This section contains general information about the Atmospheric Sciences UQAM computing cluster and diagnostics environment.
The UQAM/SCA Linux cluster called marvin is
generally used to run the GEMCLIM model.
Students of Colin Jones and Laxmi
Sushama are expected to store their modelling results on one of the three
UQAM/SCA storage servers called st1, st2 and st3. These
machines can also be used for post processing and debugging. Please
contact Katja Winger (Katja.Winger@ec.gc.ca) if you need storage space
on these servers.
The Linux cluster marvin can be accessed from anywhere. Whereas only
one (st1) of the three storage servers (st1,st2,st3) can be accessed
from outside. The other two (st2,st3) can only be accessed from marvin
or st1.
| Machine Description | IP Address | Address Type | Host Name |
| Cluster | 132.208.132.89 | external | marvin |
| Diagnostics/Storage | 132.208.132.18 | external | st1 |
| internal
(from marvin or st1) |
st1 |
||
| st2 |
|||
| st3 |
All of the disks on marvin and st1, st2 and st3 are RAID-enabled. This reduces the chances of data loss in the event of a disk crash; however, it also makes disk space more valuable.
The first level storage
on the cluster marvin
is a set of FibreChannel disks mounted at /local/fiber1.
This 1.7T RAID has the fastest I/O access on marvin, and should be used
only at runtime by the model. No
final storage of data should
be done on /local/fiber1!!!
The second level storage on marvin are two larger (8T and 5T) RAID
units made of
slower SATA disks mounted
at /local/sata1 and /local/sata2. This is where
the model output will appear after all post processing and diagnostics, and it is from here
that data should be transferred as soon as possible to longer-term
storage. For students of Colin Jones and Laxmi Sushama this would be
one of the servers st1, st2 or st3. This means that all other students will have to use their own
servers *** as there are absolutely no long term disk allocations on marvin ***
| Machine | Mount Point | Size (G) | Purpose |
| marvin | /local/fiber1 | 1700 | Runtime Storage (Level 1) |
| /local/sata1 | 8300 | Temporary Output Storage (Level 2) | |
| /local/sata2 | 5500 | Temporary Output Storage (Level 2) |
The username and
password information on marvin (the cluster) uses a Network Information
System
to distribute information across nodes. This means that running passwd
to change
your password will not produce the desired result. To change your
password run the command:
yppasswd
Your environment can be customized to your preferences (for example, choice of compilers and sets of aliases) using the ~/.profile_usr file that resides in your home directory. The standard Unix method for customizing the environment for Borne shells and derivatives is to modify the ~/.profile file; however, the RPN Library uses this file, and in turn "sources" the ~/.profile_usr file. Modify this file exactly as you would the ~/.profile file, and you can customize your environment as you like.