Accessing the HPC#

Remote Login#

Accessing the supercomputer can be done on your laptop, in the comfort of your bed. The command is ssh, which stands for “Secure Shell protocol”.

It has the following format:

ssh username@hostname

Where,

  1. username is the username (whatever you made when applying for the account)

  2. @ is always between username and hostname

  3. hostname is the name and IP address of the supercomputer

Example For my username, van, the command would be:

ssh van@hostname

What is the hostname?#

It depends on the computing center. In Oklahoma, you can access Oscer (schooner.oscer.ou.edu) or Pete (pete.hpc.okstate.edu) by:

ssh username@schooner.oscer.ou.edu 
ssh username@pete.hpc.okstate.edu

Task: Accessing the HPC#

Try logging into one of the supercomputer. Change the hostname to the pete.hpc.okstate.edu or ``schooner.oscer.ou.edu`.

My username is van, so logging in looks like this:

ssh van@schooner.oscer.ou.edu 
ssh van@pete.hpc.okstate.edu

Note

On the first login attempt, you will get the following prompt:

The authenticity of host 'pete.hpc.okstate.edu' cannot be established.
 DSA key fingerprint is 01:23:45:67:89:ab:cd:ef:ff:fe:dc:ba:98:76:54:32:10.
 Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

Answering yes to the prompt will cause the session to continue, and the host key is stored in the local system’s known_hosts file. This is a hidden file, stored by default in a hidden directory, called /.ssh/known_hosts, in the your home directory. Once the host key has been stored in the known_hosts file, the client system can connect directly to that server again without need for any approvals.

Answer yes by typing into your terminal. This will only happen on the first login!