CONTEXT

This information is intended to help users of the new anchor server, deployed Nov-2007.

Platform: Anchor is now a Linux/X86 based system, running CentOS 5 64-bit edition(RedHat Enterprise, effectively). The server hardware is a dual-quadcore Xeon (8 CPU cores in total @2.66 ghz per CPU) with 16 gigs of Ram. There is approximately 6 Tb of usable Raid5 storage capacity available for user data (home directories, data directories, etc).

Note that binaries compiled on the old anchor (Sun Sparc Solaris 8) simply will not run on this new platform. If you have source code, recompiling binaries from source should yield new binaries which work (barring any compilation problems)

DISK SPACE USE: Please respect these guidelines for use of disk space on anchor:

  • Home Directories are backed up the most frequently, and should contain only "relatively small" files of greatest importance. (Such as "word processor" documents, source code, Email messages and such like). All home directories live on the 2.5Tb disk slice, /users
  • Bulk data should be stored on either the /data or /data/anchor disk mounts (each has ~2 Tb capacity). To access this storage you will need to have "the POLAN sysadmin" create a directory for you. These disk mounts will be backed up less frequently than home directories.

COMPILERS: Anchor has a number of different compilers present to support a range of requirements. By default, GNU compiler tools (GCC, GFortran, etc) are present and visible for use. In addition, Intel Fortran and Sun Studio compilers are available.

  • Intel Fortran is installed under the path, 
/opt/intel/fc/10.0.025/bin  (ifort is the compiler name)
  • Sun Studio 12 is present under the path, 
 /opt/sun/sunstudio12/bin
 (which includes f90 and f77, among other sun compiler tools)

To add IFort to your path, you might issue a command as follows, 

export PATH=/opt/intel/fc/10.0.025/bin:$PATH

OTHER MISC APPLICATIONS OF INTEREST?

  • Both Anchor and "ThinClient" users may like to use the following applications:
    * kghostview - to do postscript rendering to GUI
    * kpdf - to do PDF rendering to gui
    * kdvi - GUI interface for DVI rendering
    * xdvi - GUI interface for DVI rendering, "old school" version of the application.
    * acroread - version 5 of acrobat reader - installed only on "thinclient" and NOT on anchor.
    * ReaderLinux - alternate PDF Viewer from "FoxIT" software on THINCLIENT only. Fast; has current features set (more recent than AcroRead 5)

MATLAB AND NETCDF SUPPORT:

In order to use the NetCDF toolbox with matlab on Anchor, please create / edit a config file as suggested below: 

Add the paths to the various netcdf dirs to your
matlab path (best done via your ~/matlab/startup.m file), 
e.g. content thus:

        /opt/matlabR2007b/toolbox/mexnc
        /opt/matlabR2007b/toolbox/netcdf_toolbox/netcdf/ncutility
        /opt/matlabR2007b/toolbox/netcdf_toolbox/netcdf/nctype
        /opt/matlabR2007b/toolbox/netcdf_toolbox/netcdf

MATLAB AND M_MAP SUPPORT:

M_MAP was installed Feb-27-08 on anchor (see http://www.eos.ubc.ca/~rich/map.html for details). It is installed to the MatLab shared toolbox directory, so should be available automagically.