After the storage downtime of CephFS in our Ceph cluster, we decided together with the users of this service to stop offering CephFS shares through SMB and NFS. All data has been copied out of CephFS. We have ended the CephFS service. We will only use the Ceph cluster to store our backups, using the S3 API.

We have enabled a service called superchown. This service allows you as a volume owner to change the ownership of files in the volume. Previously, you would need to send an email to make these changes, but with superchown you can do it yourself. Currently this is implemented as a command line utility that is available on the LILOs. Its manual page has all the details: man superchown If you have further questions, or want to use superchown, please send us an email. ...

The latest version of Matlab, R2024a, is available. The software and license codes can be obtained through a mail to postmaster for those entitled to it. The software can also be found on the install-share. All C&CZ-managed Linux machines have this version installed, the older version (/opt/matlab-R2023b/bin/matlab) will be available temporarily. The C&CZ-managed Windows machines will not receive a new version during the semester to prevent problems with version dependencies in current lectures. ...

The latest version of Maple, Maple2024, for Windows/macOS/Linux can be found on the Install network share and has been installed on C&CZ managed Linux computers. License codes can be requested from C&CZ helpdesk or postmaster.

The license for the LabVIEW from NI has been prolonged until April 16, 2025. This license is for the versions 2022Q3 and higher, that use a subscription model. The new 2024Q1 software can be found on the C&CZ Install disc. The license server is: labview.science.ru.nl:28000 In order to be able to check out a license, names of pc’s and/of users have to be entered by C&CZ in the license server. For remote pcs this DNS suffix has to be added to the IPv4 DNS configuration: science.ru.nl ...

The Lilo servers are Linux servers for general use, with the caveat: You can use it just as you like, as long as you do not cause problems for other users. To help enforce this we are enabling a memory limit of 25% per user. This means a single user on lilo[78] can allocate up to 16 GiB.

For RU students and employees, the SURF service eduVPN has many advantages over the older Science VPNs: VPNsec and OpenVPN. It’s very easy to install and use eduVPN on Windows/macOS/Android/iOS/Linux and you have access to all Science services that are also available through the Science VPNsec/OpenVPN. We list it on our VPN page as the primary VPN to use. We advise users of the Science VPNs to move over to eduVPN.

A new version of Mathematica (14.0.0) has been installed on all C&CZ managed Linux systems, older versions can still be found in /vol/mathematica. When connected wired or wireless on campus or through VPN, the software for Windows, Linux and macOS can be found on the C&CZ Install disc. During the installation you must specify: License server: mathematica.science.ru.nl License: L4601-6478 According to the Mathematica Quick Revision History: “Version 14.0 continues to expand the scope and breadth of our computational coverage while streamlining and polishing existing areas.” ...

The free open-source mathematics software system SageMath version 9.5 has been installed on Science loginservers and JupyterHub, Digital Security and Math clusternodes. The mission of SageMath is to create viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab. SageMath builds on top of many existing open-source packages: NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, Sympy, Maxima, GAP, FLINT, R and many more. Access their combined power through a common, Python-based language or directly via interfaces or wrappers. ...

We are pleased that we received 330 completed surveys. Many of these were very positive. Some contained suggestions for improvements or new services. We’ll analyze the results further in the next months.