Charissa Computers at ANU

April 2003

 

The following computing equipment is available at ANU

 

v      Sun Ultra 10

Ø       256 Mbyte RAM; 9Gbyte disc; CD Rom; 2 DLT drives; Exabyte drive

 

Ø       system name:        charissa1

Ø       primary use:          main data acquisition server

§         Control of experiment via MIDAS

§         Sunsort for online monitoring

§         MIDAS Tape Server

§         Hosts the  Xterminals which provide additional experiment control points

Ø       Ids available:                         charissa (only)

Ø       Network address:                 128.0.0.33

 

v      Sun Ultra 5

Ø       128 Mbyte RAM; 40Gbyte disc; CD Rom

 

Ø       system name:        charissa7 (Solaris 9)

Ø       primary use:          control of experiment via MIDAS (located in experimental area)

Ø       Ids available:                         charissa (only)

Ø        Network address:                128.0.0.35

 

v      Sun Blade 150

Ø       640 Mbyte RAM; 40Gbyte disc; CD Rom; DLT drive; Exabyte drive

 

Ø       system name:        charissa6

Ø       primary use:          general

Ø       Ids available:                         charissa (only)

Ø       Network address:                 128.0.0.34

 

v      Sun Blade 150

Ø       640 Mbyte RAM; 40Gbyte disc, 40Gbyte disc; CD Rom; DLT drive; Exabyte drive

 

Ø       system name:        charissa2

Ø       primary use:          offline data analysis server

§         Replay of data tapes using Sunsort

Ø       Ids available:                         charissa (only)

Ø       Network address:                 128.0.0.36

 

v      Colour NCD Xterminal

 

Ø       system name:        chxt1

Ø       use:         experiment control (located in control room)

§         normally connected to charissa1 and logged in using the charissa ID

 

v      Networked laser printer

 

Ø       system name:        cht610

Ø       use:         default printer for all Sun workstations

Ø       Network address:                 128.0.0.40

 

 


 

Software installation

 

All of the Sun workstations have been updated using a new installation of the latest version of Solaris 8. This is particularly important for the Data Acquisition server (charissa1) which requires “real time” scheduling support. Charissa7 is running the current version of Solaris9.

 

The 4 Sun workstations are largely independent of each other and would be able to operate with any of the other  systems unavailable. In particular it would not be a major job to run the Data Acquisition services in any of the  Sun workstations in an emergency.

The only important shared discs are hosted by charissa1

§         /MIDAS

§         /usr/local

§         /home/charissa                            charissa ID home directory

 

The second 40 Gbyte disc on charissa2 is available to everyone as /data.

Each of the 4  workstations has a partition (/space) available for data files.  However on charissa1 this is the quite small and contains the home directory for the charissa ID. These partitions are available to everyone as /mnt/spacen where n is 6 for charissa6 etc.

 

Both the Sparcstation 20 (old charissa6) and the Ultra 5 (charissa7) suffered system disc failures. The disc on charissa7 was replaced in April 03.  The contents of the old external discs were copied to the new discs in April 03. The old  individual user home directories have been preserved and are available as /mnt/space2/homes.

 

Only the ID charissa is now available for use.

 

Please DO NOT change the password of the group id (charissa).

 

A number of popular software packages have been installed (mostly in /usr/local).

These include

§         GNU software package

·         c/c++ compiler (g++)

·         fortran compiler (g77)

·         gzip/gunzip

§         TeX package (tex,latex,dvips,xdvi etc)

§         Emacs

§         ghostscript/ghostview

§         xfig

§         xvgr

§         ssh and scp (secure shell and secure copy)

 

ssh has been updated to the latest version in order to be compatible with latest security features.

 

 

Electronic Mail

 

Email is available from charissa1only (mail is sent and received as charissa@charissa.anu.edu.au).

 

The latest version of sendmail (not the Sun released version) has been installed which contains a number of security features. The charissa.anu.edu.au  email system has been configured NOT to permit relaying. This will not effect legitimate use.

 

It is expected that users will normally remotely access their University email accounts.

 


 

Using the system

 

CDE is available on all systems and each of the workstation consoles can be connected for remote login to any of the Sun systems (in exactly the same manner as used by the Xterminals).  You are requested to observe the priorities assigned to the Sun workstations and the X terminals which is essentially

 

§         online data acquisition

§         offline data analysis of the current experiment

§         offline data analysis

§         email access

§         anything else

 

 

Network connection

 

A firewall has been installed in order to protect the systems from unwanted attention. For access from the charissa systems to the outside world this should be transparent but only restricted access in from the outside is permitted.

 

All systems now have a single connection to this secure private network.

 

The charissa group internal (private) network uses the IP addresses 128.0.0.xxx

Access internally between machines should use names of the form charissax only. Do not append  anu.edu.au

 

The firewall provides a DHCP service so laptops can be connected to an unused port in one of the charissa group network hubs and configured to obtain an IP address automatically using DHCP.

The address range used is 128.0.0.200 => 128.0.0.210.

 

Incoming access is permitted from any source using SMTP to the email server on charissa1.

All other access is permitted only from the campuses at ANU, York, Birmingham and Surrey and from the NP group at Daresbury.

Access is permitted for ftp to charissa1 (as charissa.anu.edu.au) and for ssh to charissa1 (as charissa.anu.edu.au) using port 1022. [ssh charissa@charissa.anu.edu.au -p 1022].

 

               

 

Printer

 

A networked printer is also available (Lexmark Optra T610). Its name is cht610 and address is 128.0.0.40.  It is available as the default printer (t610) on the Sun workstations and is easy to connect to from a Windows laptop using a Microsoft Standard TCP/IP port.