NCSA HPC Account Management

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1. Managing your Account
1. Passwords
2. Your shell
3. Managing your "dot" files
4. Forwarding your mail
2. Managing your Allocation
1. Adding/removing users
2. Charging Algorithms
3. Verifying Your Account Balance
4. Setting Projects for Charging
5. Refunds
6. Account Termination, Renewals, and Extensions

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1. Managing your Account

1.1 Passwords

A default password is sent to you as part of the new user packet you receive via postal mail after your account is created. It is important that you keep the new user packet information that contains your default password in a secure place for your reference. You will have the same default password on all NCSA systems. If you already are a user on NCSA HPC systems, use your current password to log in to a new NCSA HPC system. If you are a new NCSA user, use the default password to log in. You should change your password the first time you login.

As of January 2004, NCSA requires you to change your password at least once a year. You will be notified via email that your password is going to expire at 30, 14, 7, 3, and 1 days before it expires. Once a password has expired, the only way to get it reset is to contact the NCSA Helpdesk (help@ncsa.uiuc.edu). If you change your password more frequently than once a year, you should never be notified.

Never share your password with another user or make your password known to anyone else.

Changing your password

You can change your password via a secure web page.

NCSA offers a webpage with tips on selecting good passwords that you should consider when you change your password.

What if I have forgotten my password?

You may contact the NCSA Helpdesk and request that your password be reset to the default. If you do not have your default password form, you will need to contact NCSA Allocations to get a replacement.

1.2 Your shell

When your account is first activated your default shell is set to tcsh, an enhanced version of the Berkeley UNIX C shell (csh). The tcsh shell is completely compatible with the standard csh, and all csh commands and scripts work unedited with tcsh. Enter "man tcsh" at the prompt for details about tcsh.

The other shell available on NCSA HPC systems is the GNU Bourne-Again SHell (bash), which is completely compatible with the Bourne shell (sh).

To change your shell, send email to NCSA Helpdesk with a request.

1.3 Managing your "dot" files

When your account on an NCSA system is created, default "dot" files are placed in your home directory.

The NCSA HPC systems use the SoftEnv system to set up the user environment. See the section Managing Your Environment (SoftEnv) for details. If your ".soft" file should become damaged, remove the file and log off. When you log back in, a fresh default ".soft" file will be created for you.

For other "dot" files, you can find copies of the default files in /u/skel (/etc/skel on Abe). Copy the appropriate file to your home directory and customize as needed.

1.4 Forwarding your mail

SGI Altix (cobalt), Intel 64 Cluster (abe), & Intel 64 Tesla Cluster (lincoln)

No email services are supported on NCSA HPC systems. All mail is automatically routed to NCSA Email systems. You will be prompted to enter a forwarding e-mail address the first time you log in. Note that NCSA staff do not need to set up mail forwarding.

You will be asked to verify your forwarding email address every six months.

To change your forwarding email address:
Edit /var/foward/$USER/.forward -- it should contain one line which is the email address to which mail shall be forwarded.

TeraGrid IA64 Cluster (mercury)

Email services are not supported on the NCSA TeraGrid system (outbound email will be delivered).

In cases where NCSA TeraGrid staff need to contact you, they will send email to your NCSA account. So it is important that you forward your NCSA email.

Use the same login and password as when connecting to the NCSA TeraGrid cluster. At this time, grid services are not running on these machines, so you will need to know your login and password.

To forward your NCSA email, log onto one of the public email machines:

• public-linux.ncsa.uiuc.edu
• public-sun.ncsa.uiuc.edu

Use the same login and password as when connecting to the NCSA TeraGrid cluster. At this time, grid services are not running on these machines, so you will need to know your login and password.

1. create a file /var/forward/$USER/.forward with your favorite editor which contains a single line with your forwarding address.
2. chmod 644 /var/forward/$USER/.forward

Note: Creating a .forward file in your account on the NCSA TeraGrid cluster does not work. You must create it as described above on the public email machines.

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2. Managing your Allocation

2.1 Adding/removing users

After your request for an allocation on an NCSA HPC system has been granted and your account has been activated, you may request to add users to your allocation if you are a Principal Investigator (PI) on an account. From time to time as the people working on your project change, you might need to remove a user from your allocation. The TeraGrid Allocations page has links to Add User and Delete User forms.

2.2 Charging Algorithms

Once you have an allocation, you will be charged for the amount of service units (SUs) used. SUs for the NCSA HPC systems are calculated based on wall clock time of jobs.

SGI Altix (cobalt)

The charging algorithm for the SGI Altix is as follows:

(as of August 6 2008)

 # SUs =  ServiceLevel * Time

where

ServiceLevel = 1.0  for Normal Interactive
                        Normal Batch
                        Normal Dedicated Batch
             = 1.25 for Industrial Batch
                        Industrial Dedicated Batch

Timeshared jobs:
 Time = # CPUs allocated  * Total Wall Clock
            to the job           Hours

Dedicated jobs:
 Time = # CPUs on the host * Total Wall Clock
                                  Hours
  

For timeshared jobs, the scheduler allocates whole node boards (CPUs and associated memory) to jobs so different jobs don't share resources on the same node board. Charging will be based on the node boards required to accommodate the CPU and memory specifications of the job. The Altix 3700 systems have 2 CPUs per node board and the Altix 4700 system has 4 cores per node board. Since the memory per CPU varies on the compute nodes, the scheduler will make every attempt to run each job on the resource that represents the most efficient use of resources while also attempting to start the job as soon as possible.

IMPORTANT: Note that jobs running in the dedicated queues on the SGI Altix will be charged for *all* CPUs on the host regardless of how many processors the job uses.

Intel 64 Cluster (abe)

SUs are based on the number of nodes used and the wall clock time.

