As we warned, we had a major outage today to do some massive cleaning/organization in our server closet. It went well: with dozens of cable ties and power strips on hand we got rid of about 95% of the spaghetti dangling from the backs of the racks, spilling into several piles on the closet floor. But that wasn't the main reason for this outage. We also installed a new UPS to replace a broken one - so jocelyn and isaac are protected again, as well as put everything on some kind of power switch so that when we have our lab-wide outage it'll be easy to just flick things on/off (as opposed to reaching behind big, heavy things to yank plugs from the wall). With the power off we were able to move racks around to allow enough of a gap to finally get the old E3500 out of there (the late, great galileo) - it had been collecting dust in the corner for years. Speaking of dust, we also vacuumed.

But of course there were issues, which is to be expected when powering many massive servers off and on. We discovered jocelyn lost contact with its fibre-channel RAID (where the BOINC database resides). After some head scratching we realized this was due to fibre-channel support being lost in the recently upgraded kernel. We booted to an older kernel and it was fine. As I write this, both ewen (Eric's hydrogen database server) and thumper are doing forced checks of large disk volumes - that might take all night during which certain parts of our project will have to remain offline. We'll probably run out of work before too long. Apparently we need to turn off the forced checks. We also had some routing problems upon rebooting the Cisco but we quickly remembered that you have to do a "magic ping" to wake up the next hop and then traffic pushed through.

- Matt

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Thanks for the feedback.

Even in Antarctica people were waiting for servers. ;)

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Mandtugai!

Sounds like you guys got a lot accomplished this afternoon. With all those cables organized instead of in a big mess, you may notice better air flow in the closet too.

I would investigate the kernel upgrade...why did it happen originally? Perhaps there is a kernel module or patch that can be added to include the Fibre support, if you still need this upgrade for some other reason.

Lucky for me, I got 6 WU before the pipes dried up. :) Good luck for the real upgrades tomorrow. I'm sure the hard work done today will be helpful.

Thanks for the update Matt / Berkeley . . . You All had your work cut out for you Today eh!

Matt - is that from Producer Keith Souza: 'Kiss Me Red CD' - Like Stars

or is 'Promenade au Fond d'un Canal' a reference to Analyse de l'oeuvre de David Lynch ;)

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Title of a song by Belgian group Present. Highly recommended for people who like chords with both major sevenths and minor ninths.

- Matt

Matt - is that from Producer Keith Souza: 'Kiss Me Red CD' - Like Stars

or is 'Promenade au Fond d'un Canal' a reference to Analyse de l'oeuvre de David Lynch ;)

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

We also had some routing problems upon rebooting the Cisco but we quickly remembered that you have to do a "magic ping" to wake up the next hop and then traffic pushed through.

Have you looked into an IOS update for this? Recently we had a Cisco router that was doing funky things, and everything we tried did nothing to correct the issue. On a whim (after 6 months of it being tested over and over, even by Cisco) we did an IOS update and all the issues disappeared.

Just a thought.

Thanks Matt . . . now i just have to get the sheets . . . btw - really great music



'PRESENT' - A GREAT INHUMANE ADVENTURE (CD on Cuneiform)

Track Listings
1. Delusions (14:46)
2. Alone (10:58)
3. Le Poison Qui Rend Fou (10:16)
4. Laundry Blues (13:01)
5. Promenade au Fond d'un Canal (23:33) MP3

I'm not sure whether releases on Cuneiform Records were ever reviewed for the Vital Weekly. So may be a few words on this label to start with.

Steven Feigenbaum started it in 1984. Before he ran the small Random Radar Records together with the Muffins. In it's 20 years of existence the
Cuneiform label profiled itself with releases that cover progressive and experimental rock, new jazz, off_beat, contemporary and other undefinable
music. All this with new releases on the one hand (Curlew, Hamster Theatre, Ahvak, etc.) and with archival releases on the other hand (Soft Machine,
Richard Pinhas, Stickmen, etc.).

Their third release was the second album by Present called 'Le poison qui rend fou' (1985), later to be rereleased together with their first album on cd.
Present is the project led by the belgian guitarist and composer Roger Trigaux, who started his career as a member of Univers Zero (also on Cuneiform). Now,
some 20 years later Cuneiform offers their 4th Present-release, being the 8th album by this enigmatic group. Since the belgian Lowlands label premiered in
1993 with the come-back cd 'COD Performance', an album by Trigaux and son, Present started a very remarkable second life. If you classify them as a avant
rock, RIO-styled, group you may think this is music from the past. But let me assure you that Present's music no doubt still is very much music from now.
The group has a 'présence' that offers you no escape. With each album Present leads us further into their dark and hellish universe. Yes, they are still
growing in my view. Knowing this group for more than 20 years I was incredible happy to have the opportunity to see them live at last. This was in june
in a basement in the centre of Bruxelles. They surpassed all my expectations. What a great band! All musicians were very dedicated, including the new
reed player Pierre Desassis. The music is of a great urgency and has a great emotional impact. Their compositions are immediately catching, how
complex the polyrhythmic structures may be. The live experience makes clear this is a real rock band who avoid fortunately all of the rock
and roll cliches. So I'm happy their new album 'A great inhumane adventure' is a live album. The excellent recordings were made in
Baltimore during their tour in 1998.

The album opens with 'Delusions' from their - at that moment - most recent lp 'Certitudes' (1997). It closes with their classic 'Promenade au fond d'un canal'
from their first lp. In between we find three compositions from the second, third and fourth album. Comparing them the compositional homogenity and continuity
is striking.

We hear Trigaux and son dueling on guitar. Pierre Chevalier on keyboards. Jean-Pierre Mendes on bass, replaced by Keith Macksoud in the last track .

He is Present's recent bassplayer. Drummer is Dave Kerman we know form 5UU's, U Totem, etc.

In most compositions Trigaux leads us step to step to a climax. Repetitive patterns are hammered out furiously on drums, bass and keyboards.
Trigaux and son weave their guitar threads into the rhythmic patterns. At moments the music reaches an breathtaking intensity and incredible depth.
Are there no weak spots, you may ask? Off course there are. Trigaux is not the greatest singer, like for example in the ballad 'Alone'. But halfway
the track accelerates into a burning instrumental journey. Present offers some of the most intelligent and appealing rock music you can want for the
21st century. (DM)

'Vital Weekly' is published by Frans de Waard

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

We also had some routing problems upon rebooting the Cisco but we quickly remembered that you have to do a "magic ping" to wake up the next hop and then traffic pushed through.

- Matt

So it appears that there is no "easy" replacement to doing this? (How about a .BAT file that executes upon reboots?, asks the relatively uninformed cruncher.)

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...How about a .BAT file that executes upon reboots?, ...

Ooooer... That's so Windows-esq

:-/

But still a good idea.


There's the option of a "(Vixi)cron @boot ping wherever", Or even a ping in the equivalent rc.local or wherever.

Or there is the very good excuse of setting up ping traces charted up by nagios to monitor all manner of LAN stuff...

;-)


And then where is there time for a beer?

:-)


Cheers,
Martin


(OK, so I guess Matt is likely already onto that one.)

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