Weekly log #26 for week ending 09-01-1995

• Checked some disk errors that were logged over the weekend of the 23-24th. These were soft errors that were corrected by the system.
• Created an account for Ian Walker.
• Assisted Daryl with checking the data downloads running on Ken Hudnut's PC.
• Fixed the Ethermon ethernet monitoring software.
• Assisted Bob and Doug in investigating why parts of ISAIAH were dying. This turned out to be a combination of the fact that the ISAIAH directory file was very large and the fragmentation state of the Quick disk on Cajon. We attempted to run the on-line defragmenter on this disk, but this created enough of a load on the network that when there was a trigger, parts of the on-line system were going into wait states. The temporary solution to this was to create a new directory for ISAIAH to run in, and then to do a full backup of the Quick disk. We did this on Thursday afternoon. We will be restoring the disk on Tuesday morning, which will fix the fragmentation problem.
• Created a print queue for Postscript printing on the printer in Linda's office.
• Discovered that EDIS stopped working on Thursday. I talked to OES in Sacramento about this, and they thought that the system was working correctly, which indicates that the problem may be on our end. I have not figured this one out yet.

Weekly log #27 for week ending 09-08-1995

• Did some research into possible performance problems that may be caused by the ISAIAH directory getting too large. This is related to the failures we had last week, which were caused by a combination of disk fragmentation and the fact that the directory file was too large.
• Deleted some large Multinet log files that were taking up a lot of space on the system disk. These files had been growing since November of 1994. I added them to the monthly maintenace procedure so that they will be re-created on the first of every month. This will prevent them from growing too large.
• Pulled the system and user disk backups out of the rotation. This is so that we save a backup every three months in addition to the backup tapes that are recycled every two weeks.
• Looked into possible problems with VMS using disks over 8GB.
• Took Cajon and Lander down to remove the tape drive that we had put on it last week. Also did a disk-structure repair on the three disks before Bob restarted the on-line system. This was part of repairing the problems that caused ISAIAH to fail when the Quick disk became too fragmented.

Weekly log #28 for week ending 09-15-1995

• Did more disk maintenance on Cajon and Mojave. Ran the defragmenter on several of the disks to prevent future recurrence of the problems that fragmentation caused for ISAIAH.
• We got the new HP DesignJet plotter this week. I unpacked it and assembled it. Did some preliminary testing on it.
• Restored some LOGAIN files for Jim from a backup tape.

Weekly log #29 for week ending 09-22-1995

• Continued running the defragmenter on the disks on Cajon and Mojave.
• While running the defragmenter, it became obvious that Mojave was having big problems with speed. The system was extremely slow, which is probably also why it was suffering a lot of pin shifts.
• Created a non-privileged account for Steve Bryant to use for testing, and also created an account for Jill Andrews to use to access RPAGE.
• Took Tejon down to add memory to it in preparation for moving it across the street. We got a 64 MB upgrade for it, so it now has 80 MB in it. In the process, we removed 16 MB to put in Indio and Avalon across the street.
• Shut down Indio to add memory to it. It turned out that one of the SIMMs in it was not seated properly, so it really had 4 MB more memory than we thought. It now has 32 MB.
• Assisted Bob with rebooting Mojave to run in a reduced configuration in hopes that this would cut down on the number of pin shifts.
• Moved Tejon across the street and installed it in the Timer's room. Bob began testing the data acquisiton system on it.
• Rebooted Avalon to install more memory in it. It now has 24 MB.
• Attended the weekly Timers meeting.

Weekly log #30 for week ending 09-29-1995

• Took the DAT drive off of Coyote to put it on Tejon so that Bob could test Squirrel on the new system.
• Avalon hung once and had to be rebooted.
• Attended the USGS staff meeting.
• Moved the MEM03 disk off of Malibu and on to Bigone. This is so that the disk on Malibu can be transferred to Bbear. This also caused a minor problem for the SCEC machine, since it mounts the MEM03 disk over the network. I talked to Katrin and we fixed this.
• We got the new 9GB disks on Wednesday and immediately installed on of them on Tejon.
• On Thursday, I noticed that the new disk was logging a lot of SCSI errors. Talked to R-squared technical support, and they suggested shortening the SCSI bus to about half the length allowed by the spec. We tried this, but the errors still persisted. Began making arrangements to send the disks back for replacement.
• Took the vacant disk off of Malibu, as well as one of the disks off Mojave to put on Tejon to replace the big disk that will be returned.
• Attended the weekly Timers meeting.

Monthly Higlights for September, 1995

• We had some problems with ISAIAH processes dying because of disk fragmentation on the on-line system. I ran the defragmenter several times to fix this problem.
• Added some more tasks to the monthly automatic system chores. This was in response to finding several more large log files on the system disk on Bigone. Now these files will be closed and re-created on a monthly basis to prevent them from growing too large.
• We got the new HP DesignJet plotter this week. I unpacked it and assembled it and set up a print queue to use for testing. So far, it has been used to produce a number of plots, including Ridgecrest seismicity plots which were posted in the media room after the last large quake there.
• Did memory upgrades on three computers this month. Tejon now has 80 MB in it, Indio has 32, and Avalon has 24. This is all part of the upgrade effort that includes Tejon becoming a new data acquisition system.
• Moved Tejon across the street and installed it in the Timer's room. It is now running the full data acquisition system, and is functioning as a backup for Cajon.
• Moved the MEM03 disk off of Malibu and on to Bigone. This is one of the disks that is mounted over the network from SCEC, so moving it will help to decrease the load on the network.
• We got the new 9GB disks on Wednesday and immediately installed on of them on Tejon. The disk began to log SCSI errors under load, so we have made arrangements with R-squared to return it for replacement.