# SUs = 8 * #Nodes * Wall_Time

        where:

        Wall_Time = Total Wall Clock Hours

Intel 64 Tesla Cluster (lincoln)

SUs are based on the number of nodes used and the wall clock time.

# SUs = 8 * #Nodes * Wall_Time

        where:

        Wall_Time = Total Wall Clock Hours

TeraGrid IA64 Cluster (mercury)

The Service Units (SUs) charged for a job is based on the number of nodes used and the wall clock time.

#SUs = 2 * #Nodes * Wall_Time * NormFactor

where

#SUs = the number of service units charged for the job
Wall_Time = Total wall clock hours used by the job
NormFactor = 1       for the 1.3 GHz processor machines
             1.5/1.3 for the 1.5 GHz processor machines

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2.3 Verifying Your Account Balance

On the Command Line

For TeraGrid users, you can monitor usage of your allocation by using the TeraGrid tgusage utility. The data displayed by tgusage is normally updated once each day, so SUs accrued by jobs on a given day will be reflected in tgusage the next day.

Entering tgusage with no options displays cumulative usage information of all your TeraGrid allocations(projects) on the local NCSA machine. If you are the Principal Investigator (PI) of the project, tgusage will return a list of all users in the project along with their usage. If you are a user in the project, tgusage will return your specific usage.

Specify the -account option for information about a specific project. The usage shown is the individual user's SU usage and total SU usage for all users in the project.

Specify the -resource option for information about a specific HPC system. The resource names relating to NCSA HPC systems are as follows:

Resource Name	System
cobalt.ncsa.teragrid	SGI Altix (cobalt)
abe-queenbee.teragrid	Intel 64 Cluster (abe)
lincoln.ncsa.teragrid	Intel 64 Tesla Cluster (lincoln)
teragrid	DTF Cluster (includes mercury)
teragrid_roaming	TeraGrid Roaming Allocation

For a complete description of the tgusage options, enter tgusage -help.

Online Usage Information

Usage information can also be obtained online through the TeraGrid User Portal.

• login to the User Portal
• click on the "My TeraGrid" tab
• you should be on the "Accounts and Usage" page (default), if not click that link under the "My TeraGrid" tab.

NCSA's usage command

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Note: Starting Monday February 4 2008, the NCSA "usage" command will no longer provide TeraGrid allocation and usage information.

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NCSA local and Private Sector Partner (PSP) users should use usage to monitor usage of your allocation.

Entering usage with no options displays cumulative information about the usage of all your allocations on all applicable NCSA machines. For example:

% usage
Proj  Mach   Login  Usage Status  P_alloc  P_usage  P_expire  Name
aad    abe   lahti 91.03  Active   100000   713.72  06/30/08  Lahti, Tracy
non  cobalt  lahti  0.02  Active    50000    94.93  12/31/08  Lahti, Tracy

If the project name is specified using the -p option, information is returned for all users of that project on all applicable machines. The data displayed by usage is normally updated once each day, so SUs accrued by jobs on a given day will be reflected in usage the next day.

For a more complete description of the usage options, enter man usage.

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2.4 Setting Projects for Charging

If you have more than one project (PSN), you can charge to various projects within a logon session. Most users have only one project. You do not need to define a default project unless you have multiple projects.

• Setting a Default Project

  You can define (or change) a default project with the 'defacct' command. After a default project is set, you will no longer be prompted to choose one of your projects during the login process.

  Enter 'defacct' at the prompt to set your default.

  Enter 'none' at the prompt to unset a default project, and enter a carriage return to leave your default project unchanged.

  See the defacct man page for more information.

  The 'batch_accts' command lists all your accounts on the current system.

  IMPORTANT: If you have a default project set, batch jobs will automatically be charged to the default project at the time that the job is submitted unless you charge the batch job to a specific project (see below).

• Charging to Projects in a Batch Job

  You can also charge batch jobs to a specific project (PSN) as follows:

  • SGI Altix (cobalt): use the -A option in the PBS qsub command in your script.
  • Intel 64 Cluster (abe): use the -A option in the PBS qsub command in your script.
  • Intel 64 Tesla Cluster (lincoln): use the -A option in the PBS qsub command in your script.
  • TeraGrid IA64 Cluster (mercury): use the -A option in the PBS qsub command in your script.

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2.5 Refunds

NCSA considers a request for a refund for service units when one of the following is true:

• output was lost because of a system crash or hardware failure
• a bug in system software caused incorrect output
• NCSA staff gave misleading advice, causing incorrect output

Refund requests are denied when one of the following is true:

• fewer than 50 SUs were consumed (academic users)
• the request was made more than two weeks after the charge
• no charges were recorded for the job in question (e.g., the system crashed before a job finished so the CPU usage was not recorded in the accounting file)
• output was lost because the job did not use the batch scratch file system

Submit the following information to NCSA Consulting Services to request a refund:

• user ID
• machine name
• Batch Job ID
• reason for the request
• date the job finished

The list above shows the minimum information required. Additional information that may be requested includes error messages or a copy of your batch script. In such cases, you will be contacted by a member of the consulting staff who will let you know what additional information is needed to review your request.

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2.6 Account Termination, Renewals, and Extensions

Account Termination

Academic accounts on NCSA Production machines are deleted when they either use up the allocation or reach the expiry date on the project, whichever comes first. See the section Verifying Your Account Balance for information on your allocation. Academic users are notified automatically via email to their account on the affected system when

• 80% of allocation is used
• 90% of allocation is used
• 3 months to expiration of the project
• 1 month to expiration of the project

Note that industrial user accounts do not expire automatically.

Users have restricted access to their account for a one week period after the account is terminated. You cannot login, but have ftp access via a gