Index


General Info

If there is something that don't work or there is a program you like to have installed send me an E-mail, pe@mech.kth.se . In urgent situations you can call my mobile phone 0708 16 46 02. I will install software for SUN Solaris 2.5 and for IBM AIX 4.2 and to some extent for Linux.

News

User Acounts

A person who want an acount on the system have to ask their superior/advisor to give me information about your Name and Phonenumber.  You must also fill in a form, you can get a postscript version here .

Future Software

Here is a list of software I plan to install. I will install them when ever I get time, they arne not sorted according to priority.

For Solaris 2.5

For AIX 4.2

For Linux

Computers

This is a list of the Computers running Unix at Mechanics.

Our Network

A map over our network can be seen  here .  If you move a computer don't unplug the network cable from the conection in the service socket on the floor. Let me now if you wan't to use a new connection or if you stopt using an old one, so that I can save ports on our Switches and Hubs.

AFS

Mechanics has our own AFS  cell, mech.kth.se. AFS (Andrew File System) is a network filesystem developed by Transarc. At KTH it is used by NADA and PDC as well. It is a global filesystem, so all cites running an AFS can be reached from us. You can use files all over the world as it was on your computer. That is if  you have the permission to use it. Most of our software and all home accounts are in AFS. The files are stored at our twa AFS file servers castor and pollux. The each have two 9GB disk on separate Wide-SCSI controlers. That gives us a total of 36GB storage area.

Kerberos

Mechanics has our own Kerberos realm MECH.KTH.SE. Kerberos is an encryption system to make shure that no network traffic can be listen to for passwords, making it more difficult to get in to our system. Kerberos is also used by NADA and PDC.

FTP

Mechanics has a FTP server for anonymmous ftp access. To connect you ftp to  ftp.mech.kth.se and log in as anonymous or ftp. Give your e-mail as passwd. The files should be under pub.

Information that you would like others to be able to fetch you put in the AFS file system under /afs/mech.kth.se/public/ftp/pub. There you create your own directory named after your username, if it not already exist. Put the files there. If you want to put up more directorys you have to make them as sub directorys. Otherwise they will be removed.

If someone would like to  transfer files to the can put there files in pub/incoming. Presently the ftp server is not able to set the file permissions right for incomming files, you have to ask me to change the permissions for you.

Shells

The supported shells are ksh, bash and tcsh. The most of you that had accounts at NADA got tcsh by default. I prefer that you use bash, it is for instance better to implement modules in bash. You will get bash as default from me. Current versions of initfiles are found in  /afs/mech.kth.se/wsadmin/initfiles/bash, /afs/mech.kth.se/wsadmin/initfiles/ksh and /afs/mech.kth.se/wsadmin/initfiles/tcsh for bash, ksh and tcsh respectivly..

Window Manager

The default Window Manager is FVWM2. The default rc file is located at  /pkg/fvwm/default/share/system.fvwm2rc. Copy it to .fvwm2rc in your home directory and edit it if you wan't tom make changes to the default values. If you want to use another Window Manager for example TVTWM you must create a new .xinitrc file in your home directory. The file must be executable. The file should look something like this.

For ksh:

      #!/bin/ksh

      . $HOME/.kshrc

      module add tvtwm

      tvtwm

For bash:

      #!/bin/bash

      module add tvtwm

      tvtwm

For tcsh:

     #!/bin/tcsh

     source $HOME/.cshrc

     module add tvtwm

     tvtwm

Modules

All major software is organised as modules. To be able to use a program you must load it's module. The module changes your environment variables to suit the program.  The programs are located at /pkg/<program>/<version>, where <program> is the name of the program/module and <version> is the version number. There is a dynamic link /pkg/<program>/default that points to the default version of the program. Most programs are located in the AFS file system so /pkg/<program> is a link into AFS, to /afs/mech.kth.se/pkg/<program>.  A few programs like kerberos and AFS is copied down to the local disk. There is a package handeler, pkg,  that runs a Perlscript at midnight every day and update the links and files oun the client computers. Thus when I install a program in the AFS system it is visible in /pkg/<program> after midnight.

To list available modules:

     dom[pe]> module avail

To load a module:

      dom[pe]> module add <module>

If you wan't to load a <version> different from the default one:

      dom[pe]> module add <module>/<version>

To get some information about the module:

      dom[pe]> module display <module>

To list loaded modules:

      dom[pe]> module list

To remove the module.

      dom[pe]> module rm <module>

Modules that you use often can be loaded from the shell int files.

Backup

Files in the AFS system are backed up to file every day. I have defined a "backup year " according to this. For the last week the tapes are saved  for every day, ie tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday and saturday at 02.00.  For the last month every saturday tape will be saved. For the last quarter the first saturday tape of every moth is saved. The first saturday tape will be saved for ever ......

Every night at 00.07 the AFS files/volumes will be cloned. The volume named <volume> will be cloned to <volume>.backup. These files are eaysely accessed in this way, example my volume home.mech.pe.

      dom[pe]> cd <suitable dir in AFS>

      dom[pe]> fs mkm oldfiles home.mech.pe.backup

The files from yesterday is now accessible in the directory oldfiles. To unmount them you type.D

     dom[pe]> fs rmm oldfiles
 

MacX

If you wan't to use MacX you can do as follows. An alternative and maybe nicer, but slower, way is to use XDM, contact me and I'll show you how.

Sample Latex Thesis Files

A sample Latex PHD Thesis file can be downloaded from here . It can also be fetched via ftp, from ftp.mech.kth.se, direktory pub/latex, the file is named latexmall.tar.gz. There will later be a LIC sample file there as well.

Mule

Using Mule , Multi Lingual Emacs, you can write in for example Japanise. If you wan't to use Mule you need two int files , .emacs and .skk. You can get them from  here and here . If you already have a .emacs file add to it. Put both these files in your home dir.

DQS

I have now set up a batch que system on some of the departments shared computers. On these machines it's only alowed to run shorter interactive jobs. Interactive jobs should be run on dom.  It's only allowed to have two jobs at the same time in the qsystem, either running or waiting. There are currently six ques. The ques are restricted in memory size and CPU time. Here is a table of the available ques.
 
 
QName QArchitecture MaxMemorySize MaxCPUTime
ask-1 solaris 150 Mb 5h
ask-2 solaris 150 Mb 5h
obelix-1 power-2 200 Mb 5h
majestix-1 power-2 150 Mb 5h
idefix-1 power-1 100 Mb 5h
asterix-1 power-1 100 Mb 5h

To run a job in the qsystem you need a script to define how dqs should run the job and what to do. Here is a samplescript for a normal fortran job and here is a script for a CFX job. Here are some instructions from Ola Widlund on DQS and CFX. The scripts are hopefully selfexplained. To use dqs and send a  job defined by a script file named RUN, you have to do the following.

dom[pe]> module add dqs

dom[pe]> qsub RUN

To look at the ques you type,

dom[pe]> qstat -f

To delete a job you type,

dom[pe]> qdel <job number>

Remember to send the right binarys to the ques, solaris, power2 and power1. People that don't follow this rules will have there jobs killed without varning. If it's possible try to compile your programs on your local workstation or dom for solaris jobs. Try the computer robby for power1 and power2. You can use the man pages for qsub, qdel and qstat.

dom[pe]> man qsub

CFX

CFX 4.1c is available for Solaris 2.5 so far, AIX 4.2 is comming. To be able to run it you need to load the module cfx and you neded an init file in your home dir. You can get the intfile here,, .cfds-init . This file is served by Ola Widlund and me. If you have questions about CFX try to ask Ola.
 



 

Pär Ekstrand

pe@mech.kth.se