Weekly Report for Week Ending August 21, 2003

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  August 25, 2003 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

Open meeting 10:30 - 11:30

1. Announcements
2. LSC Issues (Saulson)
3. Comments on Weekly Report
4. WBS 1 LIGO I Construction (Lindquist)
• Field Change Orders/Contingency Liens/Change Requests
5. WBS 2 LIGO Lab Operations
• Administration (Lindquist)
• Sites (Raab, Zucker, Shoemaker, Sanders)
• Detector (Whitcomb, Coyne)
• Campus Research Facilities (Weinstein (40 Meter), Libbrecht (TNI), Zucker(LASTI))
• Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
6. WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Shoemaker)
7. CHANGE CONTROL BOARD/TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD SESSION AS NEEDED

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Saulson)

no report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

There was no site teleconference held on Thursday, August 21, 2003.
The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through August 7, 2003 may be found at ACTION LIST.

From: Ed Chargois <chargois_e@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Provided assistance to the Optic Engineer (G. Billingsley) with packing and arranging transportation for one (1) Interferometer and a CPU, Remote Control Box, and three (3) cables for upgrade and repair, to Veeco Metrology Group of Tucson, AZ.  Attn: J.G.Ryan.  Account Number LIGO.OPT 5.4 NSFLIGO.FY02ON.
• Provided assistance to the Detector Group (H.Armandula) with packing, US Customs Documentation for a shipment of special tools and small Aluminium, Stainless Steel and Copper Machined Parts to the University of Glasgow (Mr. John Russell).  Account Number P204317.
• Assisted the LHO Site Administrator (T. Gunther) with Property Accountability Training and the disposal of  several unserviceable Computers and Monitors for recycling.

>From: Linda Turner - turner@ligo.caltech.edu>

Web pages for the DCC give simple how-to's for document numbering, easy access to the latest on-line documents, and search capabilities for the DCC database. Take a look. . .

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• No report this week (at LSC meeting).
• Reminder to LIGO staff:  Please make sure that as a minimum, each document submitted has a LIGO number, author's name, and date.  Many documents are missing one of more of these essential pieces of information!

ACTIVITY
Electronic document activity has been busy.  Processing of LSC documents for the LSC Meeting this week in Germany. 

08/21/03	Packages	Faxes
In	26	25
Out	12	30

Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.

From: Esther Cunningham <esther@ligo.caltech.edu>

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA .

From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@caltech.edu>

• No report--vacation.

• Processing PO's standard, Contracts and Change Orders
• Sent a cancellation notice to Siemens Building to cancel PO
• Submitted a contract to NSF for approval on the Hydraulic Actuator Parts
• Set up PO for consulting service for Thomas Nash and Dr. Maurice Van Putten

• Worked on some issues related to the Visitor Program, the new account number for the Visitor Program Award for the fiscal period beginning August 2003 has been set up.
• Assisted in reviewing schedules related to the FY2004 budgets.
• Participated in a telephone meeting with Ed Jasnow and Allen Sibley about status of budgets and expenditures for Livingston Construction accounts and Facilities accounts in Operations.  Sent copies of Change Requests which have been approved to date for Livingston Construction to Allen Sibley.
• Worked on reports for August 2003.

 
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

From: irena@ligo.caltech.edu (Irena Petrac)

• AdLIGO SEI Mechanical Structures: Phase I effort is nearing completion. Value Engineering Reviews will take place at contractors facility end of next week (HYTEC/28th and Alliance/29th) and on Sept. 2 at HPD. Phase II proposals and Phase III ROM's are due at these reviews. Phase II awards will be made on a competitive basis and will require NSF approval.

