Computational Cluster Programs

Accessing an ATS-Hosted Cluster through its Login Node

The preferred way to access an ATS-Hosted cluster is through the UCLA Grid Portal at http://grid.ucla.edu. The grid portal makes the cluster accessible from any web browser. It provides you with a unified interface to ATS-hosted clusters and other clusters at UCLA. If you are going to use an ATS-hosted cluster from the UCLA Grid Portal, you will not need to know any of the information presented here.

 

Command Line Access to the Cluster

From Unix, Linux or Mac Terminal Window

If your local machine runs some flavor of Unix or Linux or is a Mac (use Terminal), you can access the cluster using the ssh command:

ssh -l loginid cluster-address
where loginid is your login id on the cluster and cluster-address is the cluster's address. If your login id on the cluster is the same as your local login id, you may omit -l loginid.

You will be prompted for your cluster password to login. Note that, if you want to do so, you can set it up so that you can login without password from specific systems that you normally use. For example, you can make it so that you can always login without password from your personal workstation.

If the cluster has multiple login nodes and you require a specific login node, replace the cluster-address with with the address of the specific login node that you want to use.

If you are affiliated with UCLA but don't have a login id on the cluster, you can apply here. Note that every UCLA student/faculty/staff can apply for access to the campus supported Hoffman2 Cluster. Other clusters, are department or research group owned and are only available to group members.

From a PC running Windows

On the PC, you can get ssh by installing any of the following:

Using Interactive Applications which have GUI Interfaces on the Cluster

From Unix or Linux

Connect with ssh but activate X11 Forwarding.

From a Mac

Install X11User.pkg from the system installation CD that came with your Mac OS X system. Then connect with ssh and activate X11 Forwarding.

From a PC running Windows

You must run either an NX Client or an X Server such as StarNet X-Win32, XFree86 or Cygwin.

If you are running an X Server, connect to the cluster via ssh and activate X11 Forwarding. We recommend that you have your X Server run the remote command:

xterm -ls -sb -sl 1000
Or you can enter your xterm command on its terminal screen after you login.
xterm -ls -sb -sl 1000 &