AMD Demos Petaflop-in-a-Rack Supercomputer

AMD has demonstrated a supercomputer based on its latest AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs that can deliver one petaflop of single precision floating point performance in a single rack

For more information, see https://www.top500.org/news/amd-demos-petaflop-in-a-rack-supercomputer/ 

GPUs in action

AI Learns to Lip-Sync From Audio Clips
University of Washington researchers developed a deep learning-based system that converts audio files into realistic mouth shapes, which are then grafted onto and blended with the head of that person from another existing video.
Read more >

Turn Your Selfies Into Chat Stickers
The developers of Prisma, Apple’s 2016 iPhone App of the Year, launched their second AI-based app called Sticky AI that turns your selfies into stickers to use in messages and on social networks.
Read more >

Simulating Chemical Attacks to Save Lives
Researchers at University of Texas at San Antonio used a GPU-accelerated supercomputer to develop an early-warning intelligence system that could alert civilians to impending danger.
Read more >

Deep Learning Key Copying Service
New York-based startup KeyMe recently raised $20 million in a Series B funding allows you to scan a key, either via mobile app or at one of their thousands in-store kiosk, and then ships you a key when you want a copy, or you can have one printed instantly at a kiosk.
Read more >

NVIDIA Grant Alert: Up to $400K Available for Cancer Research
The NVIDIA Foundation is now accepting proposals for its annual Compute the Cure Cancer Research grant program, which supports researchers using innovative computing methods to advance the fight against cancer.
Read more >

https://news.developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-grant-alert-up-to-400k-available-for-cancer-research/

Testing the AD User Authentication with Centrify

Test 1: Test with SSH
The simplest way is to enable SSH and connect to it.

Test 2: Test with adinfo

# adinfo -A --user user1
Active Directory password:
Password for user "user1" is correct

Test 3: Test using kinit

# /usr/share/centrifydc/kerberos/bin/kinit user1

# /usr/share/centrifydc/kerberos/bin/klist
Ticket cache: FILE:/tmp/krb5cc_0
Default principal: user2@test.com
.....
.....
Valid starting       Expires           Service principal
.....
.....

References:

1. Centrify is in connected mode but users are unable to login.

IBM ChatBot via Watson

Why You Should Try IBM Watson Conversation Service
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ZjhqsJreE
Introducing Watson Virtual Agent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2f-RT0EjPg
Watson Virtual Agent Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwg5yAuanPg

Testing the AD User Authentication with Centrify

Test 1: Test with SSH
The simplest way is to enable SSH and connect to it.

Test 2: Test with adinfo

# adinfo -A --user user1
Active Directory password:
Password for user "user1" is correct

Test 3: Test using kinit

# /usr/share/centrifydc/kerberos/bin/kinit user1

# /usr/share/centrifydc/kerberos/bin/klist
Ticket cache: FILE:/tmp/krb5cc_0
Default principal: user2@test.com
.....
.....
Valid starting       Expires           Service principal
.....
.....

References:

1. Centrify is in connected mode but users are unable to login.

Installing Octave with HDF5 on CentOS 6.8 with yum

If you are installing octave on CentOS6 and you wish to install HDF5, you may want to pull HDF5 from EPEL instead of RPMFORGE. You may have both repositories so you have to disable RPMFORGE first

# yum-config-manager --disable rpmforge

Install Octave with HDF5

# yum install octave hdf5 hdf5-devel

Useful Information on Intel Software Suite

1. Intel Parallel Studio XE home page
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-parallel-studio-xe - 
2. Intel SW Tools Training Videos
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-parallel-studio-xe-support/training#gsvideos
3. Case Studies
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/sdp-case-studies
4. Intel Software Academic Program
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/academic 
5. Courseware; everything you need to know about parallel computing – from the basics to hybrid and power optimization
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/courseware/hpc
6. Free Software
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/qualify-for-free-software
7. Free licenses for the classroom
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/qualify-for-free-software/educator 
8. Free licenses for Students
   https://software.intel.com/en-us/qualify-for-free-software/student