• Chervenell Construction has been working on the LHO Laboratory Building front glass vestibule, and is scheduled to finish this week.  This will complete the contract and allow for payment of the final invoice, including retention.
• Florence Kaufman and Ed Jasnow reviewed the status of the LLO facilities budget with Allen Sibley in order to account for several change requests that were initiated before Allen took over the facilities tasks.
• The contract package for the manufacture and assembly of the EPI housing was sent to the NSF for review and approval on Wednesday, August 20.  The value of this contract is just under $130,000.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for seven (7) new/revised trips.  There are approximately three (3) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and/or paper work completed.  And an additional two (2) general inquiries.  Until further notice I will be doing travel for LHO travelers.  I continue to do MIT's travel to the sites for installation activities and also to assist them wherever possible.
• LIGO/SURF Field Trip was completed and all went well.  Now closing out the Expense Reports associated with 18 trips to LHO and starting on closing out all other Expense Reports associated with the entire group (30) of SURF students, including those assigned to LLO and LHO.
• Assisted with closing/reconciling four (4) 2002 trips for a LIGO P-Card holder who was having trouble closing his trips out.  Also did month-end reconciling and closing for four (4) LIGO travelers who were out of the country at the time of P-Card Month-End Reconciling.
• Completed thirty-three (33) Expense Reports and there are four (4) reports yet to be done.  I continue to contact travelers who have outstanding Expense Reports (more than one (1) month old) to ask for their cooperation in sending me their receipts so that they can be closed in a timely manner.  Presently there are four (4) reports more than 30 days old.
• Reconciled twenty-five (25) P-Card items which required numerous phone calls to hotels, car rentals, etc., in order to track down which traveler incurred which charge; and the pulling of each traveler's file to assure that charges are correct for each fee incurred.  There were a total of eighty-two (82) for the month.
• Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for August 19, 2003.  Arranged three (3) new teleconferences and arranged two (2) new reservation on the LIGO Calendar.

 

 

• No report last week due to my working on reformat and corrections to KineOptics and Southern Enterprise contracts (which went out to contractors on Friday), along with processing the usual requisitions, purchase and change orders, and P-card purchases.
• This reporting period involved reformat and corrections to the Southbridge contract for submission to NSF for approval, reconciled P-card, processed the usual requisitions and invoices and followed up on invoice problems, worked with Phyllis on purchase and change orders in process, and continued to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements were needed.
• Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and helping out in the DCC.

• No report this week (vacation).

ADVANCED LIGO (Cost Schedule Control Systems) T. Frey
From: Thomas Frey <tfrey@ligo.caltech.edu>

Accomplishments:

For list of documents that are being used to develop Adv. LIGO Cost and Schedule, see http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/Cost_MTG_082002/

• Continued development of a proposal for implementing Primavera Project Planner Enterprise.
• Continue working on draft text of implementation.
• Clink on links to view the Draft Work-plan and Estimate.
• Continue testing of Primavera Enterprise version 3.5.1.  See the links below for information / technology demonstrations:
• Primavision - http://primavision.drmcnatty.com:8080/phoenixwl/login_p3ec  Login using Username:  admin and Password:  admin.
• Progress Reporter - http://www.projwebsite.com/GroupServerP3e/en/  Login using Username:  admin and Password:  admin.
• Static HTML Example - http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/SUS_WebProj/ (AdL Suspensions Only)  NOTE:  This is after importing and before any data corrections.
• Static HTML Example - http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/DAQ_WebProj/ (AdL DAQ Only)  NOTE:  This is after making adjustments to the WBS so that it displays as expected.
• Communicated with Primavera Systems regarding what will be in ver. 4.0 release.  I was disappointed to learn that several features that were expected in 4.0, are being pushed to version 5.0 scheduled for release summer 2005.
• Executed phone conference with Carol Wilkinson, and prepared a package to be sent to her.  (P3 3.0 and complete set of the AdL Cost and Schedule notebooks.)
• Will attend the Users conference in November at Orlando, Florida.  See http://www.primavera.com/events/conference.html

• The following is a summary of status by sub system:
• COC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• PSL -  No action items pending.  Followed up with Peter and Benno has provided data.  Peter has yet to review.
• AOS - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• IO -  Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• SUS - No action items pending.  I will make a first cut of schedule changes for Janeen to review.
• SEI - No action items pending.
• ISC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
• LDAS - No action required at this point in time.
• INSTALL - No action items pending.
• DAQ - No action required at this point in time.
• PM - No action required at this point in time.
• FAC - No action required at this point in time.
• SUP - No action required at this point in time.

• Updated the plan with progress as of 08.15.03 and  posted to site.
• Sent out update data requests for progress as of 08.29.03.

• ROSTER DATABASE:
• BK is continuing work on action items.
• Continue Input of supervisor, dept., and specialty codes.
• Continued ongoing co-ordination with Albert, Peter S., and Stan W., on the authorship data.
• BK is scheduled to visit on the 26th or 27th to work with Me, Ryan, and Veronica.  (Photos of Personnel to be added to database)

• COST BOOK DATABASE:
• BK is continuing work on action items.
• Posted current list of AdL Cost codes.  (http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/Cost_MTG_082002/ )

Project Web Site for posting schedule and progress related data continues to be updated with the latest and greatest.

• See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html

We are working on three proposals and work plans:

• FY 2004 Annual Report and Request for FY 2004 Funds,
• Supplement to the Advanced LIGO Proposal
• Outreach Proposal Revision.

