAS that you must have an account on the JLab NT domain, since all user authentication is performed against the NT user database. Connections through the RAS can be accomplished from Windows 95, Windows NT, Linux, and Macintosh systems.
Your standard email address at Jefferson Lab is of the form yourID@jlab.org where 'yourID' is your computer-user account on db1. Most people can also use the form Firstname.Lastname@jlab.org unless someone else on site has the same first and last names registered in CIS.
To determine what 'first.last' address is valid for any person, log onto a CUE UNIX machine and enter 'mailaddress' followed by a name or string to match. (The command is located at /site/bin/mailaddress.) The string will be matched anywhere in the person's name or user ID.
For example,
mailaddress jones
Jones,Margaret (x1234 rm 13/124
ADMINISTRATION)
msjones
Margaret.Jones
Jones,Charles (x1235 rm 18/124
PHYSICS)
ccjones
Charles.Jones
Jones,Mike (x3234 rm 17/124
ACCELERATOR )
jonesm
Mike.Jones
The first line for each item shows the name, as listed in CIS, along with phone, room, and division information. The next line shows the valid email addresses for each person. Assuming that there is no duplication of first and last names in the database, there will be a user ID and a FIRST.LAST name pair. Either form can be used for email, e.g.,
ccjones@jlab.org or Charles.Jones@jlab.org.
The next example shows a duplicate first-last pair, along with a valid match and the email addresses of alpha-numeric pagers for two people.
mailaddress wilkins
Wilkins,Lori (x7606 rm 12-L210
ACCELERATOR)
wilkinsl
Lori.Wilkins
wilkinsl-page
Lori.Wilkins-page
Wilkins,James (x7697 rm 19/124
PHYSICS)
jwilkins
Wilkins,James (x7639 rm 19/186
PHYSICS)
wilkins
wilkins-page
In this case, the 'userID' forms (jwilkins@jlab.org and wilkins@jlab.org) are valid, but James.Wilkins@jlab.org is ambiguous as far as the computer is concerned. Mail sent using an ambiguous first.last pair will be returned to the sender.
Pager addresses will be listed on the third line for any person who has an alpha-numeric pager registered. The pagers will relay a message of about 80 characters, when it is sent to one of the '-page' addresses. If someone does not have a pager, the "mailaddress" command will not list an address of that form.
Note that Internet mail addresses are not case-sensitive, i.e., any of the following are valid forms:
Charles.Jones@jlab.org
charles.jones@jlab.org
CCJONES@jlab.org
ccjones@JLAB.ORG
JLab Directory Service
A personnel directory service is now available for use by conforming mail clients, which include Netscape Navigator 4.5 and Microsoft Outlook.
The service provides automatic look-up of names, phone numbers, and email addresses of Jefferson Lab personnel. Your mail program must be able to use the standard "light-weight directory access protocol" (LDAP).
Two pieces of information are needed by clients of the service: the host name of the server and the "search root" of the database. In our case, these are, respectively,
ldap.jlab.org
o=Jefferson
Lab, c=US
Once this information is correctly entered in a mail client's configuration, lookups of email addresses will be automatic for mail addressed to on-site people.
To add the services for Netscape 4.5, do the following:
In Navigator, bring up the Address Book.
From
the File menu, choose "New Directory."
Enter
"JLab
Directory Server" as the description,
"ldap.jlab.org"
as the LDAP server, and
"o=Jefferson Lab, c=US"
as server root.
·
Close this window and the Address Book.
From the main Navigator Edit menu, open
"Preferences."
Open "Mail & Newsgroups", then "Addressing."
Under "Pinpoint Addressing" select both boxes.
Open the drop-down menu bar and select "JLab Directory Server."
Select the various options here that reflect how you want the directory to be
used.
Close the window.
Note: the menus are somewhat different for earlier
versions of Navigator, but the principles are the same.
For
Microsoft Outlook, do the following:
From Outlook's main page, follow this path:
Tools -> Accounts -> Directory Service -> Add ->
Directory Service
Enter "ldap.jlab.org"
(leave the "log on" option UNSELECTED).
Next
Select "yes" for "check address."
Next
Enter "JLab Directory Server"
for "friendly name."
Next
Finish
In the Directory Service window, select "Advanced."
Leave "port" as 389.
Enter "o=Jefferson Lab, c=US"
for "search base."
Click OK then Close.
Your
email composer and address book will now be able to get information directly
from our LDAP server. For other LDAP-compatible clients, the procedure should
be similar.
The
actual use of this feature varies a bit from one mail program to the next. With
Netscape, for instance, the program attempts to complete the address
information as you type or when you move to the next field using a TAB. With
Outlook, the actual directory check does not occur until you send the mail;
then a list of possibly correct addresses is presented from which you can
choose.
