SCIAMA

High Performance Compute Cluster

Menu
  • Home
  • Getting Started
    • How to get an account
    • How to Log in
    • Log in from Windows
    • Using X2Go
    • Create an SSH key pair
    • SSH Fingerprints
    • Using SSH keys
    • Training Exercises
    • Slurm MPI Batch Script
  • Using SCIAMA
    • Using Jupyter Notebooks
    • Using JupyterHub
    • Using Spyder
    • Storage Policy
    • Submitting jobs
    • Using GPUs
    • Using Matlab
    • Using Conda Environments
    • SLURM for PBS Users
    • File transfers
    • GitHub/BitBucket
    • Cloud Backup
    • Reserving Compute Nodes
    • Acknowledging SCIAMA
  • Resources
    • Hardware
    • Queues
    • Software
      • Using Software Modules
      • Changing Default Modules
      • Mixing MPI and OpenMP
      • Using CONDA
  • System Status
    • Core Usage
    • Disk Usage
    • Users Logged In
    • Jobs Status
    • Jobs by Group
    • Node Status
    • SCIAMA Grafana Dashboard
    • Maintenance and Outages
  • Contact Us

Logging in to Sciama

SCIAMA has in total dedicated 8 login servers that you can reach under the URL

loginX.sciama.icg.port.ac.uk (with X in {1,…,8}).

They vary slightly in the available hard- and software:

  • login1-login4: Intel Westmere CPUs with 12 cores, 24 GB memory per server
  • login5-login8: AMD Opteron CPUs with 12 cores , 16 GB memory per server

Depending on the login server, SCIAMA can be remotely accessed via a Command Line Interface (CLI) shell, or a Graphical User Interface (GUI) such as X2Go.

CLI shell (SSH)

All SCIAMA login servers are providing services for access via SSH clients. Windows 10/Linux/Unix/macOS usually have such clients installed as command-line tools. Thus, logging into SCIAMA can be done by the following simple command:

ssh <username>@<URL of login server>

e.g:     ssh smithj@login3.sciama.icg.port.ac.uk

There is more information for Windows users here.

CLI shell + graphical support (SSH+X-forwarding)

Some programs on Sciama come with graphical user interfaces. Thus cannot be run via a pure CLI. Fortunately, SSH allows to forward any graphical interface from Sciama to a remote computer via so-called X-forwarding. This requires that the remote computer runs an X server for the graphical support. (Most) Linux systems come with this pre-installed, but for Windows and macOS. a third-party X server software needs to be obtained (e.g. Xming for Windows and Xquartz for macOS). X-forwarding can then be activated using the ‘-Y‘ argument for the CLI ssh clients i.e.

ssh -Y <username>@<URL of login server>

or enabling it in the PuTTY configuration.

Graphical shell: X2Go

X2Go services providing a full virtual desktop environment are available on login3, 4, 5 and 6. Details on downloading and configuring X2Go Client can be found here: X2Go.

Due to the relatively higher workload for such services on the login servers, try to limit the use of this method to cases where it is absolutely necessary.

Top of Page

Copyright © 2022 ICG, University of Portsmouth