The following change requests are open.

CR-030015	FY 2003 Livingston Observatory Detector Maintenance Expenses (Increment)	R. Wooley	July 14, 2003
CR-030016	Hanford Facilities 2.2--Divide the Large Equipment Access	J. Worden	July 31, 2003

Change Request CR-030016 was discussed during the Executive Committee Meeting on August 4, 2003.  Three questions were raised:

• If we need this at Hanford, do we need it at Livingston?
• How have we managed in the past?
• Is this targeted more for Advanced LIGO?

From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

• Nothing significant to report this week.

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)

------------------------- H1 -----------------------------
 

o S2-like angular control of Test Masses restored. The WFS engagement
   has been reliable and robust. Main difference is that
   all WFSs loops are now closed. The loops are still DC controlling the
   angles and at the S2 laser power level (800mW going into MC);
 

o The DC angular control of the Test Masses has proved to be not enough
   to handle the laser power increase. For this reason we began to focus
   on increasing the WFS bandwidth. We succeeded to go from DC control
   to 100mHz-1Hz angular control (depending on the WFS) with no signs
   of instabilities or oscillations. Although promising, we need to test
   this new setup at the 2.3W laser power level. 25% decrease in the
   AS_I rms was observed from the S2-like configuration to the new gain
   setup (elog luca 8/18/2003);
 

o The ISCT4 meat locker is in place and we have enough pass through
   clearance between BSC3 and the meat locker to squeeze through. The
   optics table is in place using the damped tripod (24.5") legs and
   spacers. The optic table position was adjusted 2" to the right from
   the drawing layout to accommodate the new periscope. The periscope
   top mirror was raised 2 3/4 inches to make up for the lack of height
   and beam running up hill. The light pipes are installed and fastened
   to the meat locker wall and coupled to the view ports. The end of
   the light pipes have a short bellows connecting them to the table
   enclosure. The PO beams are well center within the light pipes. The
   light pipes have acoustic damping material wrapped around them. The
   table enclosure back panels will need to be modified for the new
   light pipe and wiring perforations The wiring will come through the
   back now. The re-cabling will start today. The rack that was under
   the table now resides out side of the meat locker. I have received
   some of the new 2" Newport and CVI optics to allow us to start
   aligning beam paths. The other Newport 2" mounts ship Friday (will
   not be a show stopper). We can start cleaning all of the existing
   optics and installing the new optics and mounts today. The periscopes
   are installed to a rough position as well. Akiteru made some new
   measurements on the periscopes and the table mounted on the new legs
   prior to us putting the meat locker in place (for comparison). I am
   installing the access card reader on the meat locker tomorrow as
   well. I made up some grouting 'dams' and installed them around the
   tripod feet so we can grout the legs later on. I had the electrician
   hook up the fans and lights with a 30ft extension cord to give us
   access to power. The acoustic materials from E.A.R arrived yesterday.
   I used the 2" wide by 1/2" thick strip foam the seal the bottom of
   the meat locker to the floor. I' still need to call Acoustic
   Solutions for the fix instructions on the air intake (they sent the
   insulation materials less the adhesive and no instructions). We hope
   to finish up late Friday.   -- D.Cook
 

--------------------------- H2 --------------------------------
 

o WFS sensing matrix measured in pitch and yaw; WFS4 is the less
   sensitive of all the WFSs, RF gain was increased. For this reason,
   the AM laser characterization of WFS4 may need to be re-visited
  (see details vsanni elog 8/20/2003);
 

o 3 WFS loops closed (pitch only) -- WFS1>dETM, WFS2A>cITM and
   WFS3>RM -- in a 'H1 S2-like' configuration (see vsanni elog
   8/21/2003);
 

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer Operations (Zucker)

