Computing Services Team Activity for the Period 2/02 to 5/02 - MEC - 5/22/02 HET Spiesman and Odoms continued work on moving baffle. It will probably be ready for science commissioning following the engineering run scheduled for the week of 28 May. That run will focus on TCS and ICE integration, and completion of the GUI. Wilkinson wrote code to automate DIMM data reduction. Spiesman began work on the baffle documentation. Odoms added support for the iodine gas cell heater to the HRS ICE package. Zhang began work fixing bugs in HET TCS, starting with the implementation of guide corrections, and problems with socket communications. Odoms wrote a PMAC device driver for Linux, for first application in the MARS2 instrument. Spiesman modified the baffle control system to assist in Hartmann testing of the HET optics. Wilkinson began work on night report templates to ease reporting of complex tasks such as stacking. Mt. Locke Operations Odoms worked with MacQueen's group to complete ICE v2 support on the new PCI-based Sun workstations, and completed support for TK3 and TK4. Cornell and Crook installed a new data acquisition Sun at the 82-inch. Odoms and Cornell worked with A. Cochran and Barker to release the new ATOG control software GUI and ICE interface. Cornell, MacQueen, and Hill identified a replacement camera for the 107-inch PXL. Cornell and Collins purchased the new camera and a computer to control it. Hardware to mount the new camera in the ATOG was designed with significant help from Boyd and Doss and will be fabricated this week by Welborn. Odoms ported our existing autoguider software from Solaris to linux and is integrating it with a driver library written by Dave Mills from NOAO. Wilkinson installed the new control computer. Zhang fixed some bugs in the 107-inch TCS system, and ported that software from LynxOS to linux, so that we will have better hardware support in the future. Wilkinson, Odoms, and Spiesman are working to set up a linux/PMAC development system to begin testing this code. A goal is to test the linux port on the telescope next trimester. Wilkinson worked with the VC staff to refine the heliostat track rates and operating procedures. Cornell and Anderson released a new web page for documentation from our group: http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/computer. Austin Operations Anderson took over maintenance of the Department and Observatory web pages when Vargas departed in January. New or updated pages included pages for Spring/Summer/Fall 2002 courses, all people pages, the McDonald observer information page, the travel pages (including a new page to list current travelers), new research group pages and research group members pages, library page, and ADS/astro-ph links on the faculty page. Wilkinson developed new linux installation procedures, and worked on techniques to ease patch distribution. Schaefer patched a bunch of linux boxes, including zantac with Wilkinson's help. Schaefer, Cornell, and Wilkinson began work on the design for our next generation gradxx server. Cornell and Collins purchased and installed new computers, disks, and printers for Evans' group, including an elaborate disk-to-disk backup scheme. Wilkinson began supporting Windows XP. Schaefer took over Mac support from Vargas, and worked on problems/upgrades/installations for 7 systems. Wilkinson and Schaefer installed new virus software for public PCs and Macs. Collins and Cornell purchased a bunch of new Sun equipment as part of their annual matching grant program. A new linux PC was purchased and set up by Wilkinson as a database server for the library. That project is currently on hold pending a new release of the software library used to build the current online catalog. Schaefer arranged for network ports in the new instrument lab, and in the WET lab, and began planning for those needed by the incoming graduate students. Collins supervised at least three service visits for Sneden's possessed laptop. Cornell pried some more 100 Mbit network ports out of the College of Natural Sciences. Wilkinson developed new network monitoring capabilities. Schaefer surplused a lot of dead equipment. Cornell dealt with a couple rounds of hacker attacks on the department Suns. Wilkinson, Cornell, and Tufts developed a plan to build a 1 terrabyte disk array for the graduate student computers, to be funded by Cox. Purchasing is underway. Schaefer created scripts to archive and delete old astro accounts, and Collins used them to clean out many inactive users. Cornell installed another computer in Kormendy's home network and solved some problems caused there by lightning damage. Schaefer installed email filtering software on astro, in an attempt to help several people with their spam problems. Wilkinson and Schaefer did a lot of system maintenance on the Suns and PCs, including replacing disks, enclosures, memory, resolving printer and modem problems, etc. Spiesman gave notice that he is leaving us to work on a SIRTF grant as of 9/1. Collins purchased 3 Sun workstations, 12 monitors, 8 PCs, 3 Macs, 14 disks, 3 printers, 2 tape drives, a UPS, plus lots of memory, computer cards, cables, software, and supplies, and coordinated numerous repairs during the period, including a large number of tape drive and printer repairs.