07.22.09
NLIT 2009….
Ok, this post is way overdue but I didn’t want to let that stop me from blogging about a great trip I had to Knoxville, Tennessee for the 2009 National Laboratories IT Summit (we can’t call it a conference for expense purposes apparently). =)
This was my 4th NLIT Summit and as always I learned a lot, met some very cool people and also had a great time enjoying the social events that had been planned for the attendees. The first event was a 5K race that was scheduled to start at 3pm (the same time we got off our flight) that my friend Jean Shuler and I somehow managed to make by racing to the hotel in a taxi, checking in real quick and then doing what can only be described as “speed-changing” in order to get back downstairs to the lobby where we met up with the race coordinators who waited until 3:45 so we could join them. =)
Still feeling good after about jogging about 1.25 miles in the sun.
Almost there, and third overall. Not bad. =)
Enjoying some good conversation and a place in the shade after the 5K run.
I was super tired after getting up at 2 in the morning to catch my flight only to sit on a plane for half the day but that did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for a little afternoon exercise along the river. Great idea guys! I had a blast. =)
I really loved the scenery in Tennessee especially along the river. Here you see train tracks that continue on under the Gay St. bridge (I walked across it on Wednesday before my flight home).
After settling in and getting to check out the vendors who helped sponsor the event (thanks for the free drinks guys) it was time to get to bed. I had a full day of presentations to look forward to and wanted to be well rested in order to be able to take it all in. =)
Listening to a presenation on CFEngine use at Brookhaven National Lab.
The first day of presentations were excellent. After the last presentation ended there was a quick happy hour and then it was on to the Sunsphere for dinner and cocktails. So awesome… =)
The Sunsphere, constructed for the 1982 World's Fair and recently re-opened as a restaurant that offers a birds eye view of Knoxville, TN.
Tuesday morning I woke up a bit tired but ready to take on another day of presentations. Unfortunately even though I had been responsible with my drinking I quickly realized that my lip which had gotten super sunburned at the NIF dedication the Friday before had totally exploded and was oozing nastiness which made it difficult for me to find the courage to leave my hotel room. =(
Fortunately I didn’t let myself wallow in self-pity too long so I only missed one presenation before heading downstairs to join the others.
Good lab buddies Mark Dietrich (pretending to be asleep), Jean Shuler and always funny, Lee Neely.
After this round of presentations it was off to the Womens’ Basketball Hall of Fame for more food, drinks and a friendly game of H-O-R-S-E. 
Admitedly one of my favorite parts of the summit is the social networking and evening entertainment. Keep those drink tickets coming.
A very nice guy named Ron Crotzer from Los Alamos National Laboratory who hung out with me at the Womens' Basketball Hall of Fame and made sure I didn't get in over my head. Very cool. =)
After things closed down around 10pm a couple of us (Pete – guy who beat me multiple times at HORSE and David – guy from Brookhaven Lab who has done some awesome stuff implementing high availability for BIND servers) went down to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse to enjoy the evening air and hang out a bit longer. I was good and had water instead of a cranberry vodka (I guess I’m getting old) so I was still wide awake when midnight rolled around. At that point David and I walked back to the hotel to continue our conversation about using Heartbeat to do load-balancing using IPtables. Ah, that’s what I love about these conferences, uh, I mean summits.
The next morning was the last day of the summit. Instead of a having a typical CIO panel the ORNL hosts had planned a game of CIO Survivor where CIOs from 5 of the national laboratories competed for applause based on their ideas of how to “go green” at their laboratories. I liked the CIO from Jefferson Lab who provided a compelling case for considering nuclear power to solve our energy problems. Unfortunately the CIO from the National Renewable Energy Laborartory thought it appropriate to interrupt his speeches with rude comments and props that played to people’s fear of anything nuclear. Too bad. I think the crowd still liked him a lot better. =)
The CIO from Jefferson Lab made a compelling case for nuclear power as a truly "green" solution to our energy problems.
So apparently it's either happy homes with solar power, OR....
A nuclear holocaust if we consider using nuclear power.. I hate fear mongering.