no report

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• The 40 Meter Technical Review Board (chair: Ken Strain, kstrain@physics.gla.ac.uk) met on Wed, Aug 20, at the LSC meeting, Hannover. Osamu Miyakawa presented the 40m status report.
• Installation (Vass, Miyakawa, Smith, everyone):
• The PSL -> IOO -> IFO is now completely aligned in air, including all output beams, all oplev beams, and with all suspended optics' OSEMs at mid-range.
• Mike is trying different places to put the autocollimator for a final, out-of-vacuum alignment.
• It's not final, yet: the last oplev mirrors, camera view mirrors, shutter flags, will be installed today. This should have negligible effect, but the full alignment will be re-established afterwards.
• But, there's a problem: a few suspended optics have been observed to drift significantly in their alignment, overnight. The obvious suspect is the settling of the seismic isolation stacks (with viton springs); but it seems too big an effect. Mike and Steve continue to investigate this.
• If the alignment does not continue to drift, we hope to complete this installation and pump down early next week.
• Also, Mike discovered that the BS suspension clips the AP beam. He and steve will construct a jig to move the BS suspension to get rid of this.
• Steve is reviewing the placement of all optical-quality viewports, and re-arranging as necessary.
• The interface board for the in-vac PZT mirrors is finished, and was sent to the boardhouse on Tuesday; should be back by Monday. But we hope to seal up on Monday; so in the meantime, Ben is testing the system with a cross-connect block in place of the interface board.
• Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Taylor)
• ITMx was damping poorly. Steve discovered that it was banging on an EQ stop. He backed it out; now all suspended optics are damping well at nominal gains.
• The DAQS was crashing last week, but has not crashed once this week. Not sure why; there may have been a loose ethernet cable that was inserted more firmly.
• Ben had some simulation problems with Aidan's photon actuator experiment filter designs. He finally fixed the problem on Monday, and the design went to the boardhouse on Tuesday. When it arrives, it will be stuffed and tested ready for use early next week.
• Ben has assembled an inventory of all the parts we need to finish the ASC and LSC systems, and is taking steps to get everything we need.
• Lisa G is running more video monitor cables from the video switch to the monitors in the control room.
• Optical levers (Bhatt, Goggin, Smith, Vass, Taylor):
• Naman, with help from Jay, Ben, Steve, and Mike, has oplev beams on all 5 optics: BS, ITMx, ITMy, ETMx, ETMy; all work fine, through to EPICS screens and dataviewer.
• Except, the beam for ITMx is severely attenuated by the time it gets to the oplev QPD. She is investigating.
• Ben changed the gains on the oplev QPD circuit by 10x to see if that would help with the weak ITMx signal, but the problem seems to be due to too many mirror bounces.
• Alex and Jay installed and verified new code for the optical levers in the vertex. The segments on the optical lever servo screen now match the segment definitions for the aux crate, i.e. segment 1 is segment 1, etc. This is the same definition used for the ends.
• As part of the new code installation in the vertex, Jay tested the optical lever signals in dataviewer. We observed the 4 segment signals for the BS in dataviewer and verified that we could see them. They all work.
• Next step is to set up and turn on the digital servo and see if it damps.
• PSL and ISS (O. Miyakawa, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, F. Nocera, D. Ugolini, S. Vass, C. Mow-Lowry):
• Conor measured the OLTF of the FSS with the pickoff after the PMC and before the PMC. They look exactly the same (and the same as before the re-layout) at 100 kHz and below, with +16.5db of gain at 100 kHz (LIGO spec is +12db at 100 kHz).
• The PMC pole rolloff is clearly seen above 200 kHz. We can easily switch between having the pickoff before and after the PMC, with no change in gain at 100 kHz; this will allow us to easily evaluate the effect of the change on the frequency noise spectrum measured by the mode cleaner, as soon as we get the mode cleaner back up.
• This good performance at 100 kHz means that there's no need to make further mods to the FSS to increase the UGF. In particular, no PMC pole compensation is needed.
• Conor and Ben will make the HVamp daughter board on the FSS card into a permanent mod.
• Conor is re-commissioning the 4 QPDs that monitor the PSL beam position, PSL beam angle, MCT beam position, and MCR beam position.
• Conor is investigating some beam ellipticity in the vicinity of the PSL periscope.
• There was a slight delay on the ISS PDs boxes silkscreening. They are now ready, and I will go and pick them up tomorrow. The head enclosures are finished, and just need some screws to finish them off.
• One set of ISS boards and PD's is earmarked for our PSL.
• Optical sensing (Smith):
• OPTICS PARTS LIST, Orders pending: Spherical collection mirror from Rolyn for the BRDF meter.
• 40 M IFO PRE-ALIGNMENT: Both arms have been aligned. The antisymmetric (dark) port has been aligned. We are in the process of aligning the symmetric port with the autocollimator.
• PHOTON DRIVE R&D: Tom Essinger-Hileman has aligned an optical system with 4 bounces from the MC2 mirror. He presented his SURF talk, and has completed his SURF program.

