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HPC Portal Usage#

The HPC-Portal provides a digital workflow for managing HPC accounts and projects.

Login options#

On the front page, the login field can be found in the top right corner. Single sign-on (SSO) is always used for user logins and works for all organizations taking part in DFN-AAI or eduGAIN. Select your organization from the drop down menu and follow your identity provider's instructions.

In case you see an error page ("Your SSO-Login was successful, but one or more of the attributes required for correct account generation are missing.[...]") after trying to log in, please contact your local computer center. There are certain attributes missing for correct identity transmission and only your local IT support can activate them. Organizational support addresses can be found at DFN or eduGAIN.

The User tab#

The User tab contains information on the accounts and invitations to projects.

To generate a new account for a project, an invitation hast to be send by the PI or technical contact. When the invitation is accepted, a new HPC account is generated and displayed in the left column. However, it will take until the next day until the account is completely set up and cluster access is possible.

To access the HPC systems at least one public SSH key must be uploaded for every account:

  1. Generate an SSH key pair on your local machine on the command line or via MobaXterm.
  2. In the User tab, select an account for which the SSH key should be added.

  3. Under "Public SSH keys" click "Add new SSH key".

    • Accepted SSH key types: RSA (at least 4096 bit), ECDSA (at least 512 bit), ED25519
    • The "Alias" can be freely chosen. Using a meaningful name helps managing your key later.
    • For "Key Content", paste the content of the public key file.
    • Click "Submit" to store the public key in the portal.

  4. It can take up to two hours until the key has been distributed to all HPC systems.

In the account information, also resource usage can be reviewed. Access to our job-specific monitoring system is possible via the "Go to ClusterCockpit" button.

User data stored on the HPC systems will be deleted three months after the HPC account expires.

Profile information#

You can access your profile information by clicking on the email address in the top right corner and selecting Profile.

NHR newsletter subscriptions can be managed here. Additionally, information on export control regulations and terms of use is displayed.

The Management tab (visible only for PIs and technical contacts)#

In the management tab, principal investigators and technical contacts are able to manage their projects. An overview of all project details and all accounts connected to the project is displayed.

New accounts can be created by sending out invitations. The invitation email address has to match the one transmitted by the IdP (as found under "Profile" after login), otherwise the invitation will not be visible for the user.

Several users can be added in a single step by activating the "Invite multiple e-mail addresses" switch at the bottom.

After accounts have been created, their state (pending, approved, deleted, active or inactive) and validity period can be edited by project managers. When the runtime of a project changes, account validities have to be adapted manually.

Usage of compute resources can be reviewed in the management tab on a per-project and also per-account basis.

For Tier3-projects, three different categories are created by default:

  • ###100: Tier3 Grundversorgung / Basic supply: for staff, PhD students, employed student assistants, etc.
  • ###101: Studentische Abschlussarbeiten / Student theses: for students doing their bachelor/master thesis or some sort of study-related project work, but usually not for tutorials of a lecture; doctoral theses do not fall into this category
  • ###102: Projektpartner / project partners: for people who don't belong to FAU, i.e., all people who should have access to HPC resources as part of your Tier3 HPC basic provision but who are neither students nor employees/scholarship holders/etc. at FAU; guest researchers or former employees, for example, fall into this category

If you wish to change the project category of an HPC identifier within your group, please inform us via hpc-support@fau.de. The different project categories are currently used for statistical purposes only. In the future, however, they will also be used to control the frequency of re-validation.

Request creation of new project#

If your chair or institute is part of FAU (or the RRZE service area) and is not yet represented in the HPC-Portal, you can request the creation of a Tier3 basic supply project by following these steps:

  • The head of the institution or PI must log in to the HPC-Portal and confirm the export control guidelines
  • If the day-to-day business is to be delegated, these persons must also log in to the HPC-Portal.
  • The PI has to request a Tier3 basic supply project for the institute by contacting hpc-support@fau.de. Please include the names of additional managers and the RRZE customer number (if available). The RRZE customer number of the institute is required so that the correct prefix can be determined. There are no costs for the Tier3 basic service.
  • Setup and assignment of rights is carried out by NHR@FAU. The creation of the project can take a few days.