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Table of Contents
CHPC Ranger System Administration Course
- When: 24 to 28 March 2014
- Where: CHPC, Cape Town
The CHPC is looking to distribute small compute clusters to groups that could benefit from having access to such hardware for training users in HPC basics before they need access to large clusters such as the CHPC. As part of this objective we have created 12 node clusters by breaking up racks of compute hardware that used to make up the Ranger supercomputer. This training course will cover the topics necessary for hosting a rack of Ranger hardware, such as, a hardware overview and the data-center preparation details both of which are specific to Ranger. We include a generic software stack that can be used for managing most small clusters but which has been selected as our recommendation for managing the Ranger hardware.
Course Outline
Introduction and Background
- Cluster Basics (with Ranger Specific hardware overview) and Software Stack overview
- Networking Configuration for Ranger
- Data-center Preparation for Ranger
Node Provisioning
- Cobbler: Usage, demonstration and re-creating practical
Change Management
- Concepts of Change Management
- Software options
- Example usage and modules
Cluster Software Configuration
- Required software for managment
- NAT
- NTP
- NFS
- LDAP
- Ganglia
- Torque
- Configuration examples
Cluster Usage
- Torque scheduler usage
- Benchmarking
Limited Places
There are only 18 available places in this course owing to its intensive volume of content and practical focus. For this reason, we may not be able to accept all the applicants from the same group.
Prerequisites
- Linux environment knowledge
- HPC usage knowledge
- Familiarity with IP networking
Application Forms
Application Forms to be made available on Monday 3rd March 2014 Applications Close on Friday the 14th March to ensure enough time for travel arrangements.
