Bulletin 173 - 2007 October 22

1. APAC-NF Merit Allocation Scheme applications: 2nd Nov
2. Dr Alf Uhlherr named Executive Manager for CSIRO e-Science
3. Flushing of /tmp areas
4. sx2/sxmn2 queues to go on 1st November
5. Traffic lights enhanced
6. Recent software changes

Note: "CSIRO" items can apply to BoM users of cherax and burnet

APAC National Facility

Call for Applications to the Merit Allocation Scheme including:

• Computational Projects on the APAC National Facility, and
• Data Projects on the APAC National Facility.

Period: Jan 2008 - Dec 2008.

Closing Date for applications is 2 November 2006.

(This call is available on the web at http://nf.apac.edu.au/accounts/call_for_applications.php Please pass this email on to any potential NEW applicants.)

[ page top ]

David Toll, CSIRO's Director of Information Services and Property has announced that Dr Alf Uhlherr is the new Executive Manager for e-Science in CSIRO IM&T.

"Alf has a strong background in advanced scientific computing and has been leading the current review on this topic over the last few months on a half-time basis. IM&T hopes to build on its current e-Science support program in the future and Alf will take the lead in this area."

[ page top ]

On the HPCCC SX-6/TX7 system, areas accessed through the variables $TMPDIR and $WORKDIR are available for files. In addition, $LOCALDIR and $MMFSDIR are available on SX-6 nodes.

The /tmp area should not be explicitly used by users. The area is small, and is commonly used by systems tasks, for example for the creation of pipes to communicate between processes.

The /tmp areas contain many very old files, and we have encountered cases where there have been clashes between names in these areas.

From 24th October, we plan to institute flushing of the /tmp areas. Once per day, files (and directories) that have not been modified or accessed for more than 7 days will be removed.

The same policy will also be put into place on the HPSC cherax and burnet systems, but with a 30-day limit, because of the longer-running jobs.

[ page top ]

The interim *2 queues (pipe queues sx2 and sxmn2, and execution queues) will be deleted on 1st November.

[ page top ]

The traffic lights at intra.hpsc.csiro.au has been enhanced.

This version gives access to the cherax Data Migration Facility request queue, so that users can see the progress of their request in the queue.

This version also shows information about licensed software, including the number and current usage of licenses.

[ page top ]

• 6a. Valgrind installed on burnet

  Valgrind is a flexible system for debugging and profiling Linux-x86 executables. The system consists of a core, which provides a synthetic x86 CPU in software, and a series of tools, each of which performs some kind of debugging, profiling, or similar task. To access valgrind on burnet do:

  module load valgrind/3.2.3

  For more information visit http://valgrind.org/

  
  

• 6b. R 2.5.1 - burnet and cherax

  Recently, R 2.5.1 was installed on burnet and cherax. See http://www.r-project.org/

  The default on burnet and cherax is 2.4.0, and will change on both systems to 2.5.1 on Monday 29th October. Versions older than 2.4.0 will then be retired.

  To setup your environment to use R 2.5.1 do:

  module load R/2.5.1

  It would be useful to know the relative performance of these versions and platforms on user applications. Please give us some feedback when you can.

  
  

• 6c. Totalview 8.3 - burnet and cherax

  The Totalview Debugger has been upgraded to version 8.3 on cherax and burnet. For a description of changes since 8.1 see http://intra.hpsc.csiro.au/userdocs/totalview

  You can access totalview by doing:

  module load totalview

  For more details on usage visit the APAC software map http://nf.apac.edu.au/facilities/software/index.php?site=CSIRO

  
  

• 6d. Mathematica 6.0 - cherax

  Mathematica has been upgraded to version 6.0 on cherax. To setup your environment for Mathematica do:

  module load mathematica/6.0

  For more details visit the APAC software map http://nf.apac.edu.au/facilities/software/software.php?software=Mathematica&site=CSIRO

  For a comprehensive list of changes since version 5.2 see http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/guide/Mathematica.html

  
  

• 6e. Matlab 7.5 on burnet

  Matlab on burnet has been upgraded to version 7.5.

[ page top ]