[01] WHAT IS SDF? (QUICK SUMMARY) Welcome to the only all 64bit public access supercomputing center! The Super Dimension Fortress is a networked community of free software authors, teachers, students, researchers, hobbyists, enthusiasts and the blind. It is operated as a federally recognised non-profit 501(c)7 and is supported by its members. Our mission is to provide remotely accessible computing facilities for the advancement of public education, cultural enrichment, scientific research and recreation. Members can interact electronically with each other regardless of their location using passive or interactive forums. Further purposes include the recreational exchange of information concerning the Liberal and Fine Arts. Members have access to games, email, usenet, chat, bboard, gopherspace, webspace, programming utilities, archivers, browsers, and more. The SDF community is made up of caring, highly skilled people who operate behind the scenes and in the underground to maintain a non-commercial INTERNET. While we did initially start out on a single computer in 1987, the SDF is now a network of 8 64bit enterprise class servers running NetBSD realising a combined processing power of over 21.1 GFLOPS! Our mass storage configuration is comprised of 60 spindles of mostly 36.4gb and a few 9.1gb SCA LVD SCSI drives using DIGITAL Storage Works hotswap disk arrays. We have roughly 2 terabytes of storage online. We are networked via two sprintlink T1s and a T1 to savvis. We do BGP peering and try out best to load balance between the links via a CISCO 7xxx router/switch. We are using a 'swamp' class C 192.94.73 which has basically been assigned to our site admin along with his class C back when you could request one from the INTERNIC without much fuss. The userbase is comprised of two major user groups: USERS and ARPA 'user' accounts are free and offer many features. 'arpa' accounts are permanent members and can vote on SDF features. Supplemental ARPA privilidges include: MetaARPA ('trusted' member privs (cron, tcp port forwarding)) TWEAK (tweakable and additional disk quota) VPM (Virtual POP3 mailboxes) DNS (Domain Name Service) DBA (MySQL database access) VHOST (Virtual Web hosting - includes VPM, DNS and DBA) SERVER (Server process (mud, nameserver, et cetera)) MDNS (Dynamic DNS) MLIST (Mailing List service) DIALUP (over 10,000 numbers in the USA + Canada) Sponsorship information can be found on our website or in the FAQ.