Skip to main content Skip to navigation

EPSRC CDT in Modelling of Heterogeneous Systems - HetSys

Computing

Computing Accounts

Please register for scientific computing accounts via the links below. You will first need to be signed in via your Warwick IT services account.

  • SCRTP account. Required immediately! Use the Department of your primary supervisor, or their research group if it has a specific entry, as your affiliation.
  • SCRTP HPC account: Use the Department of your primary supervisor as your affiliation. Not immediately required, only register when you need high performance computing access.

Laptops

Installation of required packages

Your HetSys-provided laptop is preinstalled with Ubuntu 20.04, with 100 GB of free space left on the drive in case you want to install Windows yourself. The script below has already been run for you to install a number of useful packages.

For WiFi access follow the ITS Linux instructions, noting that the certificate to be used has recently changed from QuoVadis_Root_CA_G3.pem to Comodo_AAA_Services_root.pem.

Docking Stations

The HetSys desks in the workspace in D215 have been equipped with docking stations that are compatible with the HetSys-provided laptops. Upon connecting the USB cable from the docking station to the laptop, you should find it automatically connects to ethernet and the wireless keyboard and mouse.

However, enabling the display takes a little more work. Please note: until you have had a chance to do this, it is fine to move the HDMI cable from the docking station to directly connecting to the laptop.

To load the displaylink drivers for the docking station, please download the Ubuntu driver from this page

and run the script below (noting caveats in the comments):

Printing

Start by running the printer setup script here. Then, read the instructions provided by IT Services. The script should have already downloaded and unzipped the driver file so it should be easy to locate. Please note there is a typo in the IT Services leaflet: it should show forward slashes "/" rather than backslashes "\" in the paths to the print servers and the usernames. Note the unusual username format!

Backing up your laptop

Here are some notes from Chris Woodgate (Cohort 1) on backing up your laptop.
My policy is to keep everything important and work related in one folder off my home directory in my laptop. So I have a folder ~/PhD where I keep everything important on my laptop. Make this folder, and remember to keep everything you want to back up in there!
Then, to back up:

First, ssh into your SCRTP homespace:

ssh phrxyz@godzilla.csc.warwick.ac.uk

Replace `phrxyz` with your SCRTP username. You will be prompted for your SCRTP password. I am lazy so I have a list of remote machines I commonly use in a file called config in my ~/.ssh directory (Google it!). That way I can just run ssh godzilla rather than typing out the whole address. godzilla is just a login machine for the SCRTP system.

Then, navigate to your home directory:

cd

Create a folder to which you will back up. I call mine laptop_backup. Keep it in your SCRTP home directory if you want to keep your life simple!

mkdir ~/laptop_backup

Then disconnect from Godzilla:

exit

Now, in your home directory, you are finally ready to backup the contents of the PhD folder. Run the command:

rsync -rv --delete PhD/ phrxyz@godzilla.csc.warwick.ac.uk:~/laptop_backup

-r means recursive (it digs down into folders). -v means verbose (you can see the progress rsync is making). --delete makes rsync delete files which are present on the SCRTP folder which are not present in your work folder (use with care: don't get the two folders the wrong way around!). This command will typically be slow the first time you use it because it has to copy everything, but quicker later on as it only copies files which have changed.

There will be a way to set this to happen automatically but I haven't bothered with that yet; I just try to remember to do it when I finish my work for the day. The SCRTP system is backed up by people who know what they're doing, so once your files are on that system they should be very safe.