College of Engineering EECS Instructional & Electronics Support Groups /usr/pub/reports/managers/Fall_2004 Feb 1, 2005 EECS Instructional Computing - Review and Plans ----------------------------------------------- Fall 2004 CONTENTS: Current Initiatives Recent Improvements Budget Priorities Further references Notable Events Current Initiatives ------------------- 1) Vodaphone Wireless Lab 111 and 117 Cory are being converted into a new lab for courses in wireless techlologies. EECS has received a large grant for this new curriculum. The classes will include: EECS117, EECS217, EECS221A, EECS226A, EECS224, EECS225x, EECS229, EECS290, EECS298, CS294. The lab is managed by Ferenc Kovac and may be shared with research groups. 2) NetApp fileserver and Overland AIT-3 Tape Library IDSG and NetApp donated an older NetApp file server to Instruction. Instruction purchase a new Overland AIT-3 Tape Library ($11,900). The NetApp has 1.5-TB of active disk space. The Overland PowerLoader has 3.8-TB storage capacity. The NetApp will may allow us to: - retire our old Win2K home directory server ("Fileservice") - increase disk quotas for our long-term 'named' accounts - share a single home directory between UNIX and Win2K accounts Dual tape drives raise the transfer rate to 86-GB/hour and permit tape duplication for off-site storage. Based upon our current rate of use, we need a tape capacity that is about 3 times that of the disk capacity to archive daily dumps for an entire semester. So we will probably also need to use some disk space for the incremental dumps. The NetApp will be phased into service. We will have to implement the disk-to-disk backup scheme to provide timely daily archiving for the increased disk capacity. We will probably use one of our current home directory servers for that. 3) Intel grant: new servers for Linux, rendering and Terminal Service We received a grant from Intel in Spring 2004 for 4 new DELL 1750 servers. We are running several Windows Terminal Servers on each of them by running vitrual Windows computers within VMware under Linux. This will benefit EE classes that are primarily using Windows applications. We originally planned to use them to run Cadence on Linux for EE141, but we found that Cadence could not run on them. Cadence only runs on an old version of Linux, and there are no drivers in that version of Linux for the modern ethernet and SCSI controllers that are build into the motherboards of the DELL 1750 servers. Recent Improvements ------------------- 1) The EECS network group extended the campus AirBears wireless network to floors 1-3 in Cory Hall and 2-4 in Soda Hall in June 2004. Students with their own wireless laptops can access AirBears for free in the all Instructional labs and elsewhere on campus. (http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/pub.cgi?file=laptops.help) 2) EECS upgraded the Instructional Computer Graphics lab (349 Soda) with 14 Macintosh G5s. These were funded joinly by the Weiner Fund, EECS Instruction and faculty donations. (http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kevinm/349Soda) 3) EECS Instruction purchased 2 new SUN V440 servers to improve the computing resources for classes such as EE141 (Cadence) and CS186 (databases). These servers are called "pulsar.eecs" and "quasar.eecs". We traded in the older "pulsar" and "quasar" (Sun E5000s) and "mingus", our HP N-class server. These older servers were at least 5 years old. 4) 'named' accounts on Windows Instructional 'named' accounts are now created on Win2K as well as on UNIX (started in Feb 2004). Students who qualify for these accounts include all EECS ugrad and grad majors, as well as students in many EECS classes. The 'named' account is potentially a student's one and only Instructional account. For EECS majors, it does not expire each semester. (We do still create specialized 'class' accounts for some classes, notably the CS Lower Division and several EE lab classes). Instructional 'named' accounts have been on the Instructional UNIX systems for over 15 years, but we have only created 'class' accounts on Windows until Feb 2004. The Instructional and IDSG groups needed the time to establish procedures for coordinating our user entries in the shared departmental Windows database. Some of the benefits to this include: * Our Windows computers are now available to many classes (notably EE upper division) that were formerly limited to UNIX. They need this because their CAD software is increasingly available on Windows and we have reduced the number of UNIX seats as our lab space has shrunk. * These Instructional users will no longer be dependent upon UNIX labs. They can still login to UNIX from Windows labs if needed. * These Instructional users may not need an additional Windows 'class' account just to access Windows software. This will reduce the number of class accounts we have to create each semester. * For EECS majors, the Instructional accounts on Windows will remain active as long as they are here. For more information about the Instructional computer accounts, see http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/pub.cgi?file=Named-Account-Policy 5) Previous semseter achives on-line CS faculty often need to review student files from the previous semester to resolve grading conflicts, etc. This has always been difficult once we have archived the data to tape and deleted it from the disks. So we have set up a new server called "timewarp.cs" that is a snapshot of the environment at the end of the semester, and make that available to instructors during the next semester. 