Aidan Crook is staying an extra week and will test the photon actuation control of the mode cleaner after it is locked.
• Modeling (Miyakawa, Kawamura, Eichenfield):
• SURF Keiko Kokeyama presented her results on testing (in MATLAB) the approximate solution for the dual-recycled summation cavity for E2E. It looks good! Implementation in E2E can now begin.
• Seiji continues to develop a model of the 40m and AdvLIGO with Finesse, and comparing with Twiddle calculations.
• Matt continues to develop his Simulink model of the MC WFS system. He talked to Luca at LHO about how they do the servoing there.
• Computing (Ivanov, Bork, Goggin, Wallace, Bogue, Pedraza):
• Lisa Goggin assembled a database of all the computers and their target directories in /cvs/cds/caltech/target, and labelled all the embedded computers. She updated the network status medm screen.
• Lisa Bogue set up cron jobs on all the online Suns to synch their system clock with our gateway computer, which synchs to a GPS server on campus. We hope that will reduce the time synch problems that prevent us from running DTT.
• Jay looked at the problems with running dataviewer on op140m, "The problem was with the number of queues. I did an ipcs -q and found 9. I then used ipcrm -q to remove each one. Dataviewer now appears to work. I started it with 8 different optical lever signals from different optics and they all display. The updates are very slow since op140m is such a dog. We should get a fatser machine to run dataviewer on."
• We use PC laptops to display medm screens, off of op140m. We can lessen the load on op140m considerably by running medm directly on the PCs, if they can mount the op140m disk. Jay suggests getting Samba to run on op140m, to serve the disk to the laptops. We'll ask Lisa B.
• The Sun blade 100 on Dennis' desk won't boot; Lisa B has been alerted.
• South Annex Bake Ovens (Taylor):
• Bob is working on yet more baffles for LHO.
• Bob is baking more misc parts for installation, including remachined shutter flags.
• Bob has prepared optical viewport assemblies for Steve.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
--------------------------------
 

Wave Front sensor
-------------------
(Biplab)
 Working with Luca to understand the behavior of WFS loops
 especially if the gains are increased. It was observed that H1 (real IFO)
 goes out of lock if the power is increased without increasing the gain.
 

Code development and maintenance
---------------------------------
(Melody)
 - Continuing e2e source code modification to dynamically create
   C++ source from FUNC_xxx equation modules, which would be compiled,
   combined to a shared library, and used during runtime execution.
 
Alfi
-----
(Bruce)
 Continuing work on bundles and bundlers in Alfi (PR 272.)
 
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
-------------------------
 

LDAS Software Systems
---------------------
 

(Blackburn)
The LIGO Data Computing Group Toolset (LDCG) was upgraded on several of
the standalone LDAS systems and on the tandem (dual server) system with
the GCC 3.3.1 compilers. Once this was accomplished, the version of LDAS
on these systems was rebuilt to also be based on GCC 3.3.1. Only a few
files had to be modified to be compliant with the stricter ANSI/ISO
standards imposed with this compiler. LDAS was then tested on these
systems and found to run as reliable and slightly faster than with the
previous GCC 3.3.0 compilers. The LDAS-DEV system will be upgraded by
the end of this week to be based on this GCC 3.3.1 compiler set.
 

A performance comparison of three candidate platforms used to run the
LDAS metaServerAPI and the DB2 database server was carried out this
week in order to pick the best hardware platform for the next science
run. The comparison was between the old Sun 4 CPU server, a new faster
2 CPU server from Sun, and a dual CPU Intel server. Two different classes
of tests were performed. The first suite of tests challenged only the
metaDataAPI and the database server. The second test suite was our "real
world" nightly dataPipeline/metadata access and insertion tests. The
dual Intel server won in all categories by a factor of 3 to 4 over the
original four CPU Sun server. The newer dual Sun server came in second
place being about 1.5 times faster than the original 4 CPU Sun server.
We are now performing longer term tests of the dual Intel server under
heavier loads to get a better understanding of the issues associated
with running our database server under Linux.
 

We have upgraded our MPI distribution to the newest LAM version 7.0.
Testing has been carried out on the same set of servers that the new
GCC 3.3.1 compiler was tested on and will be migrated onto the LDAS-DEV
system later this week. Preliminary tests indicate that this version of
LAM is more stable and reliable than the previous release, resulting
in significantly fewer jobs failing in the MPI layer of LDAS.  It does
continue to have a memory leak issue under single server configurations.
It has not yet been tested to determine if it generates the network
packet storms seen on large clusters.
 

An issue was discovered (or probably rediscovered) involving blocking
sends of data between the frameAPI and the dataConditionAPI in a bi-
directional mode this week. Code is being developed and tested to
attempt to handle this condition.
 

