This page contains an overview of the machine and an everyday log of what is being done. Later there will be more accurate documentation.

The machine has 3 disks.

• One M.2 (SSD) for boot and system in raid 1 with the one below (3 copies of the system, but we will see if of any use)
• Two U.2 (SSD) in RAID1 for user homes
• a large capacity RAID6 for data, ~60TB

See description in this graph below.

             .------------------------------------------.
             |              M.2 Disk 250GB              |
             |------------------------------------------|
  .----------| Main system disk - boot /                |                              SW RAID1
  |          | operating system                         |-------------------------------------------------------------.
  |          | /swap                                    |                                                             |
  |          | /ahome (admin home separated from users) |                                                             |
  |          '------------------------------------------'                                                             |
  |                                                                                                                   |
  |   SW RAID1                                                                                                        |
  |         .----------------------------------------.                  .----------------------------------------.    |
  |         |            U.2 disk 1 960GB            |                  |            U.2 disk 2 960GB            |    |
  |         |----------------------------------------|                  |----------------------------------------|    |
  |         | - User folders /home 700GB             |<---------------->| - User folders /home 700GB             |    |
  |         | -------------------------------------- |     SW RAID1     | -------------------------------------- |    |
  --------->| - copy of boot disk (bootable) / 100GB |                  | - copy of boot disk (bootable) / 100GB |<---'
            |   copy of /ahome 100GB260GB            |<---------------->|   copy of /ahome 100GB                 |
            '----------------------------------------'                  '----------------------------------------'



                          .------------------------------------------------.
               __________ |      RAID6 storage - 8x 12TB disks /disk       | __________ 
              [_|||||||_°]|------------------------------------------------|[_|||||||_°]
              [_|||||||_°]| - 7x 12TB in RAID6 -> 60TB (50-55 usable)      |[_|||||||_°]
              [_|||||||_°]| - 1x 12TB spare                                |[_|||||||_°]
                          '------------------------------------------------'

One can login to the machine as it does with aurora.

Additionally admins can login to a separate monitor machine to check the status of hardware components. This machine will also send warnings in case of issues.

                                       ____   __             
                                      |    | |==|            
                  .------Admins------>|____| |  |  HW Monitor
                  |                   /::::/ |__|            
                  |                              |
              __  _                              |<monitoring>
     o       [__]|=|                             v
    /|\      /::/|_|                ________                    
    / \                            |==|=====|                   
         Own laptop / teddi        |  |     |                   
                  |                |  |     |                   
                  |                |  |     |  ALICE new machine
                  '--Researchers-->|  |     |                   
                                   |  |====°|                   
                                   |__|_____|                   
                                                                
                                                                

Florido will take care of OS installation and hardware maintenance/monitoring. This info will be shared with ALICE admins. ALICE admins will have access as root and control any parameter they want.

• Configure networking: DONE
• Configure maintenance interface: DONE
• Configure HW monitoring server: ongoing
  • Configure machine os and services DONE
  • Configure hardware monitoring
  • Configure user access to monitor
    • add NIS auth but with local folders? VS dedicated user with access to specific hw?
• Install system: DONE
• Create RAID6: DONE
  • Find best settings, discuss with users DONE
• Configure system: ongoing DONE
  • Configure firewall DONE
  • Test fallback operating system in case of failure
  • Configure config management system. Testing ansible DONE
    • Enable snmp monitoring DONE
      • add server to monitor DONE
  • Create admin users ongoing DONE
    • generic alice user DONE
    • give admin permissions to relevant alice users DONE
  • Format and connect RAID6 disk DONE
  • Configure RAID monitoring DONE
• User services (tasks mainly to be done by admin users): DONE
  • Create users DONE
  • Create folders DONE
  • Share folders across servers (requires installing new services)
  • Install ALICE software DONE by ALICE members
    • More details here
  • Move data DONE helped with more performing script
• Documentation
  • Write a page on how to manage the system
    • Started on alicebeast
    • Must be only accessible by admins
    • Must include system description above here
    • Must describe common procedures
    • Ask if users want remote X11 - NO

• new entry

• Configured RAID monitoring

• Configured system to be managed remotely via ansible
  • Changed sshd_config
  • Added management keys to root user
  • Management currently done via my workstation, may change in the future.
• Installed basic software
• Created alice admin user
• Installed basic build software

• Formatted RAID volume as xfs

  mkfs.xfs -f -d su=1m,sw=5 -L alicedisk /dev/sda

  • Shows a warning but should be harmless

• created folder /disk
• created entry in fstab for disk based on UUID:

  # RAID disk
  UUID=0d4a40e5-084e-404f-9219-6c3645929ec2 /disk                   xfs     rw,seclabel,relatime,attr2,inode64,sunit=2048,swidth=10240,noquota 0 0

• configured server network and hostname: beast
• Installed storcli RAID management tool from Vendor website
  • https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/raid-controllers/megaraid-9460-8i
  • https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/007.1316.0000.0000_Unified_StorCLI_PUL.zip
  • Sw installed in /opt/MegaRAID/storcli/
  • For brevity added alias storcli in root .bashrc
• Created array volume with 1024k strip size for very large files

  storcli /c0 add vd r6 name=alicedisk drives=133:0-6 Strip=1024

  • Note: initialization takes 13h
  • Raid volume name in storcli:/c0/v0
• Created hotspare (disk that kicks in if one breaks)

  storcli /c0/e133/s7 add hotsparedrive

• Written few notes on storcli in MegaRAID storcli QR

• Configured server network. Current hostname: alice
• Configured remote access to monitor using X2GO client-server technology. Works nicely.
• Reset maintenance interface. Tested ok. Custom tools not working but web browser interface ok.
• Installed system. Configured RAID1 on system disks. Upgraded system.
• Configured basic firewall.

• Created monitor machine
• Placed monitor machine in C165
• Connected monitor machine to server
• Configured RAID6. Experimental. More info needed from users. Disks working but disk lights not blinking, contacted Compliq.
• Configured remote access to monitor. Not working, better solution required
• Configured remote access to server maintenance interface. Not working, requires reset. First attempt failed due to network config missing.

• Server arrived. Placed in C165.
• Inspected hardware and disk bays
• Provided electric connectivity
• Provided network connectivity
• First boot successfull