Nikhef Data Processing Facility

NDPF TODO List: pending actions needed on NDPF
Acceptable Use Policy: also available in Oud-Hollandsch as "Gebruiksvoorwaarden" for those that are linguistically challenged

Hardware Inventory and Connections

NDPF_Systems: new node function tables, namely NDPF_System_Functions : which node does what, and NDPF_System_Locations Network Connections in the NDPF (all routers and switches)
NDPF_Standalone_Nodes: list of manually managed hosts, with access, usage and restoration info on the CT Wiki
Hardware_Issues: overview of current hardware problems
NDPF_OPN_Interfaces: Cabling of the OPN switches and routers
NDPF_Disk_Servers: which disk server contains what??
NDPF_DomUlist: domUs on a Dom0
HW_X4500_MAC_20080417: MAC addresses "EasterEgg" Sun X4500 Thumpers
HooiThumpersLocation: Where is my Thumper? Physical locations per serial number
Valentine_memory: Status and information about the dram read errors on the Valentines
SintMaarten_network: Analysis of the performance issue with the SintMaarten (HP) worker nodes
Agile_testbed: Management of the agile test for experimentation
OpenVPN: How to use the OpenVPN servers
EGI Infra: Infrastructure and order lists for EGI TF10

Operating procedures and manuals

External_Procedures_and_Tools: a collection of links to external documentation on procedures and websites "to get things done"

CT Wiki NDPF: system descriptions of all stand-alone systems, access, usage and restoration

GridPBX: The Grid Asterisk/Elastix service

SurfVideoConf: The Big Grid and Nikhef videoconference

DTConsole: The Cantankerous HoD Guide to accessing machine consoles from your Desktop

Shutting_Down_WorkerNodes: How to shutdown the worker nodes, for example when the tempearture in the server room becomes too high

WLCG_Accounting: Guide to assembling the monthly accounting summaries for WLCG

Monthly Review: Guide to assembling the monthly "vak N review" for the NL-T1 meeting.

GLite on Nikhef Desktops: Guide to install the glite UI tarball for Nikhef desktop use

User Management

NDPFDirectoryImplementation: Structure of the NDPF Directory and Authorization in the NDPF
Creating_Pool_Accounts_With_LDAP: how to create poolaccounts for a new VO (or extend an existing set), or even recover from an empty gridmapdir
Adding local users: How to create a new user account.
Adding a new VO: How to add a new VO
NDPF_UidsAndGids: Uid and Gid number plan for the NDPF clusters

Grid, Quattor and Yaim

GRID Issues: Articles that might be interesting for the resolution of issues that are seen when working with the GRID.
How to work with our Quattor setup: How to work with the template repository, compiling and deploying node templates
Installing a new VM via Quattor: What to do to create a new virtual machine from scratch using our Quattor system.
Installing updates: OS, CAs Quattor, VL-e: The procedure to download, configure and install updates for the OS via Quattor.
Upgrading Quattor managed glite servers: Information on how to upgrade Quattor managed glite servers.
Upgrading Quattor Components: Information on how to upgrade quattor components using the CVS repository on stal and the local tools for rpm management.
Pan Tutorial: Information about the Pan language.
RPM Repository: Information about working with the RPM repository.
Checkdeps: A Quattor tool to verify the RPM dependencies before deploying on a host
Maintaining_local_Yaim_functions: How to build a release of the local nikhef-yaim-* rpms and include them in the Quattor profiles.
Namespaced Quattor configuration: Documentation on the Quattor setup, including the namespaced templates
AII version 2 and complex block device schemas: How to configure complex block device schemas in Pan with AII version 2
Setting up a gLite WMS: Notes for installing and configuring a gLite WMS
LCAS and LCMAPS installation for gLExec and (GT4) gatekeepers: What to install and what/how to configure the components
Requesting or Renewing Host certificates: Guide on the procedure to request a new host certificate or renew an existing certificate

Security Operations

How to ban users with quattor: Using quattor to ban a user on WMS, CE, DPM nodes.
How to install security updates using quattor: Update single or multiple rpms which are vulnerable on quattor managed hosts.
HowToLimitSSHScans: How to limit ssh scans by blocking probing IPs using standard iptables modules on RL4 and EL5

Misc

Adding a VO to a VOMS server: How to add a new VO to a VOMS-is-evil server
Monitoring Script: It monitors the status of the different jobs, in order to identify those that aborted, but still on a queue.

Batch Systems and Scheduling

Adding/removing nodes to PBS: Information on how to add or remove nodes from PBS.
NDPFAccouting: Information on how the accounting chain works from PBS to the local and APEL accounting portals. (historic information is in Accounting).
VoViewGraphing: Creating the voview/grisview graphs on www.nikhef.nl/grid/stats, and the cron jobs that run on naab.
Enabling multicore jobs and jobs requesting large amounts of memory: Overview of the steps to enable flexible resource requests

