Research Computing At Haas
Haas research computing for PhD students currently consists of bear and phd-pgsql. This page details these resources.
Bear
Bear is a 12 node research computing cluster. The official blurb says that bear has two sets of 5 compute nodes, one set with 64Gb of RAM per node, and one with 16Gb of RAM per node. Nodes have dual core 3Ghz Xenon processors.
To find out this information yourself (and for other reasons), you'll like to be able to shell on to a node. I currently can't (I get permission denied requests). You can dispatch a shell command to a node through bsub though!
The following commands are valuable:
free #list memory available cat /proc/meminfo #see the memory specs cat /proc/cpuinfo #see the chip specs uname -a #see the system info /sbin/ifconfig -a #see the network tables
The IP addresses of the nodes are:
- Bear (login node): 128.32.67.85, 128.32.67.86, 192.168.1.42, 192.168.1.43, 10.1.1.42, 10.1.1.43
- cn-01 to 10: 10.1.1.101 to 10.1.1.110
The memory and chips are:
- The login node(s) have 2 dual-core Xeon 5150 chips @2.66Ghz, with 38G of RAM
- cn-01 to cn-05 have 2 single core Xeon chips @3.2Ghz with 16G of RAM
- cn-06 to cn-10 have 8 quad-core Xeon 5570 chips @2.93Ghz, with 48G of RAM
There are three ways of using bear:
Storing Data on Bear
Your "R" drive lives on bear. We tested access times to the R drive and found that they are much faster than to HCS-Data or other shares that you have access to (other than your C drive, though the speeds are actually comparable with those to C). You should use R:\bulk as your primary data storage area.
If your R drive isn't mapped already then map a network drive to:
\\bear\username$
SSH'ing into Bear
You can use a copy of PuTTY to SSH onto bear. PuTTY is a free SSH client that you can download from its author. You don not need to 'install' it - it is a standalone executable file. Details for the configuration are available from the howdoi section of the haas website, but none is really needed.
The address to connect to bear is:
bear.haas.berkeley.edu
And the connection is on the standard port (22). You can set your username under:
Connection -> Data -> Auto-login Username
And save the connection settings if you want.
Screen
You may want to use the 'screen' command to create a screen that can be detached from your SSH session or to run multiple shells within a single session.
Just type:
screen
To control screen, rather than the shell you are given, use the Ctrl-A (C-A) commands. Type:
C-A ?
to get the screen help. The command 'exit' will exit you from (your last) screen and dump you back to the original shell. Crucially, screen's can be 'detached' and left running in the background, and if your SSH (putty) connection drops for some reason but if you are running your commands within a screen, they will stay running and can be picked up again later on. Screens can also be shared across multiple users.
See also:
Bsub
If you are running scripts then you should use the bsub to have them execute on the compute nodes, rather than the login node, as otherwise a runaway script can bring the entire of bear to a stand still. An example syntax for running a perl script is:
bsub -Is "perl Script.pl"
When a process launches it reports the compute node that is being used (cn-02 to cn-10), and a process id (p_id). You can kill a process (that wasn't launched interactively) by typing:
bkill p_id
You can set the memory allocation and target a node. Memory is in Kb, so 48Gigs is 50331648 (48 * 1024 * 1024) and 40G is 41943040. To target a node use the -m switch and the node name. Nodes cn-06 to cn-10 apparently have 48Gb.
bsub -M 41943040 -m cn-06 -Is "..."
Languages
Available scripting languages include:
- Perl
- Python
- R
There are also (apparently - I haven't tested them) compilers for:
- C++ (GNU Cpp)
- Fortran 77
Unix Commands
To see your files you might want the following simple commands:
- ls -alt - list the files in the current directory in all their glory
- cd bulk - change into the bulk directory
- cd .. - change up a directory
- top - look at the top processes
- ps -aux show all processes running
Useful Tricks
If you want to change the color scheme used by the 'ls' command then:
cp /etc/DIR_COLORS.xterm .dir_colors
And edit the .dir_colors file to suit your tastes. Note that the changes won't take effect until you start a new session!
Using Xwindow Applications on Bear
There are copies of the following Xwindow applications ready for use on bear:
- Matlab (matlab)
- Stata (xstata)
- Stata-SE (xstata-se)
- SAS (sas)
To use these applications you need an Xwindows client. The eXceed client is available from available from software.berkeley.edu for download. Download it and install it. You can accept a typical installation for just one user. There is a very old set-up guide from HCS that may be useful, but the details below should suffice. Note that there is a security notice warning of risks when you use eXceed. We are partly protected from these risks by the design of the Haas network, but you might want to consider following the advanced configuration instructions.
Now save a bear configuration in PuTTy by entering the following parameters and hitting "Save":
Session -> Host Name (or IP address) bear.haas.berkeley.edu Connection -> Data -> Auto-login Username Your_Username Connection -> Data -> SSH -> Encryption Cipher Move Blowfish to the top Connection -> Data -> SSH -> X11 -> Enable X11 Fowarding Tick the box Session -> Saved Sessions Bear + Click Save
Now start eXceed running (and leave it running in the background) and SSH onto bear using Putty. At the command line type the name of the program, for example "xstata-se", and the program will launch in an eXceed window on your desktop. Voila!
For example my terminal looked like this to launch STATA-SE:
[ed_egan@bear-b ~]$ xstata-se
There is a Best Practises blurb from HCS regarding these apps that specifically asks us not to background our processes using "&". That is do not type: xstata-se &
If no licenses are available then you should be able to see who is running other copies (so you know who to complain about) by using the command:
bjobs -u all
Remember - Bear is your R drive, so the root of bear, when you login, is the root of your R drive!
PhD-PGSQL
phd-pgsql is a new and experimental database server for PhD students and faculty. It hosts a copy of PostgreSQL with support for R, Perl and C++ scripting inside of the RDMS. At present the server is being deployed. More news will be available here shortly!
In the meantime, those with permission can see the Haas PhD Server Configuration page.
