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Rules: last revised on Friday, 2nd November 2007

PLEASE: in order to make sure that we can speak together giving the same meaning to the words used take one minute to read some definitions described after the "rules" below

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RULES for REMOTE JOBS

1. The 'user' working on a 'local' machine has priority over all others: i.e.

==> the 'local' user has priority over 'remote' users

2. All 'remote' jobs have to be 'niced':


on machines with two or more processors:

at least "+5" for non CPU intensive applications (xmmptool, etc)

at least "+10" for number crunching tasks ( MATLAB, MAFIA, MMP, etc)

at least "+15" for tasks expected to run for more than 8 hours


on machines with only ONE processor:

at least "+7" for non CPU intensive applications (xmmptool, etc)

at least "+15" for number crunching tasks ( MATLAB, MAFIA, MMP, etc)

"+18" or "+19" for tasks expected to run for more than 8 hours

Example:

deneb:[ballisti]:112 % rlogin naos

Last login: Tue Jan 6 19:17:40 from sirius

Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.5.1 Generic May 1996

You have mail.

naos:[ballisti]:38 % nice +10 matlab

< M A T L A B (R) >

(c) Copyright 1984-97 The MathWorks, Inc.

All Rights Reserved Version 5.1.0.421

...

NOT to be niced is the shell program (your rlogin), editors (emac, etc) and others utilities with practically no CPU load.

3. The command "top" should run only while you are watching it and should NOT left running undefinitely.
4. The super user can renice jobs if necessary

Special rules on our servers

Servers are the following machines:
spitfire scilla cariddi and all the ifhluxnn machines

For security reason it is now not possible to login into spitfire, sorry!

Please alway check:
1. Check with "top" that there is enough memory (RAM) left for your application

looking at the following line (here an example):

Memory: 256M real, 6472K free, 45M swap in use, 255M swap free

In this case only 6 MB RAm are still free: do NOT start any other application!
2. always start your applications with the command "nice +10 your_command".

For instance:

nice +10 matlab

Let us first agree about some concepts:

"local machine" : a machine which is used by somebody as a desktop.

Somebody is using the keyboard and mouse of this machine.
To avoid that he/she has low response from the machine, all jobs on this machine MUST be niced.

"server" : a machine which offer some service.

Depending of the kind of service offered we differentiate between many kinds of "server":

• "cpu server": a machine which offer its CPU to run programs.

Example: so called "number crunching" machines as the two new IBM RISC "boaz" and "jachin" the SUNs "avior", "toliman", "regor", "naos" "nausikaa", "castor", "thuban".

• "display server": a machine on which you 'see' on its monitor the graphic output of a program which runs on a "CPU server" (can be the same machine).
• "file server": a machine with harddisk(s) that can be 'exported' and usually mounted as NFS over the network. i.e. your data physically 'reside' on the harddisk of the "file server" but you are logged in (i.e. "working") on some other machine.
• "mail server": is a machine which have the system 'mail folder' and send and receive mail from the outside world and redistribute it inside a "domain". Example: "sirius" is the 'mail server' for our institute Our mail domain is "ifh.ee.ethz.ch"
• "www server": this machine runs a special program that gives access to WWW requests from the whole world. Example: "sirius" is the www server of our institute.
• "printer server": is a machine on which a printer is physically connected. The spooler directory is also on this machine. Other machine send 'print jobs' to it. Example: "betelgeuze" is the 'printer server' for the SPARCprinter "lw" in the K floor.
• "NIS server": this machine has a data bank and gives the information to other machines when requested. There are one "master" and none, one or more "slave" 'NIS servers'. "sirius" is the master NIS server.

"job": a task to be executed

There are many different kinds of "jobs". I would like to define only two types: "local" and "remote".

• "local job": a task which will be executed on the "local" machine (see below).
• "remote job": a task which will executed on a "remote" machine (see below).
• "local" machine: is the machine whose keyboard, mouse and monitor you are now using. Often is the machine on your desk, sometime one machine out of a pool (as in K71).
• "remote" machine: all others   :-)

"user": a person who has a valid account on our net.

• "super user": the system manager. A trusted person who have access to all files (also system files) on a machine.

Example: Ray, Olivier, Benedikt (for UNIX machines)

• "local user": one working on a 'local' machine. Also defined as the "owner" of the 'local' machine.
• "remote user": any user who is logged into a machine via net, i.e. is not using the keyboard, mouse and monitor of the machine.

"nice": a command used to let 'remote jobs' appear nice to the 'local' user .

Thank you very much for reading all this.

Go back to Rules

Ciao Ray

P.S. Please, mail suggestions (very welcome) to ballisti@ifh.ee.ethz.ch (Click here)