Cortex

Cortex is a computation rack for VisLab humanoid robots. It contains 7 machines:

• 1 server that manages startup, shutdown and the file system of the clients;
• 6 clients (named cortex1...cortex6) that run user processes.

All clients numbered 1 to 5 mount the same file system. Therefore, performing changes in the file system of cortex[1-5] will reflect to all other four clients. The client cortex6 is separate for now, because it runs a 64 bit Linux.

Network setup

Cortex machines are in the VisLab robotics network domain:

• Domain: visnet
• Subnet: 10.10.1.*

Cortex nodes

Cortex server and clients have the following IPs and domain names:

• Server: 10.10.1.240, server.visnet
• Client 1: 10.10.1.1, cortex1.visnet
• Client 2: 10.10.1.2, cortex2.visnet
• Client 3: 10.10.1.3, cortex3.visnet
• Client 4: 10.10.1.4, cortex4.visnet
• Client 5: 10.10.1.5, cortex5.visnet
• Client 6: 10.10.1.6, cortex6.visnet

Other nodes

Other assigned ip's and names are:

• Gateway: 10.10.1.254, gtisr.visnet
• Cortex Switch: 10.10.1.250, swcompurack.visnet
• Vislab Switch: 10.10.1.251, swvislab.visnet
• iCubBrain1: 10.10.1.41, icubbrain1.visnet
• iCubBrain2: 10.10.1.42, icubbrain2.visnet
• DHCP Range: 10.10.1.100-199
• Chico pc104: 10.10.1.50
• Chico clients: 10.10.51-59
• Chica Net: 10.10.1.60-69
• Balta Net: 10.10.1.70-79

DNS configuration

Name resolution in the visnet network is managed by a BIND system on the machine server.visnet. To add or change the table of names and IPs, do 'cd /etc/bind', edit and change the file '/visnet.src' (need super user permission) and then run 'make'. After a while (the tables must be copied to ISR DNS server, which may take a few minutes) you can ping the new machines by name.

As of September 2009, the configuration file is as follows:

## 10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)Alex
## Tabela de DNS -- VisNet
## 10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)Alex
##
domain("visnet")
prefix("10.10.1")
soa("server.isrnet", "alex", "isr.ist.utl.pt")
ns("server.visnet")
##
## Sintaxe:
## NOME ------- IP ---- COMENTARIO (entre aspas) ----------------------
##
a(cortex1,	1,	"Compurack client 1")
a(cortex2,	2,	"Compurack client 2")
a(cortex3,	3,	"Compurack client 3")
a(cortex4,	4,	"Compurack client 4")
a(cortex5,	5,	"Compurack client 5")
a(cortex6,	6,	"Compurack client 6")
a(cortex7,	7,	"Compurack client 7")
a(icubbrain1, 	41,	"Supermicro 1")
a(icubbrain2,   42,     "Supermicro 2")
a(pc104,	50,	"Chico pc104")
a(icubsrv,	51,	"iCub chico")
a(chico2,	52,	"iCub chico")
a(chico3,	53,	"iCub chico")
a(chico4,	54,	"iCub chico")
a(chico5,	55,	"iCub chico")
a(chico6,	56,	"iCub chico")
a(chico7,	57,	"iCub chico")
a(chico8,	58,	"iCub chico")
a(chico9,	59,	"iCub chico")
a(chica,	60,	"iCub chica")
a(chica1,	61,	"iCub chica")
a(chica2,	62,	"iCub chica")
a(chica3,	63,	"iCub chica")
a(chica4,	64,	"iCub chica")
a(chica5,	65,	"iCub chica")
a(chica6,	66,	"iCub chica")
a(chica7,	67,	"iCub chica")
a(chica8,	68,	"iCub chica")
a(chica9,	69,	"iCub chica")
a(balta,	70,	"Baltazar")
a(balta1,	71,	"Baltazar")
a(balta2,	72,	"Baltazar")
a(balta3,	73,	"Baltazar")
a(balta4,	74,	"Baltazar")
a(balta5,	75,	"Baltazar")
a(balta6,	76,	"Baltazar")
a(balta7,	77,	"Baltazar")
a(balta8,	78,	"Baltazar")
a(balta9,	79,	"Baltazar")
range(dhcp-, 100, 199)
a(server,	240,	"Compurack server")
a(swcompurack,	250,	"Compurack switch")
a(swvislab,	251,	"Vislab switch")
a(gtisr,	254,	"gateway")
## -- EOF --
### Local Variables: ###
### gendns-keywords: ("^domain" "^prefix" "^soa" "^ns" "^mx" "^a" "^range" "^rangex" "^cname" ("\t" . highlight)) ###
### font-lock-defaults: (gendns-keywords nil t ((?# . "<") (?\n . ">")) nil) ###
### mode: font-lock ###
### End: ###

Connectivity

Cortex machines are connected to Cortex Switch, that links to VisLab switch with a fiber optic connection of 4Gbit/s.

