Center for Polymer Studies Computing Information System

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Welcome to the Center for Polymer Studies Computing Information System. These documents contain information, manuals and procedures for using CPSnet, the Center for Polymer Studies computing network.

If you have questions about the CPSnet, please send mail to sysadmin@polymer.bu.edu. This is the place to report any problems with the machines or network or for general questions (you can also mail to help or bugs). Paul Trunfio (office: X9041 home: 323-1162) or Luis Cruz-Cruz (office: X3411 home: 623-1273) should be sought in the case of an emergency or for general questions or problems.

Recent Announcements

• We have received a grant from SUN Microsystems for 2 SUN Blade 2000 visualization machines and 5 SUN Blade 150s. (25 April 2003)

• We are testing our new fileserver, webserver, and compute cluster. More information will be made available when these machines (and their services) are up. It is unclear how long it will take to migrate everything over. (March 2003)

• Filtering SPAM at CPS. (18 October 2002)

• Memory on all the dual Athlon's (Room 202 machines) have been upgraded to 1.5GB from 512MB. Machines are: clio, erato, malcolm, miranda, caliban, ariel, fuji, logan, rainier, and everest. (20 June 2002)

• Instructions on how to use the new printer in Room 202. (19 June 2002)

• Report of upgrade status. (10 January 2002)

• During the week of January 7, 2002 we will be performing our "yearly" major upgrade. This will include: (1) reconfiguring machines in both 101 and 202 and installing new Linux workstations, (2) adding UPS backups to meta and argento, rewiring the electrical and networking on all machines, and installing line regulators on several newer workstations, (3) OS upgrades to older Linux workstations, including meta, (4) argento will be upgraded to IRIX 6.5.14, new apache web server, squid proxy server, and webalizer WWW statistics program, (5) PCs in 101 will be repaired and upgraded, and (6) possibly run our Web server on a dedicated machine (we are still evaluating this). (January 2002)

• Grace (successor to Xmgr) installed on Linux workstation cluster. (December 12, 2001)

• Webalizer 2.01-09 (http log analysis software) installed on Linux machines. (December 6, 2001)

• RevTex installed on Linux workstation cluster. (December 5, 2001)

• Status updates of MOSIX job scheduling facility on our Linux workstation cluster. (November and December 2001)

• mpack and munpack MIME package installed on all Linux machines. (October 2001)

• Pine 4.40 Installed on all Linux, DEC, and SGI Machines. (October 2001)

• Disabled Commands on ARGENTO. (25 July 2001)

• Star Office installed on all the Linux machines. Star Office is the Linux equivalent to Microsoft Office. (13 December 2000)

• Help in printing TeX files This information has also been added to the PRINTING help page. (1-SEP-00)

• detex now available on all Linux machines. (29-AUGUST-2000)

• Changes to CPSNET following security incident including access by SSH (AUGUST-2000)

• WWW Access statistics are now available. (17-AUGUST-2000)

• Apache Web server on argento has been upgraded to 1.3.12. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS NEW APACHE HAS BEEN CONFIGURED TO NOT ALLOW LINKS TO DIRECTORIES OUTSIDE OF YOUR public_html FOLDER. (16-AUGUST-2000)

• 6 new machines (dual 750Mhz Pentium III's) with 512M memory are now installed (luna, melete, hypate, vesta, rushmore, pan). (17-AUGUST-2000)

• Meta upgrade and computer room upgrades are complete. Please be especially careful to keep both computer rooms clean and please log out completely each night. We will be providing a map of machines in the near future. (07-AUGUST-2000)

• Changes to available machines for running jobs. The list now includes all of our new Linux machines. Also, Argento, Meta, Bailey, and Arkady are NOT available for running jobs. See UPDATED INFORMATION ON SUBMITTING JOBS IN THE CPSNET CLUSTER, INCLUDING LISTING OF AVAILABLE MACHINES. (07-AUGUST-2000)

• 5 new machines (dual 750MHz Pentium III's) with 512M memory are now installed (water, jhilad, riskit, thalia, urania). As always, please submit jobs to these machines using 'nice'. (6-JUN-2000)

• a2ps utility for formating text files in duplex postscript (i.e., 2 pages of text are printed side by side on 1 page). Installed on meta and yanko ONLY. (07-MAR-2000)

• Y2K UPGRADES: (1) User accounts have been completely moved from duncan and onto the new fileserver META containing user home directories and project spaces. (2) Bailey and Arkady are the new YP servers (which provide for distributed services such as passwords and auto spaces). (3) All the newer alphas have been upgraded to Digital Unix 4.0D (ceres, juno, risa, darmok, hober). (4) All SGIs have been upgraded to IRIX 6.5.x. (5) The entire network has been upgraded to 10MB switched ethernet with two 100MB ports (meta, argento). See ANNOUNCEMENT CONCERNING CPSNET FEB-99 UPGRADE PLANS. (DEC-99)

Procedures

• Home Directory Quotas, Group Dist Quotas, and Scratch Space describes the disk space that every CPSnet account has. Includes listing of available /scratch and /dist space.

