Code Snippets

I use them to manage our lab’s server all the time, so I put them here for easy reference.

Unix Server Commands

• Use setfacl to control file access groups

  • Grant siconghuang read, write, and execute access to the /data/datasets/ directory

    setfacl -R -m u:siconghuang:rwx /data/datasets/

• Use tmux to create a persistent window for long experiments or persistent processes

  • Create a new persistent window named sicong

    tmux new -s sicong

  • Detach from a persistent window

    Press Ctrl + B, then press D

  • list all existing persistent windows

    tmux ls

  • attach to the persistent window named sicong

    tmux a -t sicong

  • If you (sadly) don’t have tmux, try screen

• To check server space

  • Use df to check the entire storage space

    df -h

  • Use du to check the /data/datasets/ diectory

    du -sh /data/datasets/

• To find a file or directory from a scoped directory

  • Use find to locate directories with keyword MNIST from /data/datasets/ directory

    find /data/datasets/ -type d -name "MNIST"

• To reload swap memory memory

  • Use swapoff/swapon to switch on and off

    free -m; swapoff -a; swapon -a; free -m

• To limit your job’s resource usage

  • Use nice and taskset to set your job’s priority and CPU resource usage
  • Making your job run with the lowest priority and only use the first 8 cores

    nice -n 19 taskset -c 0-7 [run your job here(i.e. python train.py)]

• To send files/data to another server

  • Use scp to send files from your current machine/server to another
  • Securely sending your saved_models directory to your home directory on another server

    scp -r ~/saved_models/ [username]@[server address]:~