Traffic

Network traffic can be checked at:

• http://inode1.isrnet/cacti (user guest, pass guest)

Additional setup

Server machine

The server has:

• Boot folder for the clients at /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg. Contains the files:
  • default - default boot file
  • <mac_address> - specific for a machine with the given mac address.
• startup scripts for each machine at /nfsroot/app

Client machines

The clients have:

• A superuser account (compurack) to administer system-wide settings (configurations, libraries, etc.)
• Normal user accounts. By default, the login script runs the contents of file $HOME/.bash_env, where users can set their environment variables, e.g., export ICUB_DIR=$HOME/iCub. This works for both interactive shell sessions and non-interactive ones (i.e., commands remotely invoked by yarprun).
• A yarp account to update and install the YARP library. Variable YARP_DIR is set by default to /home/yarp/yarp2 for all users (in /etc/bash.bashrc).
• An icub account with sudo privileges (created with sudo adduser icub admin on 2009-06-30).

System-wide libraries and repositories

YARP

As reported on the VisLab logbook, in September 2009 we installed the yarp2 SVN repository under user yarp, by downloading it and then performing cmake ., make, sudo make install.

iCub

As reported on the VisLab logbook, in September 2009 we installed the iCub SVN repository under user icub, by downloading it and then performing cmake ., make, sudo make install. There was a conflict with iKin, which could not find libipopt.so.0, but it is now fixed thanks to setting the environment variable

 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/Ipopt-3.5.5-linux-x86_32-gcc4.2.4/lib/

into /home/icub/.bash_env.

OTHER

Other system wide libraries/apps are installed by the superuser.

Libraries not having a clean 'make install' currently present in /opt/:

• ARToolKit
• Ipopt-3.5.5-linux-x86_32-gcc4.2.4

Libraries that are cleanly installed: Curses

  apt-get install libncurses5-dev

ACE

  apt-get install libace-dev

CMake

  apt-get install cmake

GSL

  apt-get install libgsl0-dev

GTK/GTKMM/Glade

  apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
  apt-get install libgtkmm-2.4-dev
  apt-get install libglademm-2.4-dev

OpenCV

  THE REPOSITORY IS NOW IN SVN FORM, WE NEED TO UPDATE THIS.
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@opencvlibrary.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/opencvlibrary co -P opencv
  cd opencv
  ./configure
  make
  make install
  add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf

GLEW (OpenGL extension finder)

 apt-get install glew-utils
 apt-get install libglew1.5-dev

GLUT (Glu Utility toolkit)

apt-get install libglut-dev

User repositories

RE-THINK THIS POLICY (plus, we installed iCub svn):

Each user should manage its own repositories, e.g. the iCub repository:

  cvs -d vislab@cvs.robotcub.org:/cvsroot/robotcub co iCub

then you should add <iCub>/bin to your PATH by editing your ~/.bashrc like this:

 PATH=$PATH:~/iCub/bin/
 ICUB_DIR=~/iCub/
 export ICUB_DIR
 ICUB_ROOT=$ICUB_DIR
 export ICUB_ROOT

You should also edit ~/.bash_env adding these lines:

 export ICUB_DIR=$HOME/iCub
 export ICUB_ROOT=$ICUB_DIR

this is needed when you connect non-interactively via ssh to a Cortex computer, for instance when execute a "yarp run ..." on a Cortex, from Chico2.

Be aware that Ubuntu 7.10 (the version currently installed on the cluster) has a conflict with iKin, specifically with iCub/conf/FindIPOPT.cmake (used by iKin): for now, in order to compile iKin, change the following line of FindIPOPT.cmake from

  SET(IPOPT_LIB   ${IPOPT_LIB} gfortranbegin gfortran)

to

  SET(IPOPT_LIB   ${IPOPT_LIB} gfortran)

Other configuration

Network tuning

  sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=8388608
  sysctl -w net.core.wmem_max=8388608
  sysctl -w net.core.rmem_default=65536
  sysctl -w net.core.wmem_default=65536
  sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rmem='4096 87380 8388608'
  sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_wmem='4096 65536 8388608'
  sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_mem='8388608 8388608 8388608'
  sysctl -w net.ipv4.route.flush=1

Prompt ($PS1)

The prompt is set to "user@cortex?:pwd$" in /etc/bash.bashrc. With those settings, if you log in to Cortex1, the prompt will be "user@cortex1:~$". We chose to do so because sometimes it's convenient to have the number of the Cortex machine you're working on embedded in the prompt. By default, though, this configuration is overridden in the users' ~/.bashrc file, and the prompt is set to "user@source" regardless of the Cortex machine you log in to.
If you want to inhibit this behaviour in ~/.bashrc and thus have a prompt like "user@cortex?:pwd", just comment these lines in your ~/.bashrc:

  # set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color)
  case "$TERM" in
  xterm-color)
      PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
      ;;
  *)
      PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
      ;;
  esac

However, for users created after 2009-05-07, the prompt is already set to "user@cortex?:pwd$" by default.

Helper commands

• Check the kernel : uname -m

• Check the file versions : file

• Set bash shell in /etc/passwd

• Check disk space: du –h –s /home

• Check per user processes: ps -U <user>