Generating public keys from a SSH private key

If you just need to generate a Public Key from SSH Private Key, you will need to

# ssh-keygen -y -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

where  -y output the public key

References:

1. How do I retrieve the public key from a SSH private key?

Installing OpenCV on CentOS 6 on yum

Installing OpenCV using CentOS 6 using yum is very straightforward. For CentOS 6,

# yum install python-devel python-nose python-setuptools gcc gcc-gfortran gcc-c++ blas-devel lapack-devel atlas-devel

# yum install opencv

Managing MATLAB Users using MLM options for FlexLM

Step 1: Create a file to mlm.opt

Step 2: Edit your license.dat file

SERVER myMATLABLicense 00000000000000009
DAEMON MLM "/usr/local/MATLAB/R2016b/etc/MLM" port=1708 options="/usr/local/MATLAB/R2016b/etc/mlm.opt"
.....
.....

Step 3: Prepare mlm.opt

# Make user names and host names case insensitive when
# listed in a GROUP or HOST_GROUP.  This is not
# required but it is here to prevent some common errors.
GROUPCASEINSENSITIVE ON


# Define GROUP Users
GROUP MATLAB_BLOCK_USERS user1 user2 user3
GROUP MATLAB_INC_USERS user4 user5 user6


# EXCLUDE Users from MATLAB and selected Toolboxes
EXCLUDE "MATLAB asset_info=111111" GROUP MATLAB_BLOCK_USERS
EXCLUDE "Image_Toolbox asset_info=111111" GROUP MATLAB_BLOCK_USERS
EXCLUDE "Signal_Toolbox asset_info=111111" GROUP MATLAB_BLOCK_USERS


# RESERVE for selected for user1
RESERVE 1 "SIMULINK asset_info=111111" USER user1


# Restrict the number of licenses that can be used on machine "server1"
MAX 4 "MATLAB asset_info=111111" HOST server1


# To exclude ALL features 
EXCLUDEALL GROUP MATLAB_BLOCK_USERS


#Includes a user or pre-defined group of users, etc.
#Anyone not in an INCLUDEALL statement is not allowed to use these features. 
INCLUDEALL GROUP MATLAB_INC_USERS

References:

1. https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/2331/sampleMLM.opt
2. The Options File
3. Is there a way to administer FLEXnet based licenses? How do I create an Options file?

Using Intel IMB-MPI1 to check Fabrics and expected performances

In your .bashrc, do source the

source /usr/local/intel_2015/parallel_studio_xe_2015/bin/psxevars.sh intel64
source /usr/local/intel_2015/impi/5.0.3.049/bin64/mpivars.sh intel64
source /usr/local/intel_2015/composerxe/bin/compilervars.sh intel64
source /usr/local/intel_2015/mkl/bin/mklvars.sh intel64
MKLROOT=/usr/local/intel_2015/mkl

To simulate 3 workloads pingpong, sendrecv, and exchange with IMB-MPT1

$ mpirun -r ssh -RDMA -n 512 -env I_MPI_DEBUG 5 IMB-MPT1

Compiling Intel FFTW3 and FFTW2 Interface Wrapper Library

FFTW3 wrappers to Intel MKL are delivered both in Intel MKL and as source code which can be compiled to build to build standalone wrapper library with exactly the same functionality. The source code for the wrappers, makefiles are found .....\interfaces\fftw3xc subdirectory in the Intel MKL Directory