The last presentation I went to was quite interesting and aside from the great technical information that was provided it made me appreciate how much people like Barry Finkel have to offer even if their outward appearance suggests something else. =)
This guy was so cute! He gave a presentation on the GNU mailman implementation he planned for Argonne National Lab. He used an old school pointer and everything. =)
After the last presentation I had a couple hours to kill before having to leave to catch my flight. I spent that time exploring downtown Knoxville including a trip across the Gay St. bridge and into a slightly sketchy area, swimming in the hotel pool with some guys from Idaho National Laboratory, and reflecting on everything I had learned and experienced on this trip. All in all it was pretty awesome. I can’t wait for next year’s (Brookhaven National Lab in New York!). Also a big thank you to whoever took and posted these pictures. I didn’t bring my camera and was very appreciative to have pictures to remember my trip. =)
11.03.08
Home Run 2008…
Each year LLNL hosts the HOME (Helping Others More Effectively) campaign in an effort to raise funds for local non-profit organizations that provide much needed services and support for the community. The actual HOME event normally occurs the Thursday before Halloween, consists of 1.7mile run/walk and then offers music, food and tents with representatives from the different agencies on hand to provide information about their organization.
Unfortunately with layoffs earlier in the year and the economy completely sucking, this years HOME campaign was down to bare bones although they did have a nice band. I kind of missed the memo that we should bring some canned goods to the event so I felt kind of bad about that. I did donate to my favorite agencies (East Bay SPCA and Tri-Valley Animal Rescue) so at least I know the animals are covered. =)
So now on to the fun stuff. I always look forward to the run and for the last two years now have been able to jog it with my buddy Mike. Last year our time for the 1.7 miles was over 14 minutes (I’ll have to ask Mike for the exact time). This year we beat our time and came in at 13:48 (~8minute/mile). More than that we had a lot of fun and finished without passing out before the finish line. Always a good thing.
Jean Shuler (in black shorts and black/white top), coolest deputy divison lead we could ask for, and Mike and me trailing close behind. =)
So until next year we’ll have to keep up with the bodypump, kickboxing and hardcore pilates classes so we can see about getting our time down to under 14 minutes. Hey, you’ve gotta have a goal! =)
10.31.08
Nobel Peace Prize 2007…
In case you missed it, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change” (citation).
The IPCC contributed to this effort by releasing the Fourth Assessment Report which provided the peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support the claim that man-made changes have resulted in climate change. This report was so compelling that it convinced the Bush administration to finally acknowledge the reality of climate change which will hopefully result in support for policy changes that will address this important issue. I’d say that was worthy of a Nobel.
So why am I writing about this? Well as a Unix system administrator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) I had the extreme honor of providing hardware and software support to the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) group who hosted the single data repository used by climate researchers around the world to generate reports for the Fourth Assessment Report. PCMDI was acknowledged by the IPCC for their role in providing this resource and then Dave Bader (program manager for PCMDI) named the people on his team involved in the effort. For my role in building, configuring and keeping the data repository online for the duration of the project, Dave included me in that list so as hard as it is for me to believe, I am associated with a Nobel Peace Prize. =)
The PCMDI team which included software developers, climate scientists and systems support people were honored by director of LLNL, George Miller (pictured bottom right hand corner) at a luncheon at work as well as at the United Nations Day celebration at the International House in Berkeley.
S&T recognition for Nobel Peace Prize
Marshall and I on the balcony of the International House in Berkeley.
Marshall and me on International House balcony
My mom Lynn, me, and my dad Jeff. I coudn’t ask for better or more supportive parents. =)
Meemers, me and my dad
Dad, me and Marshall
Herb Berstock introduces us as Nobel Laureates to which we receive a standing ovation. This has to be one of the my proudest moments knowing that I contributed to something that had such an impact at a global level.
Nobel Laureates
Thanks to Dave Bader for having the vision to provide a centralized shared resource that would enable this kind of science and for being the most amazing supporter and promoter of the people on his team. We would not have had this opportunity without his excellent leadership. =)
08.20.08
Jettagirl’s RHCE Study Guide – RHEL5
First of all, in order to study for this exam, I need to be aware of what I’m not really familiar with and then make sure I know enough of it (or what to look for in man pages) to get through those sections. I’m hoping the process of writing this down will help me remember when I get to the test. In no particular order they are:
SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux): Adds context to files, directories and processes. The default targeted policy from Redhat focuses on networked processes and security significant files to confine. To check if selinux is enabled, type “getenforce”. This is very helpful to keep in mind because if you don’t make sure to set the context of a file/directory things may not work and the normal troubleshooting path won’t help you. Check your logs (/var/log/messages and /var/log/audit/audit.log) for details.
- ls -Z # Lists contexts of files in current directory
- ps -Z # Lists context of running processes. May be combined with other options
- chcon # Changes context of file/directory
- restorecon # Will restore appropriate contexts to files in given directory if part of OS and installed in standard location.
- semanage or sealert or setroubleshoot # (All seem to be GUI apps to diagnose problems)
- semanage fcontext -l # List selinux contexts. Can replace fcontext with a number of other object types. See man page for options.
