KlosterCluster News

The cluster is up and running

Some impressions on the current results and work in progress.

Since today all cluster nodes are up and running. Firmware and operating system updates have been performed and the administrative ssh key is distributed. NExt step is to enable LDAP and the nfs home directories on the compute nodes. This setups can be distributed via scripts.

This group is working on analyzing the numerical convergence properties of their version of the daisyworld:

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This is work done towards a temperature measurement driven air condition control unit:

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Distribution of the administrators ssh keys on the cluster nodes for the distributed shell:

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And here are two pictures of the cluster:

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Note the custom designed power distribution boards:

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Design sketch of the KlosterCluster network

The network connection of the cluster must be designed independent of the school’s LAN and still be transparently connected to the WAN.

First thing has been that the infrastructure inside the school cannot be accessed from the outside.
The solution to this problem is the hosting of the collaborative communication tools on a Web-server
at DKRZ – klostercluster.dkrz.de. The tools used for the joined work are:

  • WordPress for the documentation of the project
  • Redmine for management of the software project and later the handling of the software packages to develop
  • Gitlab – for handling all software and documents to be versioned

The next component we need to get up and running is the management- and bastion-server, which is used as the router between the school LAN and the cluster side LAN. The basic setup is given in the following figure:

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Pupils exchange and starting the cosmic ray muon detector

During the last week a group of pupils from Istanbul in Turkey have been visiting the Physik-Profil of the Klosterschule and started the muon detector for the Kulturnacht.

If you like to find out more on the muon detector, you could visit:

The cosmic ray muon detector e-lab site.

Today we have been visiting the Town Hall of Hamburg and finally we made some photos of the whole group.

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First time starting power supply unit

Here are the images of the first time we have been powering up the RapberryPis. Here you can see the three of the four racks of Pis:

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The PSU has been connected with the power distribution boards and the first USB power cable:

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And finally the first connected and booting Raspberry Pi:

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This part of the project has been made possible by:

  • Power distribution: Livia, Liv, and Thekla
  • Pi racks: Jorim, Hinrich, Jakob, and Quinten

First 4 RaspberryPis booted

The power supply group Livia, Liv, and Thekla got the connection and control circuits for the RaspberryPis power supply finished. The four required boards (16 connectors) have been soldered and connected to the first four RaspberryPis which had already a SDCard with Raspbian available.

Jorim has build up the vertical stacks of the RaspberryPis with spacers and prepared the SDCards.

Images will follow by next Thursday.

Lötübung, 2013-09-19

Hier sind zwei Bilder unseres Lötkurses:

Im ersten Bild sind zwei saubere Lötstellen. Die eine noch mit Draht und die andere bereits mit abgeschnittenem. Die Form des Lötzinns entspricht genau der geforderten. Um die Farbe des Lötzinns erkennen zu können, sind die Farben des Fotos leider nicht gut genug. Sie entsprechen der Vorgabe.

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Im zweiten Bild ist im Zentrum eine kalte Lötstelle zu erkennen. Das Lötzinn verbindet nicht den Draht im Loch mit der kupfernen LEiterbahn auf der Platine. Hier wird kein Strom geleitet. Ursache ist ein mangelndes Erwärmen des Drahtes gleichzeitig mit dem Kupfer der Leiterbahn.

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