Using IT++ on Lyceum2

Lyceum2 is a cluster of Linux computers for students to use in their projects. You can get more help with using Lyceum2 here. It has version 4.0.6 of the IT++ libraries installed. These libraries provide a number of useful mathematical, signal processing and communication routines. You can find out more about these routines in the IT++ documentation.

1a. Uploads, downloads and logging in on Linux or Mac computers

You can upload a file by opening a terminal program and using the command

scp <SourcePath&FileName> <YourUserName>@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk:<DestinationPath&FileName>

Note that it is your iSolutions password that you need to input when prompted. For example, I might type

scp main.cpp rm@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk:MySimulations/BPSKinAWGN/ 

You can download using the command

scp <YourUserName>@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk:<SourcePath&FileName> <DestinationPath&FileName>  

and you can log in using the command

ssh -X <YourUserName>@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk

Again, it is your iSolutions password that you need to input when prompted. 

1b. Uploads, downloads and logging in on Windows computers

You can upload and download files using PSCP. You should save this to your My Documents folder. Next, you should open a command window by clicking Start, then Run... and then typing

cmd

You can change to your My Documents folder by typing

cd "My Documents"

You can upload a file by typing

pscp <SourcePath&FileName> <YourUserName>@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk:<DestinationPath&FileName>

Note that it is your iSolutions password that you need to input when prompted. For example, I might type

pscp main.cpp rm@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk:MySimulations/BPSKinAWGN/ 

You can download using the command

pscp <YourUserName>@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk:<SourcePath&FileName> <DestinationPath&FileName>  

In order to log in to Lyceum2, you need to save PuTTY to your My Documents folder. From within the My Documents folder in the command window, you should type

putty <YourUserName>@lyceum2.soton.ac.uk

Again, it is your iSolutions password that you need to input when prompted.  You can find out more about PuTTY and PSCP here. 

2. Installing the IT++ project template on Lyceum2

The first step is to log in to Lyceum2 and then download the IT++ project template. You can do this by giving Lyceum2 the command

wget http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/rm/itppLyceumProject.tgz

You can extract the template by typing

tar -xzvf itppLyceumProject.tgz

This will create a directory named itppLyceumProject, which you should go into by typing

cd itppLyceumProject

If you type

ls

you'll see that the itppLyceumProject directory contains a Makefile, a job file and three subdirectories. You should write your .cpp and .h files in the src subdirectory. This comes with an example main.cpp to get you started. You can edit this using the emacs editor by typing

emacs src/main.cpp

3. Compiling on Lyceum2

When logged on to Lyceum2, you can compile your code using the commands

module load itpp
make

from within the itppLyceumProject directory.

4. Running jobs on Lyceum2

Once you have compiled your code, you can get Lyceum2 to run it by submitting a job file. The IT++ project template includes an example job file called 'job', which you can edit using the command

emacs job

from within the itppLyceumProject directory. This job file will request eight processors on one of Lyceum2's nodes, for one minute. It will run eight instances of the executable a.out, which is created in the bin directory when the example main.cpp is compiled. In the job file, the ampersands (&) at the end of each line that runs the executable are required in order to get them to run in parallel. Each of the eight instances uses different command line parameters, which specify the SNRs to consider. The job can be submitted to Lyceum2 by issuing the command

qsub job

from within the itppLyceumProject directory. You can see the state of your jobs (Queued or Running) by using the command

qstat

This will tell you the Job ID number, which you need in order to cancel a job using the command

qdel <JobID>

You can see how busy Lyceum2 is using the command

showq

When the example job has finished running, you should find that some results files have been created in the itppLyceumProject directory.

There is more information on how to run jobs on Lyceum2 here.

Note that simulations should always be run by submitting them as jobs. However, it is okay to edit files and compile on the login node. You can also run short programs that collect all your results together into a single file, for example.

Have fun, Rob Maunder.