On February 9th, 2009, CES will move all Cornell-based RDC projects to a new server environment, the RDC Blade Cluster.The move to the RDC Blade Cluster will have major benefits for researchers:
   -more disk space and memory will be available
   -64-bit processing
   -64-bit Stata is free of the 2GB memory limit
   -New Software: Matlab, Sudaan and R

After the migration, research on Cornell-based projects must continue on the Blade Cluster. RDC10 will no longer be available for research access. Aside from checking that everything has been transferred properly, it may also be necessary to make changes to some of your programs and configuration files so that they match the structure of the file system on the new server. Your RDC Administratory will help with the necessary changes.

Please Note!
Perhaps the most significant change on the RDC Blade Cluster is that the main filepaths have been slightly modified. Where your project space on RDC10 is located under the subdirectory

/rdcprojects/co00XXX/

On the RDC Blade Cluster, your project files are all under a slightly different subdirectory:

/rdcprojects/co1/co00XXX

If you have written programs with explicit reference to the full filepath, it may be necessary to change them to reflect this new structure. In most cases, this should not be a problem. In the event that you start experiencing problems with some of your programs immediately after the migration, this would be a good thing to check first.

Timing of the Migration

Researchers will be able to work on RDC10 until approximately 11:59am on Sunday, February 8, 2009. At that time, there will be a final sync of all files to the Blade Cluster. After the final sync, to continue working, you will need to log in to the Blade Cluster. The computing environment on the Blade Cluster will be very much like that on RDC10, so there should not be too much of a learning curve associated with the new system.

Getting Started on the Blades

Logging in

The next time you come to the lab after February 9th, you will need assistance to perform your first log in on the Blade Cluster. Please make arrangements with Ian to assist with this.

Changing your configuration settings

You will need to make some standard changes to your configuration files that you would already have made on RDC10. In particular, please make sure to:

• Disable the screensaver
• Reset your umask in the .bashrc file
• Make changes in .profile to properly set temporary space for Stata (see instructions below)

Detailed instructions on making changes to the screensavers and the umask are available in the Thin Client User's Guide, copies of which are sitting in most of the RDC work stations. But if you have any questions or need assistance, your RDC Administrator will be happy to help.

Changing Configuration Settings for Stata

The STATA temp space is currently pointing to /tmp; however, this space is small.  If you use STATA, please edit your .bashrc file (which is hidden in your home directory)):

STATATMP="/temporary/statatmp"
export STATATMP

Note:  it is important to hit return after each line.

You can then log out and log back in to activate the change. (or type 'source ~/.bashrc' from the shell)

To check that this has been redirected, type the following
into the STATA command window:

      tempfile junk

      display " `junk'"