Continued to improve documentation for various LDAS webpages.
 

Continued to read C++ code in search of poorly implimented use of
container methods.
 

Began development of an interface in the controlMonitorAPI and functionality
in the managerAPI to allow any LDAS user to have their account temporarily
blocked with unattended open loop scripts are causing distructive behavior
on an LDAS system. This is based on experiences during the previous science
runs and originated with a request from Greg Mendell.
 

The process coredump monitoring software (corewatch) was modified to allow
it to correctly monitor and manage coredumps that are very close together
in the LDAS system.
 

Began evaluating the new BWidget TCL/TK package version 1.6 for inclusion
in the next release of LDAS. This package is used by the controlMonitorAPI
and has several nice bug fixes in it for us, but also has changes to its
interfaces which will require code changes in our code to make compatible.
 

(Charlton)
This week I have continued to work on the software for creating reduced
data in S3 and the future. It should be ready for initial release at the
end of the week. Things added since last time were:
 - ability to handle errors in LDAS jobs
 - ability to handle LDAS outages
 - status information that can be monitored via the dsorun web page (used
   in the control room)
 - extended logging information
 - graphical representation of raw and reduced data
 
 

LDAS Hardware Systems
---------------------
 

Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)
Trip to LLO:
  * Put 2Gb FC HBAs in metaserver and dataserver.
  * Installed SAN 4.2 on gateway, metaserver & dataserver.
  * Hooked up 2Gb FC switch to hosts, STK 9940Bs, L700, T3s, 3510, framebuilder.
  * Configured SAM-QFS on dataserver to use 9940Bs/L700.
  * Set up new framebuilder (SunBlade2000) with SAN4.2, standalone QFS 4.0.
  * Installed new firmware on 3510.
 

(Hari Pulapaka)
* Installing of Condor: Setting up condor took quite a bit of time, I had to
  spend a lot of time debugging condor. The main head node had 2 interfaces
  and somehow the nodes were not able to connect to the head node, so I had
  to setup a private domain group for the private subnet. So, now the nodes
  in the pool can connect to the head node but job submission is still
  creating problems.
* I was also looking after the transfer of files from UWM using LDR. The
  transfer was completed today, but it crashed many times earlier and I had
  to debug and restart it many times.
* I was also getting myself familiar with the LDR code in python.
 

(Al Wilson)
* Setting up RH9 for kickstart installation.
  Have a core set of rpm's and working directory. Testing is going well.
  Should be ready for beta by weeks end.
* Sent files to MIT for the beowulf nodes. Will help Keith with the
  installation.
 

(Stuart Anderson)
* Solved problem with incompatible firmware inside one of the 3510 RAID
  units and as a result upgraded all 10 units at Caltech.
* Successfully created a single 10TByte file on the new SAM-QFS disk
  cache (built out of 8 3510 units).
* Helped Paul Armor at UWM to get LDAS-0.7.0 running on the Medusa cluster.
* Started testing Solaris9 Maintenance Update 4 with its support for
  larger than 1TB storage devices.
* Started testing motherboard BIOS upgrade for P4DL6 systems used for
  the 5 standalone software development machines and the IDE-RAID
  servers.
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
* Installed LHO foundry switch at MIT.
* Set IP addresses on foundry switch's to 10.11.254.252 and 253.
* Installed SysKonnect cards into new datacon/beowulf nodes.
* Received gigabit cards and fiber patch cords from Caltech.
* Troubleshooting failing raid drive on pcraid#3.
* Monitored cluster node with watt measuring tool.
 

Livingston
----------
(Igor Yakushin)
* Two T3 disks failed and have been replaced.
* Dan Kozak is visiting LLO to configure the tape robot, fiber channel
  switch, 3510, fb2. Tape robot is configured, however, one of the drives
  seems to have some problems: it writes data 200 times slower than other
  drives. I called StorageTek: a technician should come this Friday. fb3
  is configured to use LDAS' T3s, however, it is running Solaris 9 (to
  work with T3s correctly, the current fb2 is running Solaris 8) which has
  not been proved yet to work with CDS software and hardware; once it is
  proved that it works, fb3 will replace fb2. 3510 firmware upgrade is in
  progress. Servers, T3s, taperobot, fb3, 3510 are using now the new fiber
  channel switch.
* Upgraded firmware on the new gige switch.
* Tested VPN connectivity from MIT to other sites. It works fine to LLO
  and LHO but I observed the same problems from MIT to CIT as from all the
  other sites to CIT. With the existing network problems it is impossible
  to use the central metaserver (as well as ldas-cit's metaserver) at CIT
  through VPN. We are going to take another look at this tonight with
  Shannon.
* The new AC has been installed in LDAS room last week and seems to
  work fine so far: I have been running very heavy load on LDAS during the
  weekend to test how AC can handle it. Some time next week the remnants
  of the old AC will be removed and hopefully LDAS room would get back
  into an ordered state.
 

