\documentclass{article}
\title{Student Information Processing Board Report}
\author{Edward Z. Yang, SIPB Chair (2009)}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
    This document summarizes the contributions of SIPB to
    the MIT community at large through its electronic
    and physical presence.
\end{abstract}

\section*{Introduction}

The Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) is a student group
dedicated to improving computing at MIT.
Founded in 1969, SIPB has gone from maintaining the original
www.mit.edu and distributing computing time on Multics to students to providing
services such as shared hosting and virtualization to the student body.

\section*{Debathena}

Sit down at one of the newest Athena workstations and you will be greeted
with the login screen of Debathena, the technology that provides Athena
workstation software via Debian packages and repositories to
cluster machines and hundreds of Debian and Ubuntu desktops and laptops
across MIT.
Originally a loose collection of Athena software packaged
for Debian developed by a few SIPB members, Debathena has grown into
a collaboration between SIPB and IS\&T.  It has been in
testing in a few computer clusters
since March 2009, and is slated to replace the current
Linux-Athena 9 systems by the end of 2009.

Debathena offers a number of distinct advantages over the previous Linux-Athena
system.  It is modular, which means that users bring the advantages of the
cluster machine to their own desktop or laptop---software such as integrated
AFS locker and Kerberos support---without having to actually make their machine
a cluster machine accessible by anyone with an Athena account.  Being based on
a modern Linux distribution also means that cluster machines with it gain
improved usability in areas such as hotplugged device detection.  Debathena
is also meant to be minimally invasive, which means we have the agility
to support upstream releases in a matter of days, not months.

\section*{Scripts}

Scripts is SIPB's shared hosting service.  The premise is simple: anyone
with an Athena account can run a single command off of any Athena
workstation and get a scripts.mit.edu account.  scripts.mit.edu also
takes it further by offering autoinstallers, which provide easy
and convenient setup of web applications such as blogs and wikis.

As a result of this, Scripts is the most outwards facing service SIPB
provides.  We receive X hits a day---more hits than Stellar does
during the school year (XXX: citation needed)---and maintain over 2600 users,
including students, professors and---very occasionally---departments.
Famous sites hosted on scripts include X, Y and Z.

The flexibility afforded by Scripts is unmatched by commercial shared
webhosts.  While a commercial webhost may only offer Perl and PHP
as supported languages, Scripts goes beyond with Java, Python,
Ruby, and is amenable to suggestions for more.  We save student groups
money by eliminating the need to pay an non-MIT webhost.  We also
offer a *.scripts.mit.edu SSL certificate, which is recognized by
major browsers and would normally cost student groups hundreds of
dollars to acquire on their own.

\section*{XVM}

XVM provides virtualization services to the MIT community.  Virtual machines
allow users to setup customized machines with their own operating systems
and software without having to install a physical machine in a datacenter.
While we don't give guarantees of uptime, we offer this service for free,
and have a simple web interface for users to maintain their virtual machines
and install one of many pre-canned operating systems from CDs.

Because virtual machines have large hardware requirements (they are, after all,
fully fledged machines), XVM runs
four Dell PowerEdge SC1346s with a dedicated back-end network to an
Equalogic iSCSI storage array with 10.5T of usable storage power XVM.
(XXX: ADD STATISTICS HERE.)

Virtualized hosting is still a relatively nascent technology, especially
for such a large deployment, and during the development of XVM as a service
SIPB went through several iterations of distribution/release pairs while
attempting to find software that would fulfill our needs.  This meant
physically swapping out the CDs in the convieniently located machine room.

\section*{Linerva}

Linerva is a Linux dialup server run by SIPB for the MIT community.
Compared to other dialup services, Linerva offers speed, an
unparalleled selection of Linux software (both Athena-based and not)
and arbitrarily long sessions.

The service runs on a dual-core AMD Opteron 1.8Ghz, and runs
24 gigabytes of RAM in order to service all of the persistent sessions.
(XXX: inaccurate, please update)
Since there is always consistently a high number of users using the
service, installs and upgrades to Linerva occur during early-morning hours.

\section*{Barnowl}

Barnowl is a popular instant messaging client used by students at
MIT.  It is maintained and actively developed by SIPB members, and
has hundreds of users both on and off campus.

