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Getting Started

Request an Account

The first step in gaining access to the WI-HPC cluster is to request an account. In order to receive access to the HPC Cluster, please send an email to the IT Helpdesk at helpdesk@wistar.org to request access.

Be a Good Cluster Citizen

While using HPC resources, here are some important things to remember:

  • Do not run jobs, transfers or computation on a login node, instead submit jobs.
  • Never give your password or ssh key to anyone else.
  • Do not store any high risk data on the clusters, except in assigned locations. Speak to CIO for creation of specific locations for high risk data.
  • Do not run larger numbers of very short (less than a minute) jobs

Use of the clusters is also governed by our guidelines (Pending Link) **

Log in

Once you have an account, go to our Log on to the Clusters page login information and configuration.

If you want to access the clusters from outside Wistar's network, you must use the Wistar VPN.

Schedule a Job

On the cluster, you control your jobs using a job scheduling system called Slurm that allocates and manages compute resources for you. You can submit your jobs in one of two ways. For testing and small jobs you may want to run a job interactively. This way you can directly interact with the compute node(s) in real time. The other way, which is the preferred way for multiple jobs or long-running jobs, involves writing your job commands in a script and submitting that to the job scheduler. Please see our scheduling documentation for more details.

Use Software

To best serve the diverse needs of all our researchers, we use software modules to make multiple versions of popular software available. Modules allow you to swap between different applications and versions of those applications with relative ease.

We also provide assistance for installing less commonly used packages. See Applications & Software documentation for more details.

Transfer Your Files

You will need to place your files in locations that are accessible to the cluster. Typically, each lab that is using the cluster has a linux directory inside their lab share that is mounted inside the cluster under the /wistar/dirname directory. If you cannot connect to a directory, or need one configured, please send a email to the IT Helpdesk at helpdesk@wistar.org.

Linux

Our clusters run the Linux operating system - Rocky 8, where we support the use of the Bash shell. A basically familiarity with Linux commands is required for interacting with the clusters. There are many excellent beginner tutorials available for free online, please see the Linux section on our Resources Page page.

Get Help

If you have additional questions/comments, please send an email to the IT Helpdesk at helpdesk@wistar.org.