Introduction To The Statslab Computer Systems
The Computers
Most of the Statslab's computers are PCs running Scientific Linux. We
also have some Windows XP machines. As a general rule, the Linux
machines are named after card games and the Windows machines are named
after letters of the Hebrew alphabet. A complete list of computers is available
online.
Please run jobs on the workstations rather than the servers, to avoid
overloading them and causing problems for other users. It is also a
good idea to check a computer's specs with the commands ``cat
/proc/cpuinfo'' and ``cat /proc/meminfo'' before starting a long job.
Jobs with large memory requirements are best run on apollo or juno.
Logging into the servers remotely is also unwise as the software you
wish to use may not be installed. If you have an office it's probably
best to connect to the machine on your desk where possible. If you
can't connect, it may have been automatically switched off to save energy.
If you want to transfer files between the Statslab and your home
machine, or to read email on your home machine, the Statslab's
FTP
server is ftp.statslab (an alias for missmuffet), the SMTP server is
mail.statslab (actually spaces), and the IMAP server is also mail.statslab.
I recommend that you use the aliases, as they will
keep working even if the servers change.
Your account
Unless you specified otherwise, you will probably have been set up
with an account on the Linux machines but not the Windows PCs. Just
ask me if you want access to Windows (or Linux) and don't have it.
You automatically have the same username, password and home directory on
all the Linux machines. Windows users can access their Linux home
directory as drive H: - this is preferable to keeping files on the
hard disk of your Windows PC because files on the Linux server are
automatically backed up every night.
To change your Windows password, log into a Windows machine,
press Ctrl-Alt-Delete (all three keys simultaneously), click on the
``Change Password'' button and follow the instructions. To change
your Linux password, type ``passwd'' at a Linux prompt. For security
reasons, your passwords will never be displayed on the screen. The
University Computing Service have some advice on choosing
a password.
If you want to keep your account after leaving the Statslab, please
let me know before you leave, preferably giving an
estimate of how long you will be needing it for. Please note that
keeping your account indefinitely is strongly discouraged, because we
do not have the resources, but we can continue forwarding your email
indefinitely.
Printing
The Statslab has a number of black-and-white laser printers. The
four publicly available ones are ps2 in the computer room, ps12 in the
reading room, ps8 in
D0.02, and ps5 in D0.21. There are also three colour laser printers:
ps7 in the computer room, ps10 in the photocopier room and ps_trans
(single-sided) in D0.21. If you need to print colour transparencies,
it is best to use ps_trans. You can also use the colour inkjet
printer attached to the Windows XP PC tet outside my office.
More information on printing is available.
Email
Your official email address is A.B.Smith@statslab.cam.ac.uk,
replacing ``A.B.Smith'' with your own initials and surname. If your
username is abs23, then abs23@statslab.cam.ac.uk will also
work. The easiest way to read or send email is to use our webmail service.
Pine, Mutt and Thunderbird are also available.
You may already have an email account elsewhere. If you want to
forward your Statslab email to another system, create a file named
.forward (including the full stop) in your home directory. The
.forward file must contain your preferred email address. N.B. If
there is a mistake in this file, email sent to your Statslab account
will be returned to the sender.
Software
The latest version of R, Mathematica 7.0 and Maple 13 are all
available on the Linux machines. Scilab and OpenOffice (a free
``clone'' of Microsoft Office, useful for dealing with Word documents
under Linux) are available for those who wish to use them, but I am
not expert enough to provide help with them. The Windows machines all
have Microsoft Office installed. If there is any freely-available
software that you need for your work which isn't installed, let me
know and I shall probably install it.
Responsible Use Of Statslab Systems
Here are a few points to remember in order to avoid inconveniencing
other users of the Statslab computers. This page has more details on
responsible use of our network.
- If you try to print something and it doesn't come out,
don't just send it again. If the printer is busy,
wait for it
to get through its queue of jobs. If the printer seems to be idle but
your job still doesn't come out, cancel it. This is particularly
important on Windows machines, where one stuck job will clog up the
queue for everyone.
- Turning off monitors and office printers (not public printers) is
fine, but PCs prefer to be shut down properly. On Linux PCs you
should use the ``safeshutdown'' and ``safereboot'' commands because
they will automatically check whether anyone else is using the PC.
- When submitting number-crunching jobs, be careful not to overload the
computers. Try to be aware of the memory requirements of your jobs,
``nice'' your processes to avoid using all the CPU, and use ``top'' to
check how many jobs are already running.
- When connecting from one machine to another, please use ssh rather
than telnet or rlogin if you can. Many modern Linux machines,
including all those in the Statslab, will not permit access via telnet
or rlogin. The correct syntax is ``ssh
userid@machine''. The message ``Host key not found from the list of
known hosts'' means that you haven't sshed to that particular machine
before. If you answer yes (you do still want to continue connecting)
you won't get that message again.
Sources Of Further Information
This document was written by the Statistical Laboratory Computer Officer,
Eva Myers
(
eva@statslab.cam.ac.uk). It is available online at
http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~eva/intro.html .
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