March 09, 2015

Today's topics:

Improved CUDA support in CLASSE Compute Farm

The CUDA resources in the CLASSE GridEngine Compute Farm are now available to both batch and interactive jobs. This required a slight change to how you request a CUDA resource when submitting a job.

To request a single CUDA resource when submitting a job, add -l cuda_free=1 to your qsub or qrsh command. For example, qsub -l cuda_free=1 myscript.sh or qrsh -l cuda_free=1 . For more on submitting CUDA, batch, interactive, and parallel jobs to the CLASSE Compute Farm, please see GridEngine. For more on CUDA support at CLASSE, please see CUDA.

Renewed SSL Certificates

On Tuesday, 3/10, the SSL certificates for the following services will be renewed. Depending on the configuration of your client, you may be prompted to accept the new certificate once after it's been updated.

• accserv.lepp.cornell.edu
• lnx120.lepp.cornell.edu
• webdb.lepp.cornell.edu
• hypernews.lepp.cornell.edu
• edms.classe.cornell.edu

Firefox v36 problems resolved

Last week we reported that Firefox v36 was incompatible with many of Cornell's central services. CIT discovered that the problem was caused by Firefox exceeding some limit in Cornell's central Web load balancers. As a workaround, the limit has been raised in the load balancers.

Ignore Windows OpenVPN option "Generate a static OpenVPN key"

When the newest OpenVPN client software is installed on a Windows computer, the option "Generate a static OpenVPN key" appears in the Start Menu. Ignore it. It is an administrative option which is only useful when generating a point-to-point test configuration for a new VPN. The new key is not used for an existing VPN like the one CLASSE uses. Selecting the option does no harm: it just wastes CPU cycles.

Expanded Newsletter Content on our Blog

Remember our Blog? We mentioned it a few newsletters ago. Well, now the first post is available to expand on previous newsletter content - that of network speeds. Our extended newsletter content category is here: http://blogs.cornell.edu/classeit/category/newsletter-extended-content/ ... The current post is here: http://blogs.cornell.edu/classeit/2015/03/09/understanding-network-slowness-issues/

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General network and server maintenance will occur every Tuesday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM. The CLASSE-IT group will always announce any expected disruptions in our NewsLetter and via CLASSE-IT-NEWS-L, but with the size and complexity of our network there is always the potential for something to go wrong. We will do our best to contain all network maintenance and planned outages to Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM.

Unless other arrangements have been made, CLASSE-managed Windows systems may be updated and rebooted on Tuesday morning at 2:00 AM, so please avoid critical or lengthy operations at that time. For more details, please see SystemExpectations.

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Questions or problems? Submit a service request.

Other resources:

• CLASSE IT Home Page
• Previous newsletters

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