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UCL Site Report. Ben Waugh HepSysMan, 22 May 2007. Desktops. About 50, up to 5 years old Scientific Linux (CERN) most still SLC3, moving to SLC4 not all 64-bit capable NFS home directories and /usr/local moving to rsync for /usr/local Also Windows Terminal Service for Office etc.
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UCL Site Report Ben Waugh HepSysMan, 22 May 2007
Desktops • About 50, up to 5 years old • Scientific Linux (CERN) • most still SLC3, moving to SLC4 • not all 64-bit capable • NFS home directories and /usr/local • moving to rsync for /usr/local • Also Windows Terminal Service for Office etc. • problems with Samba, print spooler • moving to use UCL central service • issues: printing, PDF creation
Laptops • Increasingly used for travel and as desktop replacement • Range of models and operating systems • Limited support, but aim to install SLC where required • Private VLAN, firewalled from main subnet
Batch farm • 17 dual-CPU 2.4 GHz Dell PowerEdge • Torque/Maui • SLC3
LCG • LCG service nodes submit jobs to batch farm • Secondary to local users • Useful for development of Grid-enabled software • 1 TB for ATLAS served by DPM pool node
UCL Research Computing • Central Computing Cluster part of London Tier-2 • New SRIF3 procurement in progress • expect over 2500 cores • storage sufficient to meet GridPP plans • also available for local job submission
Storage • Home directories on 300 GB RAID • moving soon to larger RAID • Two 5-TB RAIDs (EonStor) • Two smaller RAIDs for backup (RLBackup) • Various RAIDs bought by CDF and MINOS • No tape! • Mounted via NFS on desktops and farm • Group quotas are a nuisance • possibly move to Logical Volume Management (LVM)
e-Mail • Recently installed new server – quite smooth! • More powerful machine • old one overwhelmed by virus scanning etc. • Dovecot and Exim • Introduced quotas and max attachment size • Spam filtering • SpamAssassin on UCL mail hub • still a problem
Web server • Group and user home pages • eLog • TWiki • Room booking, library database…
Collaborative tools • Video conferencing • hardware H.323 clients (Aethra Vega X3) • various software tools: iChat etc. • VRVS • EVO? • Voice over IP • various tools available and used: Skype, Gizmo, iChat • UCL producing guidance on Skype • no clear best solution
Other services • SSH gateways • Code development server • CVS • Subversion • Trac • Various databases • mostly mirroring experiment databases • each insist on their own preferred MySQL version
Monitoring etc. • Nagios • Investigating remote management tools • currently just SSH • could use serial over IP • remote power control
The future • Moving to new machine room • latest estimate is November 2007 • Move to SL(C)4 • mixture of 32- and 64-bit for a while • Would like to improve: • hardware and configuration management • collaborative tools: VC, VOIP • Would like to see more sharing of “best practice” • LCG system management working group • Wiki: www.sysadmin.hep.ac.uk
Issues • Providing consistent support from fractional FTEs • Storage • choice of file system • finding bottlenecks • space management • Management of configuration, user accounts, hardware… • group has been growing