Sysctl (Persistant Kernel Configuration): Modifies kernel configuration settings. To figure out what settings are available and what they do you can type “sysctl -a” find the particular setting and look it up in the kernel-doc Documentation (/usr/share/kernel-doc-2.6.18/Documentation/networking/ip-sysctl.txt or similar).
- sysctl -a # Lists all available settings
- sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 # Changes kernel setting on the fly. Make permanaent by adding to /etc/sysctl.conf
LVM (Logical Volume Management): The big piece here is to remember that the base unit of an LVM is a physical volume (pv). One or more phyiscal volumes can then be added to a volume group (vg). Finally one or more logical volumes (lv – what the OS sees) can be created from a volume group. To query what has been created you can always use the display command prefixed with the object type (example: lvdisplay). Remember the following commands when looking to grow or reduce the size of an LVM volume:
- vgextend/lvextend (Grow volume group/logical volume)
- vgreduce/lvreduce (Reduce volume group/logical volume)
- resize2fs (Resize filesystem) – Note: To shrink a filesystem you must unmount the volume
- pvmove (move extents off specified phyiscal volume so you can remove it from volume group)
ACL (Access Control Lists): Allows greater granularity to be set for controlling access to files and directories. Remember the following commands:
- getfacl - Get file access control
- setfacl - Set file access control
Helpful reminders:
- rpm -qd [packagename] # Returns location of documentation for that package
- yum grouplist # Lists names of package groups (very helpful for installing things like Gnome)
- mkinitrd –with=raid1 /boot/initrd-raid1-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r) # Create a new RAM disk file with the raid1 driver. Note: when you specify the ‘–with’ option that module must be in the running kernel.
Items for review:
- Quotas
- ACLs
- VNC
- ip/nmap/IPV6
- TCPwrappers/iptables
- Unit 9 on (sorry, was super sleepy, and bored)
11.13.06
Day 2
Well, today was the official start of the conference and unfortunately, it didn’t get off to a really great start for me. I planned on taking the conference bus to the convention center this morning but because of a problem finding my badge, I ended up driving over so as not to be late. Ok, this shouldn’t have been a big issue except for the fact that I actually found the official convention parking center and it cost $9.50 for half a day instead of the $5.00 for the parking lot I found yesterday. Then, I ended up getting a huge migraine that made me sick to my stomach and so although I wanted to make every effort to stick it out, I had to leave around 2pm because I felt like I was going to hurl. Note to self: do not go anywhere without Excedrin. I thought I was going to die.
After getting back to the hotel I took two Excedrin and fell into bed to try and sleep off the headache. It took me about 30 minutes to fall asleep but at least I couldn’t feel the headache much after that. I woke up 3 hours later and although my head and neck were still a little sore, I felt good enough to give Marshall a call. We talked for about an hour and then I decided to go downstairs and see if I could find some food. There are no grocery or fast food stores in the vicinity so I’m pretty much stuck with whatever is in the hotel. I just spent $28 on a swordfish dinner. The salmon would have been $25 so I figured I’d rather go with the fish that I enjoy more. Hopefully it tastes as good as it cost. =P
Well, it’s about time for me to go downstairs and pick up my food. I could have had it delivered to my room but you know me, I’m cheap.
As for what I learned in the half a day of tutorial that I made it through, most of it was review but there was some new and helpful information. Namely, I learned and started to understand the difference between SMP systems and traditional clusters. OpenMP is used for coding for SMP and MPI is used for traditional clusters. SMP systems have shared memory which is what always confused me since our new dual processor nodes will build an SMP kernel so I didn’t understand how that worked with MPI on top. When we run our clusters, we do not run with the SMP kernel and now I understand why. Unlike MPICH, OpenMP is not downloadable but comes with the compiler you purchase like Portland Group for example.
An emerging cluster type is a hybrid cluster that clusters SMP systems that use OpenMP with other SMP systems using MPI. I believe this is how we will cluster the IBM HS20s. We shall see.
Finally, one of the instructors in this class was Christiana Jablonowski who visited PCMDI in 2003. I introduced myself and let her know that I was interested in learning more about grid technologies since PCMDI heavily uses that technology for the Earth Systems Grid (ESG) project.