6) hanging gardens in Soda labs Thanks to the efforts of Jeffrey Varga and other members of the CSUA, the second floor Instructional labs in Soda Hall now have an arboreal grace, due to the silk plants they recently installed. Jeffrey patiently sought the approval of the department bureaucracy and presented a convincing case for this. Our labs now rival the ancient Gardens of Babylon as one of the wonders of the world. 7) free Microsoft sofware for EECS students at home Free Microsoft software downloads are now available to students in EECS classes (started in June 2003). Microsoft donated a file server and software licenses so that EECS students can obtain copies of Windows, Visual Studio/.NET compilers and other applications. This service helps our students by allowing them to do assignments using Microsoft software on their home computers. It helps the department because it will reduce the demand for access to Win2K computers in our labs. The procedure starts at http://msdnaa.eecs.berkeley.edu. 8) InstCD v 4.0 The fourth version of the Instructional Software CD has been prepared. It has a new version of the "Stk" program that CS Lower Division classes use to implement "scm", as well as updates to several share- ware applications. We will have 1000 copies made in Fall 2004. It is free to all students in EECS classes. (http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/notices.html#instcd) 9) Lab Fee for Excess Printing We have started a policy of enforcing printer page quotas. We were approved by COE to charge students for printer use beyond a free quota that is based upon the classes they are in. Our goal is to control costs (not to make money). Instruction has a 5% budget cut this year, and other student labs on campus (IS&T, Res Halls) already impose printing fees. Our current quotas for free printing are computed as: 25 pages per course credit, and 25 additional pages if you are a CS or EE undergraduate or graduate. We will charge $12 for an additional 200 pages. The quotas are reset each semester and purchases are not refundable. Students can check their quotas and authorize us to bill them for more pages via http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/webacct/. 10) CAD Tools Software Synopsys purchased Avanti! last year and now provides 3 major CAD tool packages that are used in EECS: SYNOPSYS, TCAD and HSPICE. Instruction has purchased licenses for all of these via the "University Bundle". We are sharing these licenses with researchers such as the Device Group. Budget Priorities ----------------- Instruction will sustain a 12% budget cut ($60K less) in FY 04-05. We will reduce staffing to save about $30K in salaries. We hope that our new print quotas will reduce the cost for printing by as much as $30K. Other savings will come from a reduction in the updating of items such as computers, lab equipment and lab furniture. Current needs that may be deferred include: - 20 new chairs for labs ($6000) - 1 new multi-processor CPU server for CAD applications ($45000) Further references ------------------ http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kevinm/citris/ http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~iesg/iesglabs.html Notable Events -------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dec 27 - Mail services will be down Dec 30th from Noon-4pm Imail will be unavailable Dec 30th from Noon-4pm while the system is upgraded. This downtime will affect the following services: logins to UNIX ("NFS server imail not responding... ") printing email imap Email will not be lost just postponed while the upgrade occurs. Since the mail server will be down any email you send us will also be delayed until the upgrade has been completed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nov 19 - Security alert: Internet Explorer Active scripting is disabled Users of Internet Explorer may be prompted repeatedly for permission to run scripts on the page. This is because the sys admins have disabled the "Active scripting" feature of Internet Explorer on most EECS Instructional Windows computers because of a security flaw for which there is no patch yet. Users are advised to use a different WEB browser (Mozilla, Firefox or Opera) to avoid this. For information about the security flaw, please see http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/842160 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nov 6 - UNIX logins were stalled from about 3pm-8pm A disk failed on moebius.cs, one of the servers that authenticates passwords and exports the /share/b and /usr/instsww file systems to the EECS Instructional UNIX computers. Logs indicate that syptoms started as early as 3am, when moebius.cs stopped allowing other computers to access its disks. But users probably didn't