Hanford
-------
(Ben Johnson)
* Reconnected the LDAS room temp monitor computer to the CDS network.
  The box is a standalone SparcStation 5 which sends the LDAS room
  temperature into the CDS EPICS system.
* Working with Dave Barker on how to allow CDS-side NDS users to have
  longer and efficent data lookback during S3 (lookback longer than 6-12
  days).
* Set IPaddr for the one 3510 at LHO to 10.10.35.10 .  It is on the
  same network as the T3's and 64-port FC switch (storage network).
* Begun process of moving the 10.10.x.y network over to dataserver. I
  can now telnet from dataserver to any device on the storage network. I
  still need to install the SUNWesm (Enterprise Storage Manager software)
  to capture the T3 logs on a regular basis.
* Continuing work on data archiving scripts for S3.
 
 

Data Analysis Activities
------------------------
 

(Creighton)
Finally managed to generate good all-sky pulsar search template meshes
for short (day-long) integrations, and started checking the code on
longer (month- or year-long) integrations.
 

(Yakushin)
Debugging parallelized version of waveburst.
 
 

General Computing (Wallace)
---------------------------
 

MIT:
(Keith)
 - Troubleshot / reinstalled windows pc
 - Working on wireless channel interference with PSFC
   Filesystem backups migrated to new SCSI drive
 -Patching Sun machines
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
 - This week can be summed up as spending all of my time on windows
   worms and viruses.  Blaster, Welchia and SoBig.f@mm
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
 - On vacation and out sick most of last week and Monday of this week.
 - Came in off my vacation for a short time to work with Ed Chargois who
   was on site to dispose of all of our broken or excess computer
   equipment.
 - Continuing to work with Larry to get access to the Caltech ITS
   software site.  Our IP addresses are blocked by Caltech.  I am not able
   to get access to any of the site license software.
 - Working with Larry and Carol Wilkinson to get software from Caltech
   that Carol needs in order to do her job.
 - Helped Carol set up her modem to use her account on the 800 line at
   Caltech.
 - Helped a few users clean up their PCs after the worm and virus
   attacks.  One user had several trojan software programs running on his
   PC.
 - Working on Otto's computer to resolve a problem where some programs
   are unable to run properly.  At this time it appears the problem is due
   to some accessibility settings that Otto needs.
 - Resumed work on the network upgrade problem.  I've contacted PNNL
   again with the status of my most recent testing.  Last I heard from them
   someone was trying to come up with some e2e performance testing tools as
   they have nothing at this time to test with.
 - Continued working with Larry on whether he bought tech support for my
   Cisco router and if so what is the support contract number.  Larry is
   sure he bought the tech support, but can't find the contract number.  He
   will continue to investigate and get back to me.  As soon as I have a
   contract number from Larry I can open a case with Cisco tech support for
   help on the router.
 - I have opened a case with Cisco tech support for help configuring my
   internal switches.  I have 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. next business day telephone
   support for my switches.
 - Installed some software required by Biplab for e2e.
 - Will be installing a gige interface card on the cisco router.
 - Resuming the install of the Calcium calendar on our web server.
 

CIT:
(Lisa)
 - Spent a large chunk of time working on windows security issues and viruses.
   The mail server has been blocking most of the latest virus attack from the
   end user.  Still, there are a lot of error messages to read through.
 - Working in the 40m.  Started a todo list with Lisa Goggin of what we will
   need to get accomplished in the next few weeks.  I think I finally have
   the ntp issue resolved, but this doesn't get tested often, so the feedback
   is minimal.
 - Still working on a problem from last week.  ITS blocked port 135 at our
   router but some of the purchasing people need that port to get their e-mail
   from the ATC server.  This is still unresolved.
 - Reprogrammed the wireless access points many times.  When submitting mac
   address, please be careful to get the correct address for the wireless card.
   Folks have been sending in lan addresses by mistake.
 - Installed quite a few software packages on the server that will replace
   canopus.
 - Began working on a new template to make the GC internal web pages pretty.
 