• Security Procedures outlines procedures for accessing facilities and using the alarms, as well as precautions.

• Submitting Jobs describes the procedure for submitting a job to the CPSNet cluster. Note that all jobs not submitted using nice are subject to being re-niced by the system administrator.

• Backups describes backup procedures in CPSnet, and how to backup your own data to tape or disk.

• Electronic mail gives an overview of standard mail packages used in the cluster.

• Printing describes how to print in CPSnet and how to TeX documents.

Hardware

• VA Linux Systems VARServer 700, dual 550MHz Pentium III, 1GB RAM, 144GB RAID hard disk, 280GB EXTERNAL RAID ARRAY, 40X CD, 25/50G tape drive, running Red Hat Linux 7.2. 100 MBps network connection.
  • meta.bu.edu (file server only, do NOT submit jobs)

• Microway dual 1.2GHz AMD Athlon, 1.5G RAM, running Red Hat 7.2 and utilizing MOSIX job scheduling software (note in the machine list, the number in the parentheses after the machine name indicates the node number in the MOSIX cluster).
  • clio.bu.edu (1)
  • erato.bu.edu (2)
  • malcolm.bu.edu (3)
  • miranda.bu.edu (4)
  • caliban.bu.edu (5)
  • ariel.bu.edu (6)
  • fuji.bu.edu (7)
  • logan.bu.edu (8)
  • rainier.bu.edu (9)
  • everest.bu.edu (10)

• Microway dual 750MHz Pentium III, 512M RAM, 40X CD, running Red Hat 7.2
  • water.bu.edu
  • jhilad.bu.edu
  • thalia.bu.edu
  • riskit.bu.edu
  • urania.bu.edu
  • luna.bu.edu
  • melete.bu.edu
  • vesta.bu.edu
  • hypate.bu.edu
  • pan.bu.edu
  • rushmore.bu.edu

• Microway dual 600MHz Pentium III, 1GB RAM, running Red Hat 7.2
  • yanko.bu.edu

• Silicon Graphics (SGI) ONYX 2 with Reality Engine graphics, dual R10000 processors, 64MB texture memory, 1.2GB RAM, 24" superwide monitor, running IRIX V6.4.1.
  • linda.bu.edu

• 5 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) 500au Unix workstations with PowerStorm 4D60T, 8MB texture memory, 256MB SDRAM, 21" monitors, running OSF/1 4.0.
  • ceres.bu.edu
  • darmok.bu.edu
  • juno.bu.edu
  • risa.bu.edu
  • hober.bu.edu

• Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI) Indy and Indigo Unix workstations. All Indys are based on the MIPS R4600 100Mhz processor, 8-bit XL graphics (except argento which is an R8000 and washington is an R3000).
  • seldon.bu.edu -- 96 MB memory.
  • daneel.bu.edu -- 96 MB memory.
  • macduff.bu.edu -- 96 MB memory.
  • trantor.bu.edu -- 96 MB memory.
  • arkady.bu.edu -- 96 MB memory.
  • bailey.bu.edu -- 96 MB memory.
  • argento.bu.edu -- 128MB memory.

• Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) DECstation Alpha Unix workstation based on the DEC Alpha 64-bit CPU at 150 MHz, 96MB RAM, 4mm 2G tape drive, and OSF/1 operating system.
  • duncan.bu.edu

• Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) DECstation Ultrix workstation.
  • iris.bu.edu

• Intel Celeron II 333MHz PC
  • cps42-pc-90.bu.edu (Room 204 closet; running RH Linux 6.2 and Windows 98 with Yamaha CRW8424SZ CD-RW drive)
  • dialup to .bu.edu (Braunstein Home Office)

• Intel Pentium III 700MHz running Windows 98 for education software development using MetroWerks CodeWarrior.
  • cps42-pc-91.bu.edu (Room 101)
  • cps42-pc-92.bu.edu (Room 101)

• Apple Macintosh G3 for Web development and education software development running Mac OS 8.6.
  • cps42-pc-164.bu.edu (Room 101; G3 300MHz with internal 100MB ZIP and external flatbed scanner)
  • cps42-mac153.bu.edu (Room 200A; upgraded 7100 with Sonnet G3/266 MHz CPU and Lacie 24/12/10 CDRW burner)
  • *.c3-0.wrx-ubr3.sbo-wrx.ma.cable.rcn.com (Paul Trunfio's Home Office; upgraded 7100 with Sonnet G3/500 MHz CPU)

• Intel Pentium II 266MHz running Windows with CD burner for education development.
  • cps42-pc-153.bu.edu (Room 101)

• Apple Macintosh Laptops.
  • dialup/DHCP G3 PowerBook
  • dialup/DHCP G4 I-Book