SUN Microsystems 420R (WILLOW)

The UM Research Server is provided and supported by the Ole Miss Office of Information Technology, for the research and instructional use of all UM faculty and students. Traditionally, our heaviest users have been UM professors doing specific research requiring brief but intense periods of statistical number crunching, using applications such as SAS, SPSS, IMSL, Lisrel, and Limdep. PVWave is also installed on willow.

However, plenty of cycles are left over during research lulls, so that willow has also be used to great effect as an instructional platform for introductory classes in Fortran and C/C++, an exercise platform for advanced classes in Math/Business/Education/Psychology Statistics, an application development platform for seminars in Java/Web/Database development. It is also an ideal platform for self-directed learners of Unix and Linux, or any of the technologies and packages hosted here.

We encourage faculty and students alike to creatively employ the UM Research Server in meeting your particular learning needs, and look forward to hearing how we can assist you in getting started. Individual accounts are available from the IT Helpdesk in Powers Hall, while class accounts may be requested by emailing an electronic class roll to assist@olemiss.edu.

NOTE:
As a general rule, willow accounts are restricted to University of Mississippi faculty and students only. Also, classes and research requiring extraordinary support and resources should be negotiated at least a semester prior to ensure the platform is ready when you are.

System Configuration

The Sun Microsystems 420R workstation is equipped with four UltraSparcII processing units (CPUs) and 4096 megabyte of memory. The CPU clock speed is 450 MHz. The word size is 64 bits.

Operating System

The Sun Microsystems 420R runs the Solaris 9 operating system. Solaris is a UNIX-derived operating system supported by Sun Microsystems.

Applications

Available applications include SAS, SPSS 6.1.3, IMSL, Lisrel, Limdep a 2.95.2< gcc>, GNU Compilers (g77, gcc) , C/C++,and Forte for Fortran(Sun's Fortran 90 compiler).

Policy

Each user has 40MB quota on home directories and 2GB quota on /ptmp. Temporary space is available on /temp, which is generally purged less often than /tmp.

Connectivity

For security purposes, telnet, rsh, and ftp have been permanently disabled on willow. Users will need to login or transfer files using secure shell, which UM faculty and students may download from the UM IT Helpdesk. A PC-based X Windows emulator, XWin32, is also available for download from the helpdesk, for use on the UM campus. See the UM web pages on ssh and XWin32 for specific installation and configuration instructions for using those packages to connect to willow.

Off campus users may need to connect using willow's IP address (130.74.110.16), rather than its domain name (willow.olemiss.edu) if having difficulty making a connection.

Online Documentation

Documentation is available on-line in the form of man pages. The standard UNIX man command gives in-depth information concerning virtually all Solaris commands and utilities. The Solaris online reference manual on Sun Microsystems website also has detailed information concerning all Solaris commands, system calls and utilities .

Accounts

Accounts are available for UM students, faculty, and staff, for research or instructional use. To apply for an account, please visit the helpdesk in Weir Hall and bring your Olemiss ID. Class accounts expire and are removed after the semester for which they were issued. Passwords expire every three months, and may be reset online at the IT Self Service website