Quick Links

• Apply for an account
• Change your password
• Manage your SENS email
• Print to a public lab
• Get your computer on the network
• Create a web page
• Launch UBiquity Citrix
• Log in to SENS Webmail (launches in new window)
• Request Microsoft software (Faculty/Staff)
• Project Lockbox (Faculty)

Introduction

SENS maintains several Unix-based shared resource computing environments, which we refer to as our "UBiquity Timeshares". These systems are mainly intended for batch processing, running programs that require more resources than can be found on a typical workstation, and providing services for remote users. We currently have timeshare services for the Solaris, Linux, and IRIX operating systems. For information about our timeshare-like facilities for Microsoft Windows, please refer to our SENS Citrix Facilities page.

The timeshare computers are grouped into resources called "pools", so that you can log in to any available system without needing to be concerned about the individual machine identities. For example, logging in to "unix.eng.buffalo.edu" will establish a session to any one of the available Solaris timeshares. The actual machines are named after villains, as described below.

The remainder of this page describes the hardware and software resources that comprise the timeshare pools. For more information on the timeshare services, including how to log in and use them, please refer to our UBiquity Timeshares page.

The Solaris Timeshare Pool (unix.eng.buffalo.edu/unix.nsm.buffalo.edu)

Our primary timeshare pool consists of two identical Sun Enterprise 4500 servers, running the Solaris 8 operating system, and each with four 400 MHz UltraSPARC processors and 8 GB of RAM. These systems are:

• Dracula — The classic Bram Stoker villain, immortalized on the screen by Bela Lugosi.
• Mordred — Slayer and Slayee of King Arthur of Camelot.

The Linux Timeshare Pool (linux.nsm.buffalo.edu/linux.eng.buffalo.edu)

We offer two Linux timeshares that are functionally identical but based on different hardware architectures. One is a Sun X4100 with two dual-core 64-bit AMD processors, and the other is a Dell PowerEdge 1950 with two Intel Core 2 Duo (Xeon) processors. They both have 8 GB RAM and are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 in 64-bit mode.

• Luthor (Sun X4100) — The Man of Steel's crafty foe.
• Ming (Dell PowerEdge 1950) — If you ever visit Planet Mongo, look up Flash Gordon's merciless nemesis.

Other Timeshare Servers

SENS has an SGI IRIX timeshare system known as "toybox". This breaks from our "villains" theme because we wanted to acknowledge the generous donation of it from a local company, Fischer-Price, of East Aurora, NY. This system is an SGI Origin 200 running the IRIX 6.5 operating system, and contains 256 MB of RAM and two MIPS R10000 processors.