Keck II Center: Frequently Asked Questions

Contents

• How do I get an account on the machines?
• How do I get into the lab?
• How do I remotely login to these machines?
• How do I transfer files from/to KeckII workstations?
• How do I print to the printers?
• Does e-mail work on any of these machines?
• How do I change my password?
• What software is available?
• What should I do to get a particular piece of software installed?
• Where can I run my long-term, CPU-intensive jobs?
• How much disk space do I have available?
• What about backup?
• How do I run remote X-window applications?

• How do I get an account on the machines?
  Please see this page. The accounts are distributed by NIS, so an account on one machine should work on all machines (except the Windows 2000 workstation).
• How do I get into the lab?
  Access to the Keck II lab (2205 Urey Hall) is controlled by a keypad. You can receive an access code by contacting keck-help @ keck2.ucsd.edu
• How do I remotely login to these machines?
  The only way to remotely login to the Keck II machines is to use secure shell (ssh). Incoming telnet and FTP connections have been disabled for security reasons. You can freely download SSH clients for SGI's IRIX and other UNIX OSs, MS windows and MacOS. For Mac and MS Windows clients info check also UCSD/ACS ssh page. If you're new to ssh check out this introduction.

  To set up your account on the cluster so you can submit your jobs to the nodes without being prompted for password login to erikson and do the following:
  

  cd $HOME
  mkdir ~/.ssh
  chmod 700 ~/.ssh
  ssh-keygen -t rsa1 -N ""  -f $HOME/.ssh/identity
  ssh-keygen -t rsa -N "" -f $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa
  ssh-keygen -t dsa -N "" -f $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa
  cd .ssh
  touch authorized_keys
  cat identity.pub id_rsa.pub id_dsa.pub >> authorized_keys
  chmod 640 authorized_keys
  

• How do I transfer files from/to KeckII workstations?
  
  • Transferring files from KeckII:
    Either use FTP (if the remote host supports it) or scp (secure copy):
    

    
    scp your_file remote_username@remote_host:/some/dir
    	  

  • Transferring files to KeckII:
    login to a KeckII workstation and use scp:
    

    
    scp remote_username@remote_host:/some/dir/your_remote_file .
    	  

• How do I print to the printers?
  See the Printing HOWTO.
• Does e-mail work on any of these machines?
  Yes, you can send an email but all incoming email is redirected to users external email addresses.
  
• How do I change my password?
  Use the 'yppasswd your_login_name' command on any of the workstations. After a brief delay, the password change should propagate to all of the workstations in the lab (except the Win2k box).
• What software is available?
  See the available software page for a list of the software that is currently installed and some links to the software home pages.
• What should I do to get a particular piece of software installed?
  If it's free software, just e-mail keck-help @ keck2.ucsd.edu and let us know what you need and we'll try to get it installed.
• Where can I run my long-term, CPU-intensive jobs?
  The preferred platform for non-interactive computational work is the linux cluster, please see the Keck II Cluster How-To for more information about this resource. Jobs may also be run on the Keck II workstations, but only through the Condor queuing systems; all other non-interactive jobs will be automatically terminated . Please see the Keck II Condor How-To for more information about the Condor system.
• How much disk space do I have available?
  Your home directory has 2GB soft and 2.5GB hard limit when first setup. You can check your current quota and disk space usage by login to any of the Sun workstations (peary, columbus, balboa, cabot, cabrillo and mackenzie) and issuing the following command:

  quota -v your_username

  Every user is responsible for maintaining his/her disk usage below assigned quota. Due to the nature of heterogeneous OS environment in KeckII you may not be immediately notified by the operating system when exceeding the hard quota limit which can lead to loss of your work.

  If the default home directory quota is insufficient for your research projects please contact the KeckII administrator and request increase of your quota (please be sure to specify how big increase you're requesting).

• What about backup?
  The home directories are NOT backed up due to large volume of user data. Users are responsible for regular backup of their own data. However, home directories are located on hardware RAID arrays which provide some degree of protection against hardware failure. This will not protect your files against accidental deleting - so it is highly recommended that you backup your data often to an off-site location.
  
  To do an off-site backup to a remote computer with a tape drive, login either to cabot or cabrillo and execute the following command:

  
  
      tar cvfb  -  20 your_dir | ssh remote_host dd of=/dev/tape obs=20b
      

  To restore files from the tape to your home directory:

  
      dd if=/dev/tape bs=obs_value |  ssh remote_host tar xvBf -
       

  
  
  
• How do I run remote X-window applications?
  For example, you are logged in on chengho and you want to run a GUI program (opens a graphical interface window) which resides on erikson. In this case you have to tell erikson to send all X-window communication to chengho. Login to erikson and type:

      setenv DISPLAY chengho:0.0
      

  On chengho in a different shell window type:

      xhost +erikson.ucsd.edu
      

  Then you should be able to run you GUI program on erikson.

  Note: In most cases your DISPLAY environment variable will be setup automagically by ssh. If this fails, use this recipe.