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The Lofar Login Environment (LLE)
This page describes the standard login environment for new users on the LOFAR cluster nodes. Existing accounts can be easily modified; see below for a manual to do this.
General
The Lofar Login Environment sets a few things for your account, and allows you to easily initialise often used packages and tools at login time. To this purpose we provide a few simple standardized login-scripts.
Use (t)csh or bash!
To be able to use the LLE environment you must either use a (t)csh
or bash
login shell. We do not support scripts for any other shells.
What to do when you get an account
(t)csh
If you have chosen for the (t)csh
shell, you do as follows:
- Log in to the frontend node
lhn001
orlfe001
and go to your (empty)$HOME
directory > ln -s /opt/cep/login/cshrc .cshrc
.- Log out and login again; you should see a welcome message (and no errors…).
bash
If you have chosen for the bash
shell, you do as follows:
- Log in to
lhn001
orlhd002
and go to your (empty)$HOME
directory > ln -s /opt/cep/login/bashrc .bashrc
- Log out and login again; you should see a welcome message (and no errors…).
How to transform existing accounts?
To use the LLE in an existing account, rename your existing .cshrc
or .bashrc
in your $HOME
and follow the instructions given above.
Make sure that possibly existing files $HOME/.login
, $HOME/.setenv
and $HOME/.alias
that you still want to use at login time are renamed to $HOME/.mylogin
, $HOME/.mysetenv
, $HOME/.myalias
.
The LLE scripts
Some of the details are presented here.
What is $APS_LOCAL ?
The root directory for the scripts is provided in environment variable $APS_LOCAL
, whose value is set in the .cshrc
and .bashrc
scripts. The actual value is:
- CEP processing clusters (CEP1, CEP2, CEP3):
/opt/cep
Login scripts
In directory ${APS_LOCAL}/login
are a number of default login scripts. The scripts ending with .bash
are for the bash
shell, the others for the (t)csh
shell:
cshrc
→ sets APS_LOCAL and calls the other scriptslogin
→ Displays welcome message; no settingssetenv
→ adds some items to $PATH, sets your prompt, etc.alias
→ some default aliases to make life easysetpackages
→ script to define packages to initialize at login-time
Users should NEVER modify these default scripts at this location!
Personal command aliasses: .myalias
Personal command aliases can be added to a file $HOME/.myalias
. When this file exists, the .cshrc
or .bashrc
script will read this file after reading the default ${APS_LOCAL}/login/alias(.bash)
.
Personal environment settings: .mysetenv
Personal extensions to $PATH
, personal environment variables, personal prompt setting, or overloaded existing environment variables should be done in a file $HOME/.mysetenv
. If this file exists, the cshrc or bashrc script will read this file.
Package initialisation
Many packages are available from the distribution of the Operating System. Several packages are added lateron. To activate these, environment variables like PATH
, LD_LIBRARY_PATH
, PYTHONPATH
must be set correctly. To help you, we have created package initialization scripts that you can call to set these parameters correctly.
A list of packages available on the offline processing cluster can be found on this page.
On the commandline
To initialize a package, you must know the name of the initialization file. These can be found in directory ${APS_LOCAL}/scripts
. An example of such a filename is doLofIm
. This file initializes the LofIm
package. You can execute it by typing:
> use LofIm
It can be quite cumbersome to have to initialize all your required packages each time in each shell window you open. Therefore we have made available an option to initialize a list of packages at login time.
For packages that are build daily and that have a version available for all days of the week (LUS, LofIm), you can also specify a day of week on the commandline:
> use LofIm Tue
.mypackages
To initialize the use of installed packages at login time you must create a file $HOME/.mypackages
. If this file exists, it is used by the LLE script setpackages
.
In the directory ${APS_LOCAL}/scripts
you will find available package initialization scripts, named like do<package>
(e.g., doCasa
, doLofIm
). Whenever you add a package to the file $HOME/.mypackages
, the associated script in $APS_LOCAL/scripts
will be source
'd.
The file $HOME/.mypackages
can look like this example:
Casa LofIm
Provide only one package per line. Also note the use of <package>
and do<package>
; both are accepted. If an initialization script for a package cannot be found, it will be reported to the user.
For packages that are build daily and that have a version available for all days of the week (LUS, LofIm), you can also specify a day of week in the .mypackages
file:
LofIm Tue
How to add a personal package
Apart from the systemwide do<package>
files provided in directory $APS_LOCAL/scripts
, users can add their personal do<package>
files in their $HOME
and have these run at login time. If there is a do<package>
file both in $HOME
and in $APS_LOCAL/scripts
, the version in $HOME
has preference and will be executed. This can be used to test a different version of a package, etc… To add a new, personal, package, act as follows:
- Install the package
- Create a
$HOME/do<package>
initialization script (e.g., adding the installation directory to your$PATH
) - Add <package> to the list of packages in file
$HOME/.mypackages
Starting X environment
To start up an X environment you have to make sure that
- The files
$HOME/.xinitrc
and$HOME/.xsession
are removed
Determine the colordepth that you need (8, 16, 24 bit display) and type:
startx -- :1 -depth <colordepth>
This should start your X environment at the proper colordepth. This will create an additional X Server next to the one you are already running. You can access this with Alt-F8 or Cntl-Alt-F8. The F7 variant will give you back your normal X.
Due to the large latency and largte bandwidth required for X-traffic, it is advisable to connect to the CEP systems with the NX
-client on your system. See this page for more info.
Help!
If you need help, or have questions, or want to give any other comments, contact Arno Schoenmakers or Adriaan Renting.
New do<xxxx>
-files can be added at any time if you have a new package that should be available systemwide. Contact Arno Schoenmakers or Adriaan Renting in this case.