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Getting Started on HPC systems

These tutorials have been run in in-person workshops on various HPC systems in the UK. It should be possible to run on any of the supported systems, or to set up the tools on a local machine. If you have access to one of the systems we've previously used, this tutorial helps you get set up. Otherwise, please consult the documentation

Connecting

To run these tutorials on Cosma, you will need to connect to Cosma via ssh. You will need

  1. A Cosma account. You can request a new account if you haven't got one you can use. You can use an existing Cosma account to complete the tutorials.
  2. A command line terminal with an ssh client. Most Linux and Mac systems come with these preinstalled. Please see Connecting to ARCHER2 for more information and Windows instructions.

To run these tutorials on ARCHER2, you will need to connect to ARCHER2 via ssh. You will need

  1. An ARCHER2 account. You can request a new account if you haven't got one you can use. You can use an existing ARCHER2 account to complete the tutorials.
  2. A command line terminal with an ssh client. Most Linux and Mac systems come with these preinstalled. Please see Connecting to ARCHER2 for more information and Windows instructions.

ssh

Please see SSH access to Cosma for more information

Once you have the above prerequisites, you have to generate an ssh key pair and upload the public key to SAFE.

When you are done, check that you are able to connect to ARCHER2 with

ssh username@login.archer2.ac.uk

MFA

Cosma does not require MFA at present

ARCHER2 has deployed mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA)

SSH keys will work as before, but instead of your ARCHER2 password, a Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP) code will be requested.

TOTP is a six digit number, refreshed every 30 seconds, which is generated typically by an app running on your mobile phone or laptop.

Thus authentication will require two factors:

1) SSH key and passphrase 2) TOTP

The SAFE documentation which details how to set up MFA on machine accounts (ARCHER2) is available at:
https://epcced.github.io/safe-docs/safe-for-users/#how-to-turn-on-mfa-on-your-machine-account

The documentation includes how to set this up without the need of a personal smartphone device.

We have also updated the ARCHER2 documentation with details of the new connection process:
https://docs.archer2.ac.uk/user-guide/connecting-totp/
https://docs.archer2.ac.uk/quick-start/quickstart-users-totp/

If there are any issues or concerns please contact support@archer2.ac.uk