User DOs and DON'Ts

• DO read the ​Student Introduction to DeterLab if you are a student.
• DON'T use control network unless absolutely necessary. This means:
  • DON'T use full node names such as ping node1.YourExperiment.YourProject
    • DO use short names such as ping node1. This ensures that traffic goes over experimental network.
  • DON'T generate traffic to 192.168.x.x network
    • DO use addresses of experimental interfaces. These can be from any IPv4 address range, depending on your NS file, but are often from 10.10.x.x address range.
• DON'T store large files in your home or project directory unless you need them in multiple experiment instances.
  • DO store these files locally on a node, e.g., in /tmp folder. If you need more disk space you can mount more to /mnt/local by doing

    sudo /usr/local/etc/emulab/mkextrafs.pl /mnt
    user=`whoami`
    sudo chown $user /mnt/local
    

• DON'T transfer large (>500 MB) files frequently between your home or project directories and a local directory on your experimental machine. If you need to regularly save and read large files that persist between experiment instances Contact us and we can help you use our ZFS storage.
• DON'T perform large (> 500 MB) or frequent (< 10 s) reads/writes on your experimental nodes into your home or project directory
  • DO use a local directory on an experimental node, such as /tmp or /mnt/local, and transfer the logs to your home directory before you swap out to save them.
• DON'T compile large files or run CPU intensive jobs on users.deterlab.net.
  • DO allocate experimental nodes, store files locally and compile/run jobs there.