notice that because there is a backup server for moebius.cs, and it responded when moebius.cs failed to respond. However, at about 3pm the email server (imail.eecs) failed to re- connect to either moebius.cs or its backup server, and that caused imail.eecs to stall. Because imail.eecs exports a mail spool disk to all of our UNIX systems, the loss of imail.eecs interrupts user activity on all our UNIX servers ("NFS timeout: waiting for...") Please see below for a description of the symptoms. We restored most systems by 5:30pm, and all of them by 8pm. Because it was a weekend, staff was not on site at the time of the failure. This is the same server disk that faulted on Oct 1. Although it seemed to recover fully at that time, we have tried to replace it. However, the server is 7 years old, we cannot find a replacement disk. So we have left the faulty disk off-line, and we will replace the entire server at a time when we can disable all logins for a couple of hours (perhaps over the Thanksgiving holiday). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nov 4 - Mamba (UNIX file server) was down from about 11:20-1:20pm Mamba froze up at about 11:20am and was rebooted. It happened again at about 12:30pm. This time, we rebuild a RAID-1 (mirror) of the operating system disk for insurance. There was an indication (inconclusive) that the operating system disk caused the first crash. Mamba holds the Instructional UNIX home directories. Please see below for a description of the symptoms when mamba.cs is down. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nov 3 - remote logons to Windows accounts You can logon to your Instructional Windows account from other computers using the Terminal Services utility. You need the Terminal Services or Remote Desktop Connection client program on your computer to do this. It is included in newer versions of Windows. You can download this client for free from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/tools/rdclientdl.mspx It is also available from "C:\mstsc files\" on the computers listed below. We have enabled these lab computers for remote logons: IP Address (WINS hostname) ------------ --------------- 128.32.48.29 (199-2) 128.32.48.27 (199-3) 128.32.48.79 (199-4) 128.32.48.88 (199-5) 128.32.48.81 (199-6) 128.32.48.73 (199-7) 128.32.48.68 (199-8) 128.32.48.26 (carter) 128.32.48.89 (ella) 128.32.48.93 (motian) 128.32.48.60 (previte) 128.32.48.87 (tatum) 128.32.48.53 (tyner) 128.32.48.78 (wes) Note that you need to use the IP address from a computer outside of EECS, because the WINS hostnames are only meaningful locally on the EECS subnets. PLEASE LOGOUT BY SELECTING Start->Shutdown->log off rather than by clicking on the X at the upper right corner. Otherwise, you will only put your remote logon to sleep and therefore block others from access. This service is not as efficient as remote logins to UNIX computers. Each computer will allow only three remote users at a time. For more information, please see http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/pub.cgi?file=microsoft.help --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oct 16 - mamba.cs (UNIX file server) was down from 11:15pm-1:15am Mamba.cs, the Instructional UNIX home directory server, crashed at 11:15am on Sat Oct 16 and was restored to service at about 1:15am on Oct 17. The crash was the result of an effort to restart the disk quota server on mamba.cs, which had become unresponsive. Please see below for a description of the symptoms you might have when mamba.cs is down. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oct 6 - Network to Soda and Cory Halls broke at 11pm, restored at 7:30am The network connection from Cory and Soda Halls to the outside world broke at 11pm on Oct 6 and was restored at 7:30am on Oct 7. This prevented access to EECS computers, WEB sites and logins from outside of Cory and Soda Halls, such as for users on Hearst Field Annex C and the servers h30.cs and h50.cs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oct 1 - UNIX logins were frozen at times between noon and 2:20pm One of our servers had a disk failure at about noon. It is our primary server for both the UNIX passwords and the UNIX /share/b filesystem. Some computers (such as h50.cs) did not fail over to the redundant server right away, and that caused UNIX logins on those computers to freeze. The problem was corrected by 1pm, then reocurred and was corrected by 2:20pm. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sep 15 - HSPICE, TCAD and Synopsys licenses expired; will be renewed Sep 16 The licenses for HSPICE, TCAD and Synopsys on EECS UNIX computers expired on Sep 15. We expect the renewed licenses to be available on Sep 16. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sep 12- Instructional email deliveries were delayed, Fri 10pm-Sun 11am Email messages sent after 10pm on Friday Sep 10 - to addresses @imail.eecs.berkeley.edu - from EECS Instructional computers may not have been delivered until about 11:20am on Sunday Sep 12. An error on the imail.eecs.berkeley.edu server caused the messages to be spooled on the server rather than delivered. No messages were lost. People who sent these messages may have received warnings from the mail server about delayed delivery. These can be ignored. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 2004 - Printer usage quotas are now in effect Instructional UNIX and Windows accounts now have page limits on the Instructional shared printers in Soda, Cory and Hearst Field Annex. The print quotas this semester are computed at 25 pages for each course credit that the account is being used for. In addition, students who are EE or CS undergraduate of graduate majors are given an additional 25 pages per semster on their print quotas. The print quotas are reset each semester. Unused pages will NOT be credited to you in future semesters. If you exceed your print quota, your next print job will be replaced with a "QUOTA EXCEEDED" page. That page explains that you can logon to http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/webacct to view your print quota allocation and to purchase additional pages. Pages that you purchase will be billed to you, at a rate of $12 (non-refundable) for 200 pages. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sep 12, 2004 - newest EECS Instructional CD is delayed EECS Instruction provides the InstCD for students in our courses. The CD contains a collection of public domain software used in EE and CS courses. It is provided free by EECS Instruction for students to use on their home computers. We have run out the old version (v3.0) and the new version has been delayed. In the meantime, students can download the programs they need from the on-line copy of the CD, at http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~instcd --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fall 2004 - Forgot your password on the Instructional computers? For named accounts: Login as 'newacct' (password 'newacct') again (in 199 Cory, 273 Soda or 'ssh' to cory.eecs.berkeley.edu). Enter your Student ID number. Then select the new "p" option for resetting your password and reprinting a form. The form will be printed the next weekday and will be available in 391 Cory after 1pm. Named accounts look like 'gbush' or 'bclinton'. For class accounts: Go to the sys admin staff for the lab you are assigned to use. Bring your initial class account form or student ID card. There is no on-line procedure for resetting the password of a class account. Class accounts look like 'cs61a-aa' or 'ee141-agore'. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 2002 - your LOST+FOUND directory Mamba.cs, the Instructional UNIX home directory server, crashed on April 29 and was down for 33 hours. For an explanation of the circumstances, please see http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~inst/reports/?file=Spring_2002 A number of files and home directories were not restored to their proper names and locations. When we couldn't determine where the files should go, we put them a directory called LOST+FOUND in your UNIX home directory. Please see ~kevinm/LOST+FOUND/README for an explanation of how you can read these files, and ask us for help (inst@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu) if needed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Possible symptoms when UNIX email or home directories are missing: - when you try to login the screen freezes - you see the error message "home directory is /" - session hangs up if you try to 'ssh' into an Instructional computer - unable to read WEB pages from the http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu - lots of annoying "NFS timeout" error messages on your screen - new email deliveries will be delayed on imail.eecs While the server is down, you may not be able to logout in our labs because you can't type any commands. On a SunRay, even turning it off doesn't log you out. The support staff check the labs after events like this to be sure everyone gets logged out. We also post information about the problem at http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu to help students find out when the problem has been fixed. So all you can really do in this case is to wait until the problem is fixed, go back to the lab (or login to the SunRay server for that lab) and log yourself out, or let us log you out. We disable email receipt and relaying through imail.eecs when the home directory server (mamba.cs.berkeley.edu) is down. No mail is lost. Computers that send mail queue messages that are not accepted by a remote server, and they resend the messages periodically until they are received. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- For additional information, please contact us: Kevin Mullally, ISG Manager | Ferenc Kovac, ESG Manager EECS Instructional Support Group | EECS Electronics Support Group 378 Cory Hall, (510) 643-6141 | 380 Cory Hall, (510) 642-6952 kevinm@eecs.berkeley.edu | ferenc@eecs.berkeley.edu | http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/ | http://iesg.eecs.berkeley.edu/ | UNIX, Win2K computers and software | Win2K computers, software and in drop-in labs; email and UNIX | equipment in electronics labs, accounts; UNIX login servers; | AV services. class and student WEB sites. | source: ~inst/public_html/reports/managers/Fall_2004