Well, I’ve got my swordfish which is cooked perfectly for me (dry) and am settling in for a quite evening. Perhaps I’ll be able to finish knitting that sock. One can hope. Goodnight everyone. =)
11.11.06
Supercomputing Conference 2006
So where to start. Well, I arrived in Florida yesterday around 6pm, got my rental car and was at the hotel by 6:30. Sounds pretty straightforward, yeah? Well, although we touched down safely and my luggage made it through a plane change in Denver, while trying to find my hotel, I ended up traveling about 20 feet on the wrong side of the road because of an unexpected island that stood between me and the side of the road I needed to be on. Fortunately, nothing horrible happened except for I felt like a pretty big idiot. Tourists!! =P
So the really cool thing about today was that I went down to the Tampa Convention Center to register only to find out my registration session wasn’t until 1pm and it was 8:45am.Perferct ! Time for exploring. So since we’re on the bay, I started walking along the bay and found that the path just kept going. I come to find out that it is one of the longest contiguous sidewalks in the United States. Four miles each direction. It took me ~3.5 hours but that was mainly because I kept stopping every 15 feet or so to check out all the marine life in the bay or to talk with a friendly local. Read on for a list of everything I saw this morning. =)
Bat rays – hundreds, some with flat noses, others with rounded noses (the round nosed ones were pretty cute and tended to be smaller)
Crabs – originally saw crabs that were about 4 inches wide and then started seeing much bigger crabs further down the bay. One had lost a pincher and it looked like the second pincher grew even bigger as a result. The crabs where sandy in color with bright blue legs in back.
Silver fish – small fish no bigger than two inches in length were rolling their bodies so that in the light, you’d see these flickers of silver. These fish tended to stay in the muddier parts of water.
Oysters – The bay wall was covered in oyster shells. When the water receded, the oysters would expel water back into the bay. Further down the pier, work had been done to create oyster houses which help clean the bay and provide shelter for smaller fish and crabs.
Birds - there was a blue heron, a grey smaller heron, a heron that looked like a night heron but smaller and with a rusty crest and a bird with a long orange peak, pink feet and a black head. I also saw a green parrot bird that was squaking while it made a nest in a palm tree. Amazing!
Dolphins – believe it or not, there were several dolphins that came right up to the bay wall as they cornered schools of fish. Two dolphins swam right by me as I stood on the sidewalk amazed at what I was seeing. Apparently there was a baby dolphin which had been swimming only 30 feet in front of me but unless you’re right on top of where it’s swimming, you won’t be able to see much except its dorsal fin.
Jack crevalles – I saw a ton of these and from a distance, they might be mistaken for baby dolphins because they are big enough to create a wake and also corner schools of fish when hunting. These were pretty cool fish. I don’t know if I’d want to swim with them though. I actually saw a jack swimming with another fish’s (a large looking fish) tail hanging out of its mouth.
Snook – Another large fish that kind of resembles a barracuda. This fish was pointed out to me by a retired gentleman (Dan Fields) who rides, runs or walks the bay every day. That’s a another thing I noticed. There are a lot of people in really great shape in Tampa.
Horseshoe crab – After looking out into the bay for so long, my eyes started to focus on other things in the bay. I saw what looked like a rust colored horseshoe crab but wasn’t sure until I saw several others on my way back and knew that it was in fact what I thought it was.
Hawks – very large osprey like birds that circled the bay and then dove into the water to catch their dinner. I saw three hawks catch rather large fish and carry them off into the distance.
Mullets – long and narrow fish that looked to be over a foot long and would gain speed and then leap through the air in packs. Quite amazing to observe.
Pelicans – these pelicans looked a lot bigger than the pelicans in California. I actually got to see three of work for their breakfast. The would fly up a foot or so off the surface of the water and would then dive down with their beaks open. They would then slowly raise their head up pressing the pouch against their chest. After the water was drained they would raise their beaks and gulp down their catch. Several small seagulls thought they might get a free bite and so they hopped on the backs of the pelicans as they hunted.
Turtles – at first I couldn’t tell if they were snakes or what but then once one got closer, I could see that they were turtles. Relatively small in size, they seemd to be out of place since there wasn’t anywhere for them to rest. Perhaps when the tide goes out they have a ledge to stand on.
I also saw some really cool pen fish (I haven’t been able to find the real name) that were long and skinny, maybe 8 inches in length and had very long snouts. They were really cool to see as well.
So all in all, today was a success for me. After my walk, I checked-in at the conference and then headed back to the hotel to get some food and relax. I was going to head to St. Petersberg but I knew I was tired and didn’t want to push things to far. On Thursday I’ll be going to the Busch Gardens as part of the conference social events. I think that will be enough adventuring for me. =) It’s 4:04 here but I’m experiencing jet-lag and simple sleep deprivation so I think I will retire to take a short nap. I’ll write more later. Bye for now! =)
