Connecting
Accounts
Account Activation
All individuals who have an active Penn State access account may request access to Roar Collab (RC) by submitting an account request.
Non-PSU Affiliates
For any external collaborators, a university faculty member must set up a sponsored access account with the university Accounts Office to provide the collaborator with an access account. Once the collaborator's access account is active, submit an account request to RC.
Connecting to Roar Collab
Users can connect to RC either through the RC Portal (rcportal.hpc.psu.edu) or via an ssh
connection to the submit.hpc.psu.edu
host.
Using the Roar Collab Portal
Users can connect to RC through the RC Portal powered by Open OnDemand. Open OnDemand is an NSF-funded, open-source HPC portal that provides users with a simple graphical web interface to HPC resources. Users can submit and monitor jobs, manage files, and run applications using just a web browser. The RC Portal offers many familiar graphical development environments including JupyterLab, RStudio, and software-specific GUIs.
The Portal features multiple built-in tools which can be accessed via the top menu bar on the Portal:
- Apps: Lists all available Portal apps
- Files: Provides a convenient graphical file manager and lists primary accessible file locations
- Jobs: Lists active jobs and allows use of the Job Composer
- Clusters: Provides shell access to submit nodes on RC
- Interactive Apps: Provides access to all the Portal interactive apps and interactive servers
- User Tools: Provides access to the User Filesystem Quotas display
- My Interactive Sessions: Lists any active sessions
Connecting via ssh
Those who prefer to utilize only the command line environment can connect using Secure Shell (SSH).
Through the terminal on macOS or Linux or the command prompt on Windows, users can connect using the following command:
$ ssh <userid>@submit.hpc.psu.edu
To connect, an RC account linked to an active Penn State access account user ID and password is required. By default, port 22 is used for secure shell connections. A password must be entered and then multi-factor authentication must be completed successfully to complete the login.
Note
The connection to the system is made with a submit node. Submit nodes are
configured primarily to handle incoming user connections and non-intensive
computational tasks like editing small files. To perform computational
tasks, compute resources must be used. See
Submitting Jobs for more details.
Linux Commands Quick Reference
Command | Description |
---|---|
ls |
Lists the files in the current working directory |
cd |
Changes the current directory in order to navigate to a new directory |
mv |
Moves a file or directory to a new location |
mkdir |
Makes a directory |
rmdir |
Removes an empty directory |
touch |
Creates a file |
rm |
Removes a file (or a directory using the -r option) |
locate |
Locates a file in a directory |
clear |
Clears the terminal of all previous outputs |
history |
Shows the history of previous commands |
find |
Finds files in a directory |
grep |
Searches files or outputs |
awk |
A programming language for pattern scanning and processing |
id |
Shows the list of groups for a user |
du |
Shows disk usage |
env |
Prints the current environment variables |
less |
Displays a file |
cp |
Copies a file (or a directory using the -r option) |
alias |
Creates an alias, which is essentially an abbreviated command |
pwd |
Prints the current working directory |
chmod |
Changes file permissions |
chgrp |
Changes group for a file or directory |
ldd |
Shows the shared libraries required for an executable or library |
top |
Displays the node usage |
/usr/bin/time |
Shows time and memory statistics for a command being run |
bg |
Continues running a paused task in the background |
fg |
Brings a background task into the foreground |
Ctrl + c |
Kills a process |
Ctrl + z |
Suspends a process |
Ctrl + r |
Searches the command history for a string |
Special characters are useful in many commands.
Character | Description |
---|---|
~ |
Indicates the home directory |
. |
Indicates current working directory |
.. |
Indicates parent of current working directory |
* |
Wildcard character for any string |
| |
Connects the output of a command to the input of another |
> |
Redirects a command output |
For complete details on any command listed above and more, use man <command>
in a terminal session to display the manual page for the command or search
online for more detailed usage of fundamental Linux commands.