Dante Sun Fire v480
Solaris 9 Research Compute Server

Dante and Inferno are two compute servers available for general research applications. Dante is a Sun Fire v480 system running Solaris 9 that provides Virginia Tech researchers with access to high performance computing on a Sun Microsystems hardware platform. The system also supports SAS and MATLAB which are not currently available on the Virginia Tech compute server Inferno. Dante currently contains four 900 MHz CPUs, 16 GB memory, two 36 GB fiber-channel drives, and external storage on the Virginia Tech NAS (Network-Attached Storage).

Contents

• Obtaining an Account
• Obtaining Assistance
• Usage Overview
  • Transferring Files
  • Disk Space Allocations
  • Disconnected Program Processing
  • Default File Permissions
• Installed Software
  • Application Programs
  • Compilers
  • Subroutine Libraries

Obtaining an Account

Faculty and Graduate Students may obtain accounts on Dante by completing the Web based User Account Application Form. As part of your application request, you will be asked for your name, PID, department, address, phone number, system resource requirements, and an abstract describing the research for which the account will be used. The inclusion of citations to related journal publications is encouraged.

Notes:

• By default, an account on Dante will only be created if you require SAS, MATLAB, Gauss, or the IMSL libraries which are not currently available on Inferno; otherwise, an account will be created for you on Inferno. Accounts on both Inferno and Dante will be created if you require applications found on both systems. Shared disk space between the two systems will be provided to facilitate file access.
• Submitted abstracts may be made available online at some future date.

Accounts will typically be created within one workday of submission, however, occassionally, up to one week may be required to complete user verification and account processing.

Obtaining Assistance

If you need support, contact the 4Help by using the Help Request Form (http://www.computing.vt.ed/csc) or by calling (540) 231-HELP (4357).

Usage Overview

This document assumes that you are already familiar with using a Unix operating system. For general information about using UNIX systems, see Introduction to VTAIX; for specific information regarding Solaris systems, see the Sun Product Documentation.

An SSH (Secure Shell) client is required to log on to Dante. Example SSH clients include:

• ssh for most Unix systems
  
  
  Example: At the Unix shell prompt, enter:
  
  
         ssh your_dante_id@dante.cc.vt.edu
  
  
  
• SSH Secure Shell for Windows
• Secure-CRT for Windows
• F-Secure's SSH for Windows or Macintosh

Transferring Files

Although you can use the ftp command from Dante to move files and data to or from the system, it is recommended that you use a secure file copy program, such as the Unix scp command, instead. If you are using Windows, you are encouraged to use the Secure File Transfer client which is included with SSH Secure Shell.

Disk Space Allocations

Each user account is initially allocated 5 GB of disk space with more space available upon request.

To view current disk availability, enter:
      df -h

To view your current disk utilization, enter:
          cd
      du -h

Disconnected Program Processing

You can use the "nohup" to submit jobs for background processing and enable them to continue processing after logoff.

For additional information on using the nohup command and general information regarding the use of UNIX systems, see Background Jobs and Logout -- the "nohup" command.

Default File Permissions

When the file system of Dante was initially installed, the "umask" was set such that new files are created with user writable and group readable permissions (-rw-r-----), i.e., umask 027. If you desire, you can use the  "chmod"  command to change the permissions of your existing files or the "umask" to change the default permissions which will be assigned to new files.

      umask 022

Installed Software

Application Programs

• MATLAB provides an environment and collection of tools for visualization, computation, and mathematical analysis.
  • To invoke MATLAB interactively, enter:
    
           /software/matlab/bin/matlab
    
    
  • To exit from the MATLAB environment, enter the "Quit" command.
  • To invoke MATLAB to execute the MATLAB program file file_name.m, enter:
    
           /software/matlab/bin/matlab <file_name.m
    
    
• SAS System is a comprehensive collection of data analysis and report generation products produced by SAS Institute Inc in Cary, NC. SAS Versions 9.1 and 8.2 have now been installed on Dante in the "/software/sasv9" and "/software/sasv8" directories.
  
  • To invoke the latest version of the SAS processor to execute SAS program code in the file "sas_file_name.sas", enter:
    
           /opt/local/bin/sas sas_file_name.sas
    
    
  • To invoke SAS Version 8.2 processor to execute SAS program code in the file "sas_file_name.sas", enter:
    
           /software/sasv8/sas sas_file_name.sas
    
    
    The results of running your program will be saved in the file "sas_file_name.lst"; the sas output log and error diagnostics will be saved in the file: "sas_file_name.log".
    
    
• Gauss provides tools for mathematical and statistical analysis.
  • Under Korn Shell, to use Gauss to run the program contained in the file "gauss_test.txt" and save the results in the file "gauss_test.log", enter the following sequence of commands:
    
    

    TGAUSSHOME='/software/gauss'
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH='/software/gauss'
    export TGAUSSHOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH
    /software/gauss/tgauss -b ../gauss_test.txt >gauss_test.log

Compilers

The Sun ONE Studio Fortran and C Compilers (Forte Compiler Collection 7, formerly known as Forte Developer 7) are now available on Dante:

• To compile the Fortran program "test_prog.f" using the f95 compiler from this collection, enter:
  
        /opt/SUNWspro/bin/f95 test_prog.f



• To compile the C Language program "test_prog.c" using the cc compiler from this collection, enter:
  
        /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc test_prog.c
  
  
  Note: If you prefer to use the GNU C compiler, replace "/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc"  with  "/opt/sfw/bin/gcc"  to compile your programs.

Subroutine Libraries

The following subroutine libraries are currently installed on the system:

IMSL

The IMSL Version 5.5 Mathematics and Statistics Subroutine Libraries are now available on Dante. IMSL provides a collection of subroutines for Mathematical and Statistical computations; for details regarding use of the IMSL routines, see IMSL Online Documentation.

• Prior to using the IMSL subroutine libraries, you must define a series of environmental variables which are required by IMSL:
  • If you are using the Bourne or Korn shell, use the following commands:
    
           . /software/imsl5.5/CTT6.0/ctt/bin/cttsetup.sh
    
    
  • If you are using the C Shell, use the following commands:
    
           source /software/imsl5.5/CTT6.0/ctt/bin/cttsetup.csh
    
    
  • Once you have defined the environmental variables as described above, you can then use the following command to compile the C program test_imsl.c:
    
           /software/SUNWspro/bin/cc -o test_imsl $CFLAGS test_imsl.c $LINK_CNL
    
    
    Note: Any C language program that uses functions from the IMSL C/Math/Library must contain the include directive "include <imsl.h>"; any C language program that uses functions from the IMSL C/Stat/Library must contain the include directive "include <imsls.h>".
  
  
• In order to use the IMSL Version 5 Fortran libraries in the SUN environment, you must use the Sun ONE Studio Fortran compiler. For example, you could use the following command to compile the Fortran program test_imsl.f:
  
         /opt/SUNWspro/bin/f90 -o test_imsl $F90FLAGS test_imsl.f $LINK_F90