CS Computing Resources

The Computer Science department has extensive computing resources available to students who are enrolled in Computer Science courses or who are engaged in research projects with Computer Science professors. You’ll need an account on our system (separate from your CIS credentials) in order to use our cluster of Linux servers. Our lab Macs can be used either with a CS account or by logging in as a guest.

The Computer Science department also manages some servers for the Biology department.

Normally an account will be created for you automatically when you are enrolled in a course that requires a CS account. If you’re working with a CS or Biology professor on a research project and need an account created or permission granted to use a particular machine, please contact the CS systems administrator.

Computer Science Servers

Knuth

This is the main server for running student and faculty code and all other general purpose computing in the CS department. This is the place for your homework assignments and other projects.

CPU: 64 cores (4× AMD Opteron 6276)
RAM: 512 GB
Gentoo Linux (can host VMs to run other OSes)

Wilkes

Wilkes is a virtual machine on Knuth. It uses a restricted subset of Knuth’s hardware and provides a specialized environment meant only for students doing homework for the CS 105 course. It shouldn’t be used for any other purposes. For everything else you should use Knuth instead; that way you can have access to the full amount of RAM and all the available CPU cores, rather than the very limited resources allocated to Wilkes. Knuth also has a much wider range of software installed.

Teapot

Available for use by all computer science students. This one is intended for GPU-based projects.

CPU: 24 cores/48 threads (AMD Epyc 7443P)
RAM: 256 GB
GPU: 2× NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
Gentoo Linux

Shadowfax

Available for use by all computer science students. This one is intended for GPU-based projects.

CPU: 12 cores/24 threads (2× Intel Xeon E5-2630 v2)
RAM: 64 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
Gentoo Linux

Shuffler

Available for use by all computer science students. This one is intended for GPU-based projects.

CPU: 12 cores/24 threads (2× Intel Xeon E5-2620 v2)
RAM: 64 GB
GPU: NVIDIA RTX A4000
Gentoo Linux

Kay

This is the department web server but it can be used for research projects if you get permission from the systems administrator.

CPU: 24 cores/48 threads (2× Intel Xeon E5-2670 v3)
RAM: 256 GB
Gentoo Linux

Ark

A server providing e-mail/DNS/NTP/NFS and other important system services such as databases and licensing servers. It’s not available for direct use by students.

CPU: 20 cores/40 threads (2× Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3)
RAM: 128 GB
Gentoo Linux
100 TB of disk space (63 TB Computer Science, 37 TB Biology) shared over NFS to all department servers and lab Macs
An additional 80 TB is used for backups of CS storage.

Hopper

This research server is owned by Professor Schofield ’13 and Professor Talvitie and is used by their research students. It’s available for use by other research projects with permission.

CPU: 128 cores/256 threads (2× AMD Epyc 7742)
RAM: 512 GB
GPU: NVIDIA Titan V (currently assigned to the Allen virtual machine)
Gentoo Linux, hosting multiple VMs

Lovelace

Lovelace is the virtual machine on Hopper used by Professor Talvitie and her research students.

Granville

Granville is the virtual machine on Hopper used by Professor Schofield and her research students.

Allen

Allen is a virtual machine on Hopper available for use by all computer science students.

Aslan

This research server is owned by Professor Montañez and is used by his research students.

CPU: 40 cores/80 threads (2× Intel Xeon Silver 4316)
RAM: 256 GB
GPU: NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3090
Gentoo Linux

Other CS servers

Several other support servers are reserved for important network functions and aren’t available for student or faculty use, or are restricted to special purposes. (For example, Cortana and Durandal may be used for changing your password, but should not be used for other purposes.) Please don’t try to use any of our servers for unintended purposes; stick to the ones listed above and respect the guidelines for what’s appropriate on each machine.

Several professors have additional research servers that aren’t part of the CS cluster. If you’re working on a research project with one of those professors they’ll provide you with the necessary login credentials and other important usage information.

Biology Servers

Purves

Although managed by Computer Science, this server is owned by Biology. It’s sometimes available for Computer Science research projects but it’s intended primarily for the use of the Biology department. Please ask permission before using it for anything else.

CPU: 64 cores (4× AMD Opteron 6276)
RAM: 512 GB
Ubuntu Linux (likely to be switched to Gentoo Linux soon)

Sivapithecus

Although managed by Computer Science, this server is owned by Biology and is not available for CS use.

CPU: 64 cores (4× AMD Opteron 6276)
RAM: 512 GB
Gentoo Linux

Computer Labs

Several lab/classroom spaces in the McGregor Computer Science Center house desktop computers used for programming lab courses, homework, student projects, and general computing for computer science students. This includes a pair programming lab, where each computer has two monitors, two keyboards, and two mice, allowing a pair of students to work simultaneously on the same computer to complete an assignment.

The Foo lab (McGregor 203/204) has 36 Macs (a mix of Intel iMacs and Intel Mac minis) for student use. You can log in with a CS department account or log in as a guest if you don’t have an account. (If you log in as a guest then all files you create will be deleted upon logging out.) The adjacent lab in McGregor 205 does not currently have computers set up in it but you may bring your laptop or otherwise use it as a space for working on assignments.

These labs are used for teaching many classes; please check the schedule posted at the door to determine when it’s available.

The Pair Programming lab (McGregor 205) has 26 Intel Mac minis. Each computer has two monitors, two keyboards, and two mice. It’s designed to be used by pairs of students who sit across from each other and are working together on a project; you can each see what’s on screen and type comfortably while also facing each other for easy communication. This lab is used for teaching courses (particularly CS 70) so check the schedule posted at the door to to determine when it’s available. If the labs are busy please let students working on pair programming assignments use this lab. Use the Foo lab (MCSC 203/204) if you’re working by yourself.

Network Resources

The department operates its own wired network (divided into four subnets) and its own firewall system. We have two redundant ten gigabit per second links to the campus router, providing us fast and reliable access to the rest of Claremont and to the global Internet. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are available on all of our subnets.

For Wi-fi you should use the Claremont-WPA network. The Computer Science department does not operate its own Wi-fi network.

The department has a web server available for students and faculty to host their own websites as well as its own email server. Our servers provide DHCP, DNS, NTP and other important low-level infrastructure to our subnets, as well as higher level protocols such as LDAP and NFS to share resources between our servers and lab computers.

Printers and Scanners

Students may print on the black and white printer “berg” located in the southwest corner of the 3rd floor of McGregor. Students needing access to color printers should contact the systems administrator for assistance.

The department has a large format printer which suitable for printing posters (on 36″ wide paper). This is primarily used to create posters for the clinic poster session on Projects Day in May, the summer research poster session in September, and for posters that are being taken to conferences. Please talk to your faculty advisor or the systems administrator for information on how to submit files for poster printing.

Students may use the copier in McGregor 339 during business hours to scan documents, either to a USB flash drive or to send via email. Students may not use the copier to print or make physical copies. Please see the department’s administrative assistants or systems administrator for assistance.

Clinic

The Clinic program has its own set of hardware available for clinic students. Typically each team is issued one or more desktop computers as well as additional equipment, depending on the requirements of the individual project. Please talk to your faculty advisor and the assistant systems administrator if you need additional resources.