Australia Telescope Compact Array
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Introduction

This document aims to provide new users and visitors with an overview of the computing facilities of the ATNF at Culgoora. It is intended to provide people with sufficient information to start using the Linux and Windows Computers, but not to go into great depth on any technical issues.

Documentation for operating the array is available from Australia Telescope Compact Array User's Guide: this document is not intended to be another operators manual.

The ATNF at Narrabri has moved to the Linux platform for our on-line computing and data processing. General Office computing, Electrical and Engineering analysis and design work are done on Dell PC's (WinXP machines).

The main compute server, Kaputar, is a Debian Linux server with dual Quad-Core Xeon processors, 16 GB of memory and about 9 TeraBytes of publicly available disk space. It handles most of the astronomy data reduction. The access to the Linux server is via a number of Dell Linux PC work stations (these can also be used for Data Reduction) and Windows XP X-terminals. See the UNIX/Linux chapter of this document for more information on using Kaputar.

There is a dedicated PC, archiver, for archiving of ATCA data, it is connected to a CDR/DVDR writer.

There are Two Windows only PCs for general use in the Observers area on the top floor of the control Building (Most Linux PC's are also capable of booting into Windows XP), a colour printer and a scanner.

Bellata has a collection of tape devices (exabyte, DLT). The Dell Linux PC's have either DVD or CD readers/burners.

Most of the Engineers, Technicians and Administrative Staff have a Windows XP PC on their desk.

Almost all of these machines are networked together using ethernet, allowing general access to local resources and connection to the rest of the world through a Cisco router to ATNF headquarters in Marsfield.

Computer Accounts

Before you can use the UNIX machines, you need a password and username. These can be acquired from members of the Operations or Software groups.

Please ensure that you use your computer access responsibly. Use obscure passwords, and clean up your files on the data analysis workstations.

Conventions:

• kbd font usually indicates commands and terminal text
• Em font indicate that the text should be replaced by the appropiate text eg:
  $ print filename means print a file with the file name that you supply.
• Angle brackets < > indicate that several keys should be pressed simultaneously, eg:
  < CTRL/Y > indicates that the Control Key and the Y key should be activated simultaneously.