Computers

From ICELabWiki

moncaelr

1 Computer Setup
2 Access Grid Node Computers

[edit] Computer Setup

We need to standardize our software setup. Also, since Delilah is getting somewhat unstable, it's probably about time to reinstall Windows.

Goals:

Standard set of applications
Easy recovery/re-imaging
Fast crash recovery
- Maybe we should invest in watchdog cards.

[edit] Software to install

Find up to date installers at: \\falcon\AccessGrid\

AG3 + AGVCR + AdvancedVideo*Service
ConferenceXP
Cygwin -- see CygwinSetup.
TurboVNC or TightVNC
MS Office & OpenOffice.Org
Firefox + Firebug, Web Developer toolbar
Camera, capture drivers
DVTS
VLC
TortiseSVN
Adobe Reader
PuTTY

[edit] Synchronization Prospects

[edit] Good ideas

We could probably put /home and most of /etc under version control like Subversion:

 # svn mkdir svn+ssh://user@host/srv/svn-repository/hosts/host1/etc 
        -m "Make a directory in the repository to correspond to /etc for this host"
 # cd /etc 
 # svn checkout svn+ssh://user@host/srv/svn-repository/hosts/host1/etc .
 # svn add *
 # svn commit -m "Initial version of this host's config files"

We could also try Unison for much of our home directories.

We could also stick to small subsets of our files in SVN -- such as our AccessGrid configs. We could use svn to keep most of our preferences the same across machines, while leaving our profiles and individual node-configs separate.

As far as simplifying setup goes, we could also make a Nullsoft Installer package for AG and all its prerequisites (except Bonjour, which requires Argonne's lawyers to send a PDF to Apple's lawyers).

[edit] Bad Ideas

Norton Ghost doesn't support dual-booting systems, and requires DOS network drivers. We only have drivers for Solaris 10, WinXP, and Linux.

We don't want to do Thin-clients, because then everything would run on a central server and out stuff is too cpu/hardware-heavy.

We might be able to make Fat clients, but it looks like network-booting is supposed to happen within the same subnet as the server -- this is not feasible for us.

[edit] Host Names

[edit] Current Hostnames

Low-end
- Archer
- Archon
Dell
- Delilah
- ???
Sun (Old)
- AG1
- Mushrik
- Shams
Sun (new)
- Falcon
- Eagle
- Kestrel

[edit] New Names

As of 4 July, we're using bird species as our host names. To make name-picking easier in the future, here is a list of names to choose from:

Birds of Prey
- ~~Falcon~~ -- Sun Ultra 40
- ~~Eagle~~ -- Sun Ultra 40
- ~~Hawk~~ is taken.
- ~~Kestrel~~ -- Sun Ultra 40
- Owl
- Osprey
- Harrier
Corvids
- Crow
- Raven
- Rook
- Jackdaw
- Magpie
Little birds
- Cardinal
- Bluejay
- Sparrow
- Dove
- Swallow
- Shrike
Wading Birds
- Heron
- Flamingo
- Crane
Water Birds
- Pelican
- Duck
- Seagull
- Swan
- Goose
Flightless Birds
- Penguin
- Ostrich
- Emu
Other Birds
- Parrot
Rejected names
- Hummingbird, yellowbellysapsucker: too long (10 characters or less).
- Hawk is taken.
- Gyrfalcon is too similar to falcon.
- pigeon is too hard to spell
- Robin is also a person's name (I'd rather avoid that, to avoid future confusion).
- Condor is the name of a computing cluster program used by RIT.

[edit] Access Grid Node Computers

[edit] Sun Ultra40

2 single core socket 940 Opteron 2.0 Ghz processors
2 NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285 (dual head, 4 outputs total)
4x 512MB DDR RAM

[edit] Sun Ultra40 M2

2 dual core socket F Opterons
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500?
probably 8GB DDR2 RAM

[edit] Dell XPS600

1 dual core hyperthreaded socket 775 Intel Extreme 3.46Ghz processor
2 NVIDIA GeForce 6800 (dual head, 4 outputs total)
2x 1GB DDR2 RAM

Future: look into XPS700

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