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PNCE: Computer Use Policies
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Acceptable Use Policies
The various computing resources of the
Department of Physics at the
University of Maryland at College Park
are intended for the advancement of the department's academic and research
goals. As such, users of these resources are required to comply with the
various University level legal and ethical policies,
including:
In addition to the policies above, users of departmental computing resources
are expected to adhere to the department's
Good Citizen Policy, in
which users (and their processes) are expected to conduct themselves in a
considerate and courteous manner befitting members of this Department and
collaborators in its academic and research mission. For those who are unsure
of what type of behavior is expected, the following guidelines are
provided. Note that the following list is not an exhaustive list of the
conduct expected, and that those trying to seek and/or apply loopholes in
the following will be dealt with severely.
- Users are to show respect and consideration to systems staff and
other legitimate users of the system. Users also shall not use their accounts
to engage in any behaviour which may tarnish the reputation of the
Department or University.
- Users are to respect departmentally authorized restrictions on
the use of machines, including but not limited to restrictions on which
machine or machines an individual user may login to, and restrictions
prohibitting the
running of CPU or memory intensive jobs on certain machines.
- Users are not to be disruptive of other user's legitimate use
of the systems for work advancing the Department's academic and research
mission. This applies to both intentional and unintentional disruption.
Jobs that result in disruption may be terminated without notice by systems
staff. Intentional disruption may result in suspension or revocation of
user privileges.
- Personal web pages are to be served off the www2.physics.umd.edu
server. Although content of these pages is not monitored, users should
consider the fact that the content does reflect on the Department and
University. Systems staff reserve the right to disable web pages of
individual users without notice if they are accessed too frequently or
otherwise put excessive burden on the server, or if complaints are received
about their content.
Cluster specific policies
PNCE-Unix Policies
- login.physics.umd.edu
:
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The Physics Network Computing Environment (PNCE) Login Cluster is
intended to provide login access to Physics Faculty, Staff, Undergraduate
Majors, and Graduate Students. Activities which interfere with this
intended purpose are not allowed. Students working in research
groups are expected to use their group's computing resources in support of
their research activities. This cluster may also be used for basic email
access by members of the department.
- www.physics.umd.edu
:
- This is the official Departmental Web Server, and is to
be used to promote the department and its academic and research
activities. The chair's office is responsible for the
content of this page.
(see also
departmental web policy below).
- www2.physics.umd.edu
:
- This is the server for user home pages for members of the
department. It is to be used for low-volume/low-access
publishing of departmentally relevant information by
individuals. The individual users are solely responsible for
its contents. Although the contents of the page are not
monitored, users are expected to bear in mind that the contents
of their home pages does reflect on the reputation of the
department. Complaints about content may result in the
pages being disabled, as will heavy access.
(see also
departmental web policy below).
- Departmental Web Policy
- Because the departmental web servers and network are
shared and limited resources, if heavy access to information
relevant to the department's mission is expected, Systems
Staff should be contacted in advance to make appropriate
arrangements. Similar notification should be made in the
case of information critical to the department's mission
being stored on the web. Any activity which causes performance
impact on the server or network will be removed immediately
until appropriate arrangements can be made. This applies
to information served off any web server on the
departments network, not just departmental web servers.
- Home Directories
- Home directories are provided by the department to
members of the department. These directories are to provide
for email access and web home pages, and other files not
relevant to the user's research. These directories are
backed up. Members of groups collaborating in the NSCP
project also have group space in which they should be
putting their research related files---
differences between
home space and group space.
- User conduct
- All users are expected to behave by the
campus acceptable use guidelines and by
the department's Good Citizen Policy.
No toleration will be shown to those who seek loopholes in these
guidelines or otherwise try to abuse the system and its policies.
Computing Support of Research Groups
The department is investigating providing some central computing support
to the department, and the resources and funds required. If you are
interested in receiving computing support from the department, please talk
to Nick Chant (contact info). We would appreciate the input.
For now, research computing support is limited to the groups in the
NSCP collaboration. In addition to
the PNCE-Unix policies discussed above, users are expected to comply with
the NSCP specific guidelines below:
- Interactive access
- Each research group in NSCP is assigned a designated login
machine for each share held. These are the only machines group
members are allowed for interactive access.
- Group resources
- Each group has a designated PNCE group manager(s) who are
responsible for the membership of their group, and group policies
regarding access to and allocation of group resources.
Members of the research group
are by default entitled to: interactive access on groups designated
login machines, LSF access, scratch access, and access to areas
on group's disk space--- the designated group manager may implement
additional restrictions. Group membership is granted (pending
approval of the group manager) via the
physaccess
command; it may be verified with the command
hesinfo username ngbyuser.
- LSF
- All machines in the cluster will be available for non-interactive
use via the LSF batch queues. This is the only acceptable use of
machines other than your research group's designated login machine.
The LSF batch queues are tuned to keep batch jobs from interfering
with interactive users--- please log a
physhelp request if you believe a LSF job is negatively impacting
interactive use of a machine. Although there is no limit on
the number of jobs submitted at a time by any one user, if more
jobs are submitted to a queue than machines to run on, priorities will be
adjusted to give fair and equitable use to members of different groups in
proportion to shares held by the group. (This currently is only
automatically enforced for pending jobs--- if the jobs are already
executing, you will need to submit a physhelp
request to get the situation manually adjusted.) Contention for
batch queues among members of the same group is to be resolved by
the designated PNCE group manager.
- Group space
- Each NSCP group receives group space (of roughly 3GB/share) for
use in supporting their research activities. This space is
automatically broken into areas for software, group web pages,
common areas, and user work areas. The group, as represented by the
designated group manager(s), have full rights to any files or data
in this area and systems staff will give them access to any files on
this disk space upon request. Personal files should be stored in the
user's homespace---
differences between
home space and group space.
Group space is automatically backed up; the group is responsible
for any and all backup fees.
- Scratch Space
- Members of any NSCP group are allowed access to the NSCP scratch
space on a first come, first serve basis. Files stored in the
monthly/weekly/ and daily scratch spaces will be automatically
deleted 1 month/week/ or day from their original creation date, and
may be removed sooner with little or no notice for systems problems.
Scratch space is NOT backed up.