Intel FFTW3 Interface Wrapper Library. Do the same for fftw3xc and fftw3xf

# cd $MKLROOT
# cd interfaces/fftw3xc
# make libintel  INSTALL_DIR=$MKLROOT/lib/intel64

Once Compiled, the libraries are kept $MKLROOT/lib/intel64  


Intel FFTW2 Interface Wrapper Library. Do the same for fftw2xc and fftw2xf

# cd $MKLROOT
# cd interfaces/fftw2xc
# make libintel  PRECISION=MKL_DOUBLE
# make libintel  PRECISION=MKL_SINGLE

Once Compiled, the libraries are kept $MKLROOT/lib/intel64

Configuring MATLAB FlexNet License Manager to reserve licenses

Step 1: To setup an option file in the Flexlm

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/100865-is-there-a-way-to-administer-flexnet-based-licenses-how-do-i-create-an-options-file


Step 2: Create an mlm.opt file

RESERVE 1 MATLAB:asset_info=111111 USER user1

where user1 is the username

Step 3: Restart the license server to take effect

Configuring 2 Gateways on the same Linux Box permanently

Suppose you have 2 network on a PC says
192.168.1.5/24 (eth0 - Private Network)
172.16.10.4/24 (eth1 - Public Network)

Let's assume the 172.16.10.254 is the Default Gateway for 172.16.10.0 network. If there is a router at 192.168.1.254 for the internal network and you wish to connect to other networks says 192.168.5.0 192.168.6.0 and 192.168.7.0 networks. You will need to add "static routes" to these networks

route add -net 192.168.5.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.1.254
route add -net 192.168.6.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.1.254
route add -net 192.168.7.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.1.254

To make the setting permanent, edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/route-eth0

192.168.5.0/24 via 192.168.1.154 dev eth0 
192.168.6.0/24 via 192.168.1.154 dev eth0 
192.168.7.0/24 via 192.168.1.154 dev eth0 

To check the setting is ok

# ip route show

Virtualization Solutions for High-Performance Computing

There is an interesting talk held in Stockholm, Sweden which taken from High-Performance Big Data (HiBD)

1. Opportunities and Challenges in Designing High-Performance MPI and Big Data Libraries on Virtualized InfiniBand Clusters

Information on Intel Omni-Path Fabric and Xeon Phi

1. Intel® Omni-Path Architecture
2. Intel® Xeon Phi™ Product Family

SMB Security Best Practices by US-Cert

Taken from  SMB Security Best Practices

US-CERT recommends that users and administrators consider:

• disabling SMB v1 and
• blocking all versions of SMB at the network boundary by blocking TCP port 445 with related protocols on UDP ports 137-138 and TCP port 139, for all boundary devices.

US-CERT cautions users and administrators that disabling or blocking SMB may create problems by obstructing access to shared files, data, or devices. The benefits of mitigation should be weighed against potential disruptions to users. For more information on SMB, please review Microsoft Security Advisories 2696547 (link is external) and 204279 (link is external)

Unable to spin down CD-ROM

I have an interesting issues today. My CD-ROM fail to spin down and there is a faulty disk inside the CD-ROM.

Inside the /var/log/messages

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 0 Error

There is no way you can un-mount the CDROM by the tradtional umount /dev/sr0. If you do a

# ps -afe|grep sr0
user1   11061  9280  0 12:43 pts/0 /sbin/blkid -o udev -p -u noraid /dev/sr0

To do a quick resolve, you can kill the process ID associated with /sbin/blkid -o udev -u noraid /dev/sr0

# kill -9 11061

The CD-ROM should stop spinning

Creating a Local Directory Repository to act like a local media for CentOS 6

Just say you wants a local Directory Repository to act like a local media. This happens when you wish to do yum local install from a directory of RPMs only instead of pulling directly from Internet repository.

1. At /etc/yum.repos.d/, create a local repo, something like

# vim /etc/yum.repos.d/local.repo

2. Inside the /etc/yum.repos.d/local.repo,

[myrepo]
name=My Local Repo
baseurl=file:///home/user1/RPM
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

One more thing you may want to know is that the RPMs from the CentOS Disks including repomd.xml be copied into /home/user1/RPM

3. Disabled the rest of the Repo. For example,

# yum-config-manager --disable rpmforge

4. The Yum will pull from the enabled Repository only.