Remote MicroBooNE Shifts

Official links

• MicroBooNE Operations Wiki
• Off-site shift procedures (note that most of these instructions are implemented for you by the short-cuts below)

Prep

Before your first shift, make sure you know the account name and password for your:

• FNAL service account
• FNAL Kerberos account (this ends in @FNAL.GOV)
• FNAL Windows Domain account if you will use Windows Remote Desktop ("Remmina" in the shift instructions)

Note that the account names and passwords for these accounts do not have to be the same, nor do they have anything to do with your Nevis account names or passwords.

Systems

There is one remote-shift computer in room 120 (the Neutrino student office), lexington, with six monitors attached (unless some of your colleagues have "borrowed" some of them).

If you need to run Skype, Zoom, Google Hangouts, or other teleconferencing software, please do so on your laptop.

Set up

Login

Login using the ubooneshift account, which shows up as "MicroBooNE remote shift" on the login screen. The password is the same as the MicroBooNE DocDB password (you're very excited about the LAr TPC).

Start a terminal session on all four systems (there's a terminal icon in the menu bar for the Linux systems, and in the dock for peach).

FNAL Authentication

Next, do the following on the Linux systems (excalibur, lexington, bowser):

Make a VPN connection to FNAL

• Click on the Network Manager icon in the menu bar near the right. This icon looks like two tiny computers.
• Select VPN Connections -> VPN to FNAL.
• Click on the cable icon next to "VPN to FNAL".
• Enter your FNAL service account name and password, then hit ENTER.

If all goes well, after a few seconds you'll see a dire FNAL warning message appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Just close that.

If things don't work, you'll see something like "VPN connection failed." Trying logging out and logging back in again.

Get a Kerberos ticket for FNAL

Start a terminal session and type:

kinit -f <Kerberos-account-name>

You'll be prompted for your Kerberos password

SSH tunnels

Before you start viewing any screens or private web servers at FNAL, you have to set up SSH port-forwarding. In a terminal session, type

Monitor

This will create the necessary SSH tunnels, do a "double-hop" SSH connection to FNAL, and start running the PUBS display.

If you only need SSH tunnels, type

Tunnels

which only sets up the SSH tunnels.

Note that I've adopted the convention that commands I've written to speed up the set-up have their first letter Capitalized.

VNC viewers

To view the event-builder and DAQ screens on the Linux systems, the commands are:

Vncshift
Vncdaq

These commands will spit out a bunch of X11 messages that you can ignore. Just hit ENTER.

Web pages and portals

Start Opera; this should bring up the On-line Monitor Lizard and PUBS Resource Monitor by default. If not, the pages are bookmarked; check the Opera menu in the upper left-hand corner of the window.

Run Firefox. Assuming that no one has changed them, the various run, monitor, summary, and log pages come up by default. If they don't, go to the Bookmarks menu, right-click on the folders with likely names like "Run Assistance", and select "Open all in tabs".

You'll probably have to enter your FNAL service account name and password to access the electronic logbook.

Windows remote desktop

Where the FNAL shift instructions mention "Remmina", we use xfreerdp on the Linux systems instead. In the terminal window on a Linux system, type that command followed by the name of the Windows machine to which you're connecting; e.g.,:

xfreerdp ppd-ifix2.fnal.gov &

Mandatory social fun

You are required (seriously) to join a Google hangout while you're on shift. One of the browser tabs in Firefox should be open to http://plus.google.com, but it may be you'll have to login to the MicroBooNE shift account:

Account name: ubooneshift
Password: the DocDB password typed twice, no spaces

Then click on the tiny quotation-mark icon on the upper right to see the Google hangouts available. Click on the MicroBooNE shift conversation.

On your laptop, you can instead login to your own Google account, and add ubooneshift as a friend.

You are also required to start Skype and connect to the on-site shifter. Start Skype on your laptop. Log in to the nevis.ubooneshift account (password same as the Google hangout account above), or send a contact request to ubooneshift. You can click on ubooneshift to call them, or wait for them to call you after you speak with them on the phone.

Phone call

Call MCR: 1-630-840-3721

Tell them you're shifting from Nevis. Give them the number of the "landline" next to the computers: 1-914-591-2824

ROC West: 1-630-840-6967