(Hopefully) Useful Information For Contest Administrators

1. Overview

This page is intended for Contest Directors and Staff who manage ICPC World Finals OS image ("WF OS") machines in more complex ways than simply creating a single machine containing the WF OS. Examples include people who need to install the WF OS on multiple machines, such as an entire set of lab machines, or people who have a need to support "remote access" into WF OS machines. The page also contains various additional tricks and hints that we have found to be useful when managing collections of WF OS machines.

It is expected that the reader has first read and understood the instructions at this page regarding the procedures for setting up a single machine to run the WF OS.

2. Installing on Multiple Machines

If you are installing the WF OS onto internal drives in each lab machine, there are two approaches that can be taken.

1. Repeat the installation process, as described on the above-linked page, on each machine (i.e., run the boot installer chip on each of the lab machines and use it to install the WF OS), or

2. Use an OS imaging tool (such as open-source FOG or Symantec [now Gen Digital] Ghost) to clone the installed image onto the remaining machines. (You will of course in this case also have to arrange for a post-processing step to update each lab machine as necessary -- e.g. to set individual machine IP addresses.)

If you are planning to boot each of the lab machines from its own USB target chip (as opposed to installing onto an internal drive), there are again two approaches that can be taken.

1. Re-execute the installation process, as described on the above-linked page, once for each required target chip (that is, rerun the installer to create each chip), or

2. Clone the target chip created by the above process, using a tool such as Linux dd.

3. Cloning the Target Chip

If you are planning to clone the target chip multiple times, you might be interested in a tool named dcfldd, which can be used to do multiple simultaneous dd operations. This tool can be installed on your installation machine using

 apt-get install dcfldd

4. Accessing a WF System Remotely

By default the ICPC World Finals image does not allow operations such as

• remote password-authenticated logins using ssh;
• remote ssh keypair logins;
• remote desktop access (such as X-windows or Microsoft RDC).

Operations such as these are never allowed at the ICPC World Finals, and the WF OS configuration reflects that. However, operations such as these are frequently useful for contest staff setup, configuration, and testing purposes. See this page for information on how to set up such remote access.