System Administration
SBGrid provides system administration for the servers and individual workstations in your lab. We provide ongoing support and maintenance of these machines to ensure their reliability, security and performance, and to ensure that your data is safe and accessible.
We typically deploy Linux systems running CentOS, and Apple systems running Mac OS X. These machines include access to network accounts, so any user with an account in the lab can log in. We have carefully configured these systems to integrate with the SBGrid programs environment. Structural biology applications on both operating systems are located in the /programs directory (see below). General applications can be found in the /Applications folder (on OS X) or in the Applications menu (on CentOS).
In addition to hardware and operating system maintenance, we provide support for:
- Network user accounts, so you can log in to machines in your lab.
- Email mailing lists, so you can contact the members of your lab and receive information regarding SBGrid services.
- Computational nodes, for analyzing data.
- Assistance with scripting and configuration of specialized applications.
Lab Computers Overview
SBGrid maintains four linux workstations running CentOS linux. These machines are located in the imaging room on the 3rd floor of CLS. Tsl10-12 are configured with CRT monitors for viewing with 3-D glasses. Tsl1 is configured with a Zalman 3-D LCD system and requires the Zalman glasses for 3-D viewing.
A commercial license for HKL2000 is installed on Tsl11
Backups
SBGrid does not supply backups at IDI. Backups are performed by IDI IT. If you need help recovering files, please contact the IDI IT group through their help ticket system by sending an email to it@idi.harvard.edu.
Remote Access
Remote SSH access is available through blade.idiit.org
Structural Biology applicatons
SBGrid also provides an extensive collection of scientific software. On each workstation, the programs are mounted at /programs. In most cases, you will easily be able to run any program in the collection by opening up a terminal shell, and typing the name of the program that you want to run. Linux applications are installed in the /programs/i386-linux subdirectory. Mac applications are installed in the /programs/i386-mac subdirectory (for intel macs) or the /programs/powermac subdirectory (for PPC macs).
Most of the software titles installed in the SBGrid Suite have several versions available. Typically, we try to provide at least three versions of each software package, although very old or very new applications may have fewer versions. To override the default version, follow the instructions posted to the SBGrid Consortium website.
Commonly used applications
Aside from structural biology applications, the following system tools are commonly used by SBGrid members and are included in your workstation software installation:
Linux:
- gedit (text editing)
- gimp (image editing)
- acroread -- "Adobe Reader" (reading PDFs)
- firefox (Web-Browsing)
- oowriter, ooimpress, oocalc -- "Open-Office" (Word processing, slideshows, spreadsheets)
OSX:
- TextWrangler (text editing) Adobe Photoshop (image editing)
- Adobe Reader (reading PDFs)
- Cyberduck (SFTP, FTP)
- Firefox (Web Browsing)
- Microsoft Office (Word processing, slideshows, spreadsheets)
Recommended UNIX tutorial
New to UNIX? You can read the first few chapters of this tutorial to understand the basics of the UNIX command line: http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/
How to contact us
You may contact SBGrid by sending an email to help@sbgrid.org, or by using the contact form.