Computing
In the Residencia: preparing your OBs
Eight Linux PCs have been set up for visiting astronomers in the Residencia to prepare their OBs using the P2PP tool. There is one visas account per PC and the boxes are spread throughout four offices:
Box name Account Location ============================ fett visas1 Office 14, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool) chewbacca visas2 Office 14, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool) c3p0 visas3 Office 12, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool) r2d2 visas4 Office 12, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool) boba visas5 Office 10, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool) alder visas6 Office 10, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool) lott visas7 Office 8, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool) yoda visas8 Office 8, level -3 (below reception, facing the pool)
You can login on the machine for which you have been assigned an account upon your arrival. This machine gives access to the external network via netscape, ssh, telnet, ftp and ncftp. From your PC you have access to the printer laser2, which is located in the room next to the library (same floor as the offices).
The visitor PCs have been installed with P2PP, Fims, etc. and a collection of scientific data reduction packages, called SciSoft. In addition a few useful non-scientific applications are available such as xv, latex, gv, soffice and acroread. Please check Paranal's Data Reduction Software page for details. As of P89, visitors on UT2 prepare their observations with P2PP version 3.
Your support astronomer is available to assist you with your OB preparation in P2PP if you have questions. When you finish preparing your OBs, please export them to the p2pp-impex directory. If you have your OBs already prepared upon arrival to Paranal, transfer them to the visitor machine (e.g. via USB stick), import them into P2PP (to have basic compatibility checks performed), and then export them to the p2pp-impex directory.
In the VLT Control Room
P2PP and FIMS are run on wu#dhs (# represents the UT1-4), or on wvgdhs for the VLTI. Your support astronomer ftps your OBs from your visas account in the residencia to the wu#dhs machine in the control room and imports the OBs into the P2PP on wu#dhs. Both workstations wu#dhs and wgsoff# (wvgdhs and wvgoff for the VLTI) have access to the printer laser1, in the control room.Data Reduction Software
For a quick-look data reduction you are invited to use the offline workstation wgsoff# (wvgoff for the VLTI) where the data are transfered automatically during the night. See Data Reduction Software to find out what is installed on the wgsoff#/wvgoff workstation and how to use this software.Connecting a Private Laptop
If you bring your own laptop you can connect it to the network from your assigned visas-office, your room (ask for a cable at the reception) and during your run in the control room at the UT console you are observing (only one laptop can be connected per UT console).Support relating to laptop connection can be requested from DCS (phone nr. 5959).
If you plan to use MS-Windows, you must have your laptop scanned and certified before connecting it to the ESO network. Please contact DCS (phone nr. 5959) to organize this.
Whether you use Windows, MacOS-X or Linux, you need to make sure that the network configuration has been set to DHCP. The laptop will then be assigned an IP nr automatically.
Sending emails: The ESO Policy for sending emails, in force from 03 March 2008, prevents visiting astronomers from using a server at their home institute for sending mail.
There will not be any restrictions for the reception of emails. To send emails, there will be the following possibilities:
- use a server with webmail interface,
- set up a private VPN connection with the home institute,
- use the server in ESO Garching. No identification is needed, only a 5' setup that can be done by HelpDesk.
Transferring Data to Your Laptop
It is possible for you to download your data to your laptop from the offline workstation in the control room (wgsoff#/wvgoff). You will need to install the DfsExport Tool to do this. Please see this page. A less comfortable but feasible alternative is to manually scp / rsync / ftp the data from the offline workstation to your laptop. In all cases, you need to make sure that any software-firewall on your laptop is configured to allow incoming connections, and you know the IP nr of the laptop.- On Linux type /sbin/ifconfig eth0 to display the IP nr.
- On Windows select Start->Run and type ipconfig to display the IP nr.