Altamira User's Guide

Introduction

This user's guide for the Altamira supercomputer is intended to provide the minimum amount of information needed by a new user of this system. As such, it assumes that the user is familiar with many of the standard aspects of supercomputing as the Unix operating system.

We hope you can find most of the information you need to use our computing resources: from applications and libraries to technical documentation about Altamira. Please read carefully this document and if any doubt arises don't hesitate to contact our support group at <res_support@ifca.unican.es>.

System Overview

Altamira comprises 156 compute nodes, 5 GPU compute nodes, a login server and several service servers. Every compute node has two processors at 2.6 GHz running Scientific Linux 6.2 system with 64 GB of memory RAM and 400 GB local disk storage. All the servers provide a total of 132 TB of disk storage accessible from every compute node through GPFS (Global Parallel File System).

The networks that interconnect the Altamira are:

• Infiniband Network: High bandwidth network used by parallel applications communications.
• Gigabit Network: Ethernet network used by the management server.

Connecting to Altamira

Once you have a login and its associated password you can get into Altamira system, connecting to the login node altamira1.ifca.es.

You must use Secure Shell (ssh) tools to login into or transfer file into Altamira. We do not accept incoming connections from protocols as telnet, ftp, rlogin, rcp, or rsh commands. Once you are logged into Altamira you cannot make outgoing connections for security reasons.

To get more information about the secure shell version supported and how to get ssh for your system (including windows systems) see Appendix A.

Here you have an example of logging into Altamira from a UNIX environment:

user@localsystem:~$ ssh -l usertest altamira1.ifca.es
usertest@altamira1.ifca.es's password: 

/--------------------------------------------------------------\
|                      Welcome to Altamira                     |
|                                                              |
|  - Applications are located at /gpfs/res_apps                |
|  - For futher information read User's Guide at               |
|      http://grid.ifca.es/wiki/Ojancano/Userguide             |
|                                                              |
|   Please contact res_support@ifca.unican.es for questions    |
|                                                              |
\--------------------------------------------------------------/

[usertest@login1 ~]$ 

The first time that you connect to the Altamira system secure shell needs to interchange some initial information to establish the communication. This information consists of the acceptance of the RSA key of the remote host, you must answer 'yes' or 'no' to confirm the acceptance of this key.

Please change your initial password after you login the first time into the machine. Also use a strong password (do not use a word or phrase from a dictionary and do not use a word that can be obviously tied to your person). Finally, please make a habit of changing your password on a regular basis.

If you cannot get access to the system after following this procedure, first consult Appendix A for an extended information about Secure Shell, or you can contact us, (see Getting Help to know how to contact with us).

File Systems

Running Jobs

Software

Acknowledgment in publications

Getting Help

Appendices

A. SSH

SSH is a program that enables secure logins over an insecure network. It encrypts all the data passing both ways, so that if it is intercepted it cannot be read. It also replaces the old an insecure tools like telnet, rlogin, rcp, ftp,etc. SSH is a client-server software. Both machines must have ssh installed for it to work.

We have already installed a ssh server in our machines. You must have installed an ssh client in your local machine. SSH is available without charge for almost all versions of Unix. We recommend the use of OpenSSH client that can be download from http://www.openssh.org, but any client compatible with SSH version 2 can be used.

In windows systems we recommend the use of putty. It is a free SSH client that you can download from http://www.putty.nl/. But you can also, any client compatible with SSH version 2 can be used.