Systems Documentation

NDPFAlarmsSystem: handling NL-T1 alarms at Nikhef
Nagios Monitoring Setup: current setup of Nagios monitoring
NDPFSubVersion: NDPF SubVersion Repository set up
NDPFIpmiNikhefNlBindConfig: modifying the ipmi.nikhef.nl domain
NDPF rsync backup: backup of service nodes using rsync and indirect ADSM usage
NDPF MySQL configurations: Configuration and monitoring of the MySQL service on bedstee
BuildingCentOSXfsKernelModules: Building the XFS kernel modules for CentOS (if CentOS plus is late)
CricketGraphing: generating the configuration for network graphs

NDPF Dell switch config: setup and configuration of the dell switches (disabling port-fast) - required for every new installation
Nortel 4548GT switches: Luilak/Bulldozer subcluster switch documentation
Arista 7148S switches: Core switch documentation

Remote usage of the Dell console switches: How to remotely connect to the Dell console switches.
Serial Consoles: how to setup your serial (over LAN) console and IMPI 2.0 SoL stuff, even with Xen, on a PE1950
SettingLcdPanelText: how to set the LCD panel text at runtime on a Dell PowerEdge using IPMI

NDPF_Dell_OpenManage_SA_Installation: use and configuration of the chassis and other controls of the Dell (PE1950) systems
NDPF_Equinox_ELS16: documentation for the Equinox ELS-16 TS
NDPF GS environment: Grid Service (specialties) environment documentation
RAID-1 configuration and management: how to set up RAID-1 and how to manage RAID devices
SunX4500Documentation: some tidbits on the X4500 Thumpers
Increasing Thumper filesystems for DPM: recipe for increasing the logical volume, file system and making it visible to DPM
HP BL460c G6: How to setup and configure and manage the "Sint Maarten" cluster
HooiMaanden: How to setup and configure and manage the "Hooimaanden"
Hooikar/hooiwagen: Configuration of DPM disk servers exporting iSCSI-mounted file systems
Bieten: How to setup and configure and manage the "Suiker Bieten"

backup_umts_location: Information about the backup UMTS connection
Remote Location: Information about the remote location

Problem Recovery

Procedures to be followed when recovering from major outages. No extensive descriptions, just a list of what to do, without having to think/know much about the topic.

Restoring Services: order in which to bring services back on-line
Resurrecting kuiken: steps to restart and check the VOMS server kuiken

Troubleshooting

How to figure out various things, diagnose problems, fix them, etc.

Tracing Jobs: Given a job ID, how to figure out where the job came from.

CREAM CE Troubleshooting: Error messages and how to solve them for CREAM.

System Utilities

PBS_Caching_Utilities: The current LCG software can put severe load on a pbs server due to the times it calls qstat (we have seen as many as 25 qstat calls per second). This load can eventually bring the entire system to an halt. In order to reduce the impact of this problem (a full solution requires rewriting part of the grid job manager), Davide wrote a set of utilities that wrap the original pbs commands and provide caching
MoniFarm Utilities: Graphing package for farm utilisation (used to make the production graphs for the NDPF Facilities)
NDPF_VOBOX_Alice_Renewalscript: The proxy renewal wrapper script, enhanced with status info

Virtualization

GSP Virtualisation with Xen: Grid Server Park virtualisation with Xen Cloud Platform
Xen on CentOS 5: Installation and configuration of XEN Dom0 CentOS 5 x86_64, DomU CentOS 4 i386

Virtualisation Issues

NDPF VMware authentication: controlling and creating VMs on the central VMware server
NDPF VMware tips: tips and tricks for generating vmware images
Xen on CentOS 5 - Notes: Notes for installing and configuring a XEN System on CentOS 5
Xen on CentOS - Automating Installation-Administration: Quattor managed Xen-Dom0 and DomUs
Xen 3.2, CentOS 5.1 and NAT HOWTO: HOWTO document to set up Xen with NAT networking

Performance data and analysis

NDPF Node Performance: performance figures for nodes used for accounting purposes
NDPF Disk Performance: performance figures for disk servers
RunningSPEC: how to run the SPEC2006 and SPEC2000 suites at Nikhef, including using the Intel Compiler Suite and SmartHeap

User Security and eTokens

Using an Aladdin eToken PRO to store grid certificates: Using an Aladdin eToken PRO with grid certificates (including gridproxy generation)
Using voms-proxy-init on an OSX (10.4 or higher) system: Tiny how to on how to get voms-proxy-init working on your Mac.

User Tips and Tricks

How to control access rights for LFC/SRM files: How to control access rights to your files stored on the grid in LFC, SRM or both
Checksumming support in SRM implementations: An overview of the support for checksumming in different SRM implementations

VO-specific software and modules: How to install VO-specific software including automatic modules support

Qsub-tunnel: job submission from the desktop and login systems to the NDPF clusters
Qsub-tunnel-admin: administering the qsub tunnel and adding new users

Software development tips

How to handle OpenSSL and not get hurt: Intended for developer that use the OpenSSL library. Organized as a (collective) braindump.

Building gLExec from src rpm: How to (re)build gLExec from a .src.rpm.

Software development on Arista hardware: Useful tips, how-tos and more.

Funny Curly things: An investigation into the different versions of the cURL tool.

How to work with VOMS: A detailed overview of how VOMS must work and how you need to work with VOMS.

AOB

Grid Opendag preparation: What to do, checklists, ideas and other pieces of information suited to prepare yourself for the Opendag (Open House) at Nikhef.

NDPF

Contents