Barnowl supports popular messaging protocols such as Zephyr, AIM
and Jabber, and is also highly extensible and customizable through
a Perl plugin interface.

\section*{Mirrors}

Mirrors cuts down on download times and bandwidth costs by replicating
downloadable materials from the Internet within the MIT network.
Where it might have taken you a minute to download updated packages
for your computer system, using Mirrors that download time can be
cut down to a few seconds.

XXX: statistics

\section*{LAMP}

LAMP is a completely legal elecronic music library, jointly maintained
by SIPB and MIT Cable Television.  Users can use a web interface to
queue up songs on various channels, which then can be played back on any
sound system hooked up to MIT cable.  Over its life, LAMP has had
over two thousand unique users.

In order to deal with legal issues, LAMP has an unusual hardware setup.
It has two entire racks of CD changes and an MP3 encoding machine with
the usual webserver.  The webserver and control logic live in the SIPB
machine room, as well as 2,000 CDs that get periodicially re-ripped
(in order to keep LAMP a braodcast service).

\section*{Miscellaneous projects}

SIPB maintains a number of smaller
projects that, while not as large in size, contribute to the computing
experience at MIT.  These include

\begin{itemize}
\item QuickPrint, which allows users to easily
print to Athena printers from Windows without having to go through the
arduous configuration process,
\item The SIPB AFS cell, which maintains several
well known lockers such as ``outland'' which provide useful extra
software---``whichlocker``, ``ogle`` and ``imapback``, to name
a few---that many users load by default in their Athena sessions,
\item Mailing list archives, as messages to mailing lists are
not archived by default,
\item The primary Usenet MIT server at news.mit.edu, which can
be used to access a worldwide network of discussion lists,
\item SIPB Isilon, a clustered storage system that can
hold terabytes of information,
\item course.mit.edu, a URL shortening service for course websites
when you can't remember the exact Stellar link,
\item webzephyr.mit.edu, an online interface to the instant
messaging protocol Zephyr,
\item Ask SIPB, a semi-regular column written by SIPB published
in the Tech that contains useful tidbits of computing advice,
\item (XXX: Check membership elections for more)
\end{itemize}

\section*{User support}

The SIPB office is always open to
the public, whether they want to use a stapler or ask a question
about software or hardware.  The office is staffed with people
happy to help users troubleshoot their issues.  We also have a
public mailing list at sipb@mit.edu, where we answer questions
on computing. (XXX: What is the "stated" purpose of sipb@mit.edu?)

\section*{Events}

During the fall, SIPB hosts a series of talks called Cluedumps, in
which SIPB members give informal lectures on technical subjects.
Topics in the past have included Git (a version control system)
the Linux Kernel and Kerberos.  These talks draw a mix of both
SIPB members as well as the general MIT community interested in
computing.

Over IAP, SIPB members organize classes on a variety of computing
topics.  Classes include ``caffeinated crash courses''---so called
because they contain more information than should be reasonably
covered within a three hour period---as well as more laid back
classes on things such as web application security, the Internet,
and Unix.  Of special note is ``Caffeinated 6.001'', which is
the old introductory computer science taught entirely by
former students in only a month.  Turnout for these classes
is excellent; the classes attract people from both inside
and outside of the MIT community.

\section*{Social activities}

In addition to providing a wide variety of technical services, SIPB
also hosts a number of social events which range in purpose from
educating to working on projects.

Hackathons are quasi-monthly
days (usually on Saturday or Sunday) when people congregate and work
together on a project.  Such sessions tend to be very productive:
we have held bug-squashing sessions for Debathena as well as
documentathons.

SIPB has recently begun coordinating a reading group every Monday, in which a technical
paper about some aspect in computer science is read and then discussed
over dinner.  Papers have ranged from discussing complexity theory
to distributed computing.

\section*{Conclusion}

The Student Information Processing Board offers a wide array of services
to the MIT community that complement IS\&T's services.  Many of these
services have become indispensible to the community.  Usage of these
services is always growing, and SIPB members are constantly maintaining
them, adding new features, and entertaining proposals for new projects.
Continuation of these services depends on the continued funding, support
and physical presence of the SIPB.

\end{document}