The
data provided by the directory server are updated daily from CIS. If you note a
mistake, or if you have trouble with the setup, please call the Helpdesk
(x7155) between 1PM and 4PM on workdays.
Eventually
this service will be integrated into an international directory of High Energy
and Nuclear Physics labs.
Maintenance
Schedules
The
status of any current problems and scheduled maintenance will be kept up to
date at http://cc.jlab.org/announce/status.html.
System outages will continue to be posted to the subscribable mail list outage-alert@jlab.org.
Support Services
The
Computer Center Support Services team has added another member, Evelyn Akers (eakers@jlab.org) . Evelyn has taken the
PC/Mac administrator position within our group. She will be the main point of
contact within our group for all PC and Mac related problems and questions.
Evelyn will also be an integral part of our helpdesk, and in the overall
support of CUE (Common User Environment). She has special responsibility for
Business Services support.
Common User Environment
As
a result of the recent upgrades to our central fileservers the following
effects have occurred in CUE:
Scientific Computing
Farms
Twelve
dual 400MHz Pentium II Linux systems have been added to the farm. This brings
the total number of systems in the farm to 40 (6 Solaris, 4 AIX, and 30 Linux).
These new systems are using RedHat 5.2. The older Linux farm nodes are using
RedHat 4.2. Since RedHat 5.2 now uses glibc, some programs previously compiled
on RedHat 4.2 systems will not run. Make sure your programs will run on one of
the RedHat 5.2 IFARML systems before submitting jobs to the new RedHat 5.2
FARML systems.
As
part of the migration from RedHat 4.2 to RedHat 5.2, IFARML2 has been replaced
with a RedHat 5.2 system. Also, a new IFARM system using RedHat 5.2, IFARML3,
is now available. IFARML2 is a dual 400MHz Pentium II machine. IFARML3 is a
dual 400MHz Pentium II Xeon machine. These IFARML systems have the Absoft
FORTRAN compiler installed on them. The IFARML1 system will remain a RedHat 4.2
system until all the FARML systems have been upgraded to RedHat 5.2.
To
run jobs on the new RedHat 5.2 farm nodes, users must submit their jobs to the
redhat52 job queue. To do this, add the following line in a your jsub
configuration file:
QUEUE:
redhat52
The
older RedHat 4.2 systems will gradually be upgraded to RedHat 5.2 over the next
month with a completion date of March 31, 1999. At that time, the redhat52 job
queue will be merged back into the production job queue and IFARML1 will be upgraded
to RedHat 5.2.
A
further 20 dual processor (450MHz) are currently on order, which will bring the
capacity of the batch farm to some 1600 SPECint95. The farm will then contain
120 processors (100 Linux/Pentium, 12 Solaris/Sparc, 8 AIX/RS6000).
Redhat
Linux 5.2 Information
For
some time the farm systems executables that have been linked statically on an
older system should run immediately. Otherwise a re-link of the code is
required on a system with RedHat 5.2 installed.
The
compilers available on the new systems are as follows:
The
egcs compilers are compatible with gcc and the older version of g77. The Absoft
compiler is provided only to enable older code that uses non-standard Fortran
extensions to compile.
Telecommunications
In
conjunction with the creation of a new Jefferson Lab Directory,
Telecommunications has been conducting a labwide audit. This audit will
provide Telecommunications with all pertinent information for the staff and
users at the lab for the new directory.
REMINDER: The Telecommunications Staff is now
located in Trailer City (bldg. 16) rooms 192, 194 and 195.
Do
you have the responsibility for answering telephones for your department or
group? If so, the Telephone Communications Skills workshop will help you
present a polished, professional image of JLAB to callers. Refer to the JLAB
website under Staff Development and Training for more information.
Did
you know there are several different ways to send a text message to a person
carrying an alphanumeric pager? 1) via e-mail using this format: 757849xxxx@alphame.com and
also name-page@jlab.org
(where name is the regular
email name) or 2) via the internet at http://www.tsrwireless.com/home.htm;
or 3) via the JLAB intranet under Search; select Page JLAB Staff. Please be
aware that these options are not 100% reliable.
Previous
versions of the Computer Center Newsletter can be found at http://www.jlab.org/CC/announce/newsletter/
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Obtaining Support |
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General help (General questions, accounts, quotas, etc) |
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PC/Mac support |
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Farms, mass storage, etc. |
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Networks |
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Informatics (e-mail, mail lists, netnews) |
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MIS (etr, reqs, cis, etc.) |
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Telecommunications (phones, pagers, cellphones) |
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Or, go to: http://cc.jlab.org/support/ |
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Helpdesk hours: daily 1.30pm – 4.30pm (tel. x7155) |
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This document is maintained by {helpdesk@jlab.org}
Copyright Jefferson Lab 2007