(Mike)
 - Setup and installed an HP5000n printer in the 40M and removed their old
   printer that was giving them a lot of problems.
 - Worked on a PC that was having problems with the Operating System. It
   turned out that this computer had multiple viruses that I was able to clean.
   This computer is back up and running.
 - Moved and setup in Wilson House the new HP5500dn color printer from the
   40M; this included programming and loading printer drivers on existing
   workstations to connect to this printer.
 - Went all over to update all computers with OS & Security Patches.
 - Worked on updating a few laptops software & OS/Security for the loaner pool.
 - Started loading a new IBM laptop with General Computing software and
   setting up security settings. This has a built in wireless card that is
   giving me some problems that will require me to contact IBM tech support on
   this.
 - Finishing up loading a new Dell workstation to replace the VRVS system
   up on the third floor of W/B. This includes loading all General Computing
   Software plus VRVS. I am also testing & optimizing VRVS settings.
 - Worked on a scanner for DCC. I swapped out the Automatic Document Feeder
   that had been not working. I had another scanner that was not functioning
   correctly but ADF seemed to be working just fine. I swapped this out but
   hardware still needs to be tested.
 - This week I had a lot of software, e-mail, viruses and networking issues
   that kept me real busy this week.
 

(Veronica)
- LIGO website: Posted the latest newsletter. Posted updates to various
  pages. Installed a webpage for the LSC August meeting's transparencies;
  posting them as they arrive. Posted a local copy with all supporting files
  of a press release for MIT per David Shoemaker's request.
  Installed and updated a webpage for S1 papers.
  Tracked down what appeared to be a glitch with the roster database. What
  seemed like a loss of data turned out to be due to an inadvertent switch
  to an earlier copy. I restored the data so that it is now up-to-date.
  Assisted Ed Chargois in recovering data for one of his databases. This
  included installing a copy of data recovery software and repopulating a
  new database with data from another application. It appears to be working
  now.
  Thomas Frey has requested that I take over management of the roster and
  costbook databases. This will include maintenance, updates, and occasional
  design tuneups. Since I am already familiar with the roster db's
  architecture and front ends, I am looking into the costbook database
  layout.
  Minor assistance to Cleveland in setting permissions for some docs in
  /docspublic/.
  Videotaped the last seminar. Set up and monitored the VRVS webcast.
  Captured the video, encoded, and posted for streaming. Made a CD for the
  Moscow U. group with the downloadable copies of the video in various
  formats. Assisted Sergei Vyatchanin and Farid Khalili in transferring and
  converting their files. While at it, updated virus software on the laptop
  that I loaned for them.
  Addressing an issue of posting an update to the LLO website. Looked up
  animations for Tom Lucatorto. Preparing a high-resolution copy of a
  Hanford aerial.
  M82 seemed to had been hit with a virus again. I 'cleaned' it about 2
  weeks ago and keep checking it almost daily.
- LSC website: Posted various updates (most notably, S1 Author List and
  Acknowledgment of Support).
- Project Science: user support.
 

(Larry)
 - Wrapped up a number of procurement items. This included making new purchases
   for various people. Started working on the SUN maintenance contract renewal.
   We will be including some LDAS equipment but with the new person we are
   working with at SUN we should have everything worked out in about a week.
 - Supporting DCC on different fronts. It appears that Linda Turners computer
   had some major problems, so we will be doing a little more on this end in
   trying to get the LSC items posted.
 - Spent some time going over things Christine needs for the Hanford site. They
   still are not on the list to access s/w at Caltech. The software people were
   not aware the problem had not been resolved some weeks ago but assured me
   they would make sure it would be done today.
   Started contact with Cisco to find out the contract number on Christine's
   router. The contract was to be mailed to Christine since she was put down
   as the contact. We now have a new sales rep. so I am going through the hoops
   again to get the information we need.
 - This latest round of viruses is hitting everyone pretty hard. Keeping the
   machines up to date with patches and antivirus definitions is really taking
   up a lot of time. So far we have been fortunate and not had any major
   problems here at LIGO CIT.
 - Working on a number of document issues.
 - Setup a number of accounts and checked out a couple of SURF students that
   are returning home. Regular user support has also been a time consuming
   activity this week as well as trying to catch up on things left over from
   last week while on vacation.

From: Catharine Stebbins <stebbins@caltech.edu>

Observatory website redesign:
1. Have contacted Shannon Roddy about transferring Livingston site files.
2. Development of logos/graphic design for both observatories progresses. Expect to have working examples for review in early September.
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

For additional information about this report, contact sanders@ligo.caltech.edu