PHYS 555B: Numerical Relativity: Online Exercise Page

Report bugs to [email protected]
You are free/encouraged to ask Matt, your fellow students etc. if you have diificulty with any of the exercises.

In the following, note that an exercise with a "U" number needs to be completed by EACH STUDENT (USER), whereas "G" exercises must be completed by EACH GROUP.

Sunday, February 27

At long last all 8 registered students have accounts on the lnx machines, which you can view as a "home base" for the comptuations that you will carry out over the next couple of months.

Of course, the first decade of the 21st century isn't like the dark ages of the 80's when we actually had no choice but to sit in a darkened terminal room listening to the clickety-clacking of our fellow computer users.  No, today's student has come to expect that computer work can be done at home, since the modern student often has a  faster machine than what the dept. or their supervisor can cough up. Although the instructor, who clearly lived through the dark ages, has only limited sympathy for the viewpoint that computer work should not be tied to a physical location, he is sympathetic nonetheless.

You are thus encouraged (and in fact required, see below) to replicate the necessary environment for this course on a "local machine".  This will include
  1. An installation of Linux per se; Mandrake is recommended , particuarly if you want the gravity group to be able to provide maximal support
  2. A good compiler suite, such as Intel's, which is free for single-user, non-commercial use
  3. The various publically or locally supported numerical libraries that we use, LAPACK, ODEPACK, bbhutil, p410f, etc.,
  4. The visualization tools xvs and DV
For your convenience, there are instructions for installing the local components of the software HERE.

If any of you are afflicted with the Mac bug, and thus in need of installing the software under Darwin, my condolences.  Seriously though, there are some issues in that case that haven't been fully integrated into the current "distribution" but which various members of our collaboration have sorted out, and which Matt will be happy (in a teeth-clencing sort of way) to help you with.

Feel free to contact Matt should you have any questions, or encounter any problems in setting up such an environment.  There is really no excuse for a science/engineering student NOT to have a dual boot (i.e. Windoze whatever and Mandrake [our locally preferred flavour of Linux] or whatnot) system and the Relativity Group will be happy to burn CD sets and provide whatever support is necessary to that end.

Exercise U0:  To be completed before you get a grade for the course!

Convince the instructor that you have managed to replicate the environment on the lnx machines on your own "local" unix box.  If you do not have such a box, contact the instructor and one will be provided for you, but only for the express purpose of completing the exercise.

Exercise U1: To be completed by 1600, Monday February 28

On the lnx machines, or on your local Linux box, use ssh-keygen to generate an RSA key.  E-mail Matt the public part of the key.  Matt will then deposit this key in ~p55505g<n>/.ssh/authorized_keys, where <n>=1, 2, 3 depending on which group you belong to (see the Groups Page for your group number).

If you already have an RSA identity, you should NOT generate a new key, but rather should ensure that your extant key has been propagated to ~<user>/.ssh on the lnx machines, where <user> is your account name.

Once you have completed this exercise, you will be able to ssh into your group account on the lnx machines without being prompted for a password.

Exercise U2: To be completed by 1600, Tuesday March 1

Once you have received an e-mail from Matt indicating that you should be able to secure shell into your group account on the lnx machines, do so, and then send Matt a mail message FROM that machine to [email protected] as notification that you were able to get into your group account.

Exercise G1: To be competed by 1600, Tuesday March 1

In consultation with your fellow group members, choose a group password that, with luck, you will be able to use for the entire term.  Using the passwd command ON ALL THREE lnx MACHINES, set the password to that value, then verify that you are able to login to the console of each lnx machine in Hennings 205. 

Convince the instructor that your group has successfully logged into each of the three consoles using the new password by sending e-mail messages to Matt from each machine, each of which contains the output of the 'w' command at the time (within a minute or so) that the message was sent.

Exercise G2: To be completed by 1600, Tuesday March 1

Begin work on your group web page, which MUST live in your group account on the lnx machines, and which MUST be called ~p55505g<n>/public_html/index.html.  At a minimum, the web page should list group members, along with appropriate contact information (e-mail addresses, telephone numbers if desired etc.)  See my group's page for a minimal example.

You will maintain and update your group page for the remainder of the course, and you may thus wish to designate a group Webmaster.

Exercise U3: To be completed by 1600, Tuesday March 1

If your name is not linked to a web page in the Groups Page, send me a message specifying either
  1. That you wish to continue NOT having your name linked to a page
  2. A URL to which you wish your name to be linked