Hermes System Configuration

Theoretical peak speed: (36 cores) * (2.3 Gcycles/s/core) * (8 DP flop/cycle) = 660 Gflop/s, double precision
   Assumes one AVX-2 FMA (fused multiply-add with 4 DP additions and 4 DP multiplications) every cycle
   Does not account for memory bandwidth limitations, or dynamic frequency scaling due to AVX2 instructions
 
Timeline
 
Jun. 2017:     Purchased from Red Barn Computers with CentOS 7.3 and selected applications preinstalled
Jul. 2017:     Did additional installations in CentOS 7.3
Feb./Mar. 2018:     CentOS 7.4 became the default OS, files from Perseus were recovered
Aug.-Oct. 2018:     Remaining files from Perseus were recovered, CentOS and Intel Fortran were updated
Jul. 2019:     CentOS 7.6 became the default OS
Aug. 2020:     CentOS 7.8 became the default OS
Aug.-Oct. 2021:     CentOS 7.9 became the default OS
Aug.-Oct. 2022:     Mathematica 13.1 was installed, CentOS 7.9 was updated (twice), Hermes was relocated
Apr./May 2023:     Various software installations were performed
Aug. 2023:     Mathematica 13.3 was installed
Nov. 2023:     Hermes was relocated (again), CentOS 7.9 was updated (again)
 
Hardware Configuration
 
Server Type:     Supermicro SuperWorkstation 7048A-T - 4U tower - serial no. C7430FF42MC0224 (1120280 on back)
 
Processors:     36 cores, 2x Eighteen-Core Intel Xeon "Broadwell-EP" Processors*, E5-2697 v4, 45MB Cache, 2.30GHz
     *Sockets for this processor are LGA 2011-v3 or "Socket R3"
Memory:     128GB, 8x 16GB ECC Registered DDR4 SDRAM DIMMs*, 2667MHz but configured as 2400MHz
     *Expandable to 512GB (16x32GB) or 2TB (16x128GB 3DS LRDIMMs); 2400MHz is highest speed possible
Bootable Hard Drive:     800GB, SATA Port 4, Intel DC S3510 Enterprise SSD, SATA3 6.0Gbps 2.5"
Additional Hard Drives:     9TB, SATA Ports 5, 6, and 7, 2x Seagate Constellation ST4000NM0033 (each 4TB), 7200RPM SATA3 6.0Gbps, 3.5",
     1x HGST Travelstar HTS721010 (1TB), 7200RPM SATA3 6.0Gbps 2.5"
Chipset:     Intel C612 ("Wellsburg"), 10 SATA3 ports
Network Interface Controller:     Dual Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connections
 
Motherboard and BIOS:     Supermicro X10DAi; American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI) BIOS
 
Graphics Accelerator:     NVIDIA Quadro P600, 2GB GDDR5, 384 CUDA cores, 1557 MHz boost clock
     Interfaces: 4x mini-DisplayPort 1.4a, PCIe 3.0 x16
 

Disk Structure

PropertyDrive Maker and Size
Intel SSD, 800GB Seagate HDD, 4TB Seagate HDD, 4TB HGST HDD, 1TB
Partition Names /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1
Mount Points in CentOS /boot /home /  (root) /data1 /data2 /data3  (archive)

 

Multi-Boot Instructions
 
From GRUB Menu:     After the setup phase, when the GRUB menu appears, use the up/down arrows to select the desired OS, then hit <CR>.
     This selection is not remembered on the next boot. To make the change permanent, you have to alter the grub.cfg file.
From Boot Menu:     Scroll past the end of the page and select the option "Hard Drive BBS Priorities" that appears. (Scrolling up works too.)
     The pop-up will show all available "legacy" drives, not just one. Scroll to the desired drive and move it to the top with "+".
     (This is NOT documented in the manual, pp. 4-31 to 4-32!!) Use Esc and arrows to reach Save Configuration and Exit.
 
Hardware Interrogation Commands
 
Processors:     more /proc/cpuinfo
Memory:     more /proc/meminfo; top; sudo dmidecode --type memory   #grep for Size or Speed
Bootable Hard Drives:     sudo fdisk -l | grep dev   #bootable partitions are marked *
Additional Hard Drives:     lsblk; sudo blkid; sudo gparted (Device Information panel in GParted GUI)
RAID-0 Hard Drives (N/A):     lspci | grep -i raid; dmraid -r; cat /proc/mdstat   #the last one detects software RAID
I/O Controller Hub (N/A):     lspci | grep SATA; sudo dmidecode --type 8 | grep SATA
Network Interface Controller:     lspci | grep -i ether
Motherboard and BIOS:     sudo dmidecode --type baseboard; sudo dmidecode --type bios
Graphics Accelerator:     lspci | grep VGA; nvidia-smi
SATA Drives and Controllers:     sudo lshw -class disk; sudo lshw -class storage; dmesg | grep SATA
 

Software Configuration Highlights

The links below lead to separate pages that give precise, step-by-step descriptions of what was done in each year.

Jul. 2017: Did additional installations in CentOS 7.3

Feb./Mar. 2018: CentOS 7.4 became the default OS, files from Perseus were recovered

Aug.-Oct. 2018: Remaining files from Perseus were recovered, CentOS and Intel Fortran were updated

Jul. 2019: CentOS 7.6 became the default OS

Aug. 2020: CentOS 7.8 became the default OS

Aug.-Oct. 2021: CentOS 7.9 became the default OS

Apr./May 2023: Various software installations were performed

***Other remote desktop ideas to try at some point?***

How to install and access CentOS remote desktop on VPS - install TigerVNC to achieve the usual: VNC through an ssh tunnel

How to enable Desktop Experience and enable RDP for a CentOs 7 VM on Microsoft Azure - install xrdp in addition to TigerVNC

Other potential options (with their main areas of strength):



Last updated on 7/5/24 by Steve Lantz (steve.lantz ~at~ cornell.edu)