ICubBrain

In June 2009, we installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server ('Hardy Heron') 64bit on the "1U Twin" server that is to be used as iCub Brain (hence the name). It includes a SC808T-980 1U chassis and two twin X7DWT serverboards. Each of the two boards hosts an Intel Xeon 8-core processor.

For full system specifications, go here (PDF) or on the entry on tsunami.pt

Operating system installation

The chassis contains two separate machines, each one having two hard disk drive drawers. Next, we will explain how we configured the left part of the server, called icubbrain1. The settings for icubbrain2 will be just about the same, with the last octet of the IP address being 42 instead of 41.

Boot

We booted the Ubuntu Server CD from an external USB CD drive without problems. We then had to manually confirm the usage of a 'cdrom' module within the installation (following all the default selections).

Network interface

icubbrain1 has two Gbit interfaces. First we plugged an Ethernet cable into the first one (which turns on the "1" led in the chassis front). Then, when Ubuntu asked us to choose between eth0 and eth1, we picked up eth0.

Partitions

We chose the 'Guided - use entire disk' option.

Ubuntu installation parameters

• machine name: icubbrain1
• user name: icub
• software selection: OpenSSH

Operations after first boot

• choose Main server (rather than Portugal server, which is incomplete) as the software repository. We do this by removing all the "pt." strings from /etc/apt/sources.list
• sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade

Other operations performed

Network configuration

• manually configured the internet connection (/etc/network/interfaces):

  auto lo
  iface lo inet loopback
  
  auto eth0
  iface eth0 inet static
  address 10.10.1.41
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  network 10.10.1.0
  broadcast 10.10.1.255
  gateway 10.10.1.254

• added the following lines to /etc/hosts, to enable running commands like: ping cortex1.

  10.10.1.50	pc104
  10.10.1.51	icubsrv
  10.10.1.52	chico2
  10.10.1.53	chico3
  10.10.1.1	cortex1
  10.10.1.2	cortex2
  10.10.1.3	cortex3
  10.10.1.4	cortex4
  10.10.1.5	cortex5
  10.10.1.41	icubbrain1
  10.10.1.42	icubbrain2

Additional packages and environment variables

• Install some required packages:

  sudo apt-get install gcc g++ make cmake cvs subversion ssh libace-dev libgsl0-dev

• Create a file called ~/.bash_env (used by non-interactive sessions, namely commands launched via yarprun from another machine) containing these lines:

  export ICUB_DIR=/home/icub/iCub
  export ICUB_ROOT=$ICUB_DIR
  export YARP_DIR=/home/icub/yarp2
  export YARP_ROOT=$YARP_DIR
  export PATH=$PATH:$ICUB_DIR/bin
  export PATH=$PATH:$YARP_DIR/bin
  export ICUB_ROBOTNAME=iCubLisboa01

• Copy all that stuff at the bottom of ~/.bashrc, too:

  cat ~/.bash_env >> ~/.bashrc

• Then, before the following line of /etc/bash.bashrc

  [ -z "$PS1" ] && return

add this:

  # per-user environment variables (non-interactive and interactive mode)
  source $HOME/.bash_env