1. Schedule
2. Presentations
3. Connecting to the cluster nodes
4. Hands-on exercises

The aim of this workshop is to introduce new members of the collaboration, who will be involved in the commissioning effort, to LOFAR. Students, postdocs, and staff are all encouraged to apply. The school will cover the many aspects of the LOFAR system from the operation of the basic station hardware to the software pipelines and science products they produce. Lectures and tutorials will be presented by members of the LOFAR project team as well as staff from the many institutions involved in the collaboration. Hands-on sessions will be provided to give attendees an opportunity to gain experience with real LOFAR data.

Presentations will be given at a level appropriate for someone new to the LOFAR system. Familiarity with the concepts of radio interferometry and standard data processing software such as CASA, AIPS, or Myriad will be useful but not required. Minimum requirements should include familiarity with scripting languages and in particular Python. Parallel sessions for more expert students are also planned.

Attendance will be limited to 35 people, so initial preference will be given to registrations from members of the LOFAR Key Science Project teams and other international partners contributing to the commissioning effort. Registrations from other applicants will be supported on a best-effort basis.

Tuesday, 10. Feb

• A. Gunst: System overview
• M. Brentjens: Station data
• R. Nijboer: Imaging pipeline
• V.N. Pandey: Data preparation
• M. Wise: LOFAR Data Products
• J. Swinbank: Software Tools I (Python, data access, plotting, etc)
• G. van Diepen: Data Handling Tools (pyrap)

Wednesday, 11. Feb

• G. de Bryun: Calibration
• B. Stappers: Pulsar pipeline
• J. Hessels: Pulsar data
• O. Smirnov: MeqTrees Practical Session

Thursday, 12. Feb

• A. Horneffer: CR pipelines
• L. Bähren: CR Data
• H. Holties: LOFAR Archive

Logging into the cluster nodes requires passing through at least one – often two – front-end node. So in order to access the cluster nodes from a machine located at ASTRON you will have to go through the following chain of connections:

ASTRON  -> listfen (129.125.99.50)  -> lioff{021}-{029}

While this is the default sequence to connect to the reserved cluster nodes, the intermediate step going through the front-end-node (lioffen) can be spared.

Here is the procedure for connecting to the cluster nodes set aside for the data processing school:

1. @ ASTRON :

   ssh -X <login>@129.125.99.50

   This will establish a connection to the front-end node (listfen)

2. @ listfen :

   ssh -X lioff021

   This will establish a connection to one of the I/O cluster nodes set aside for actual processing.

To initialize your environment for a package (e.g. AIPS):

source /app/scripts/do<package> 

For an overview of available initialization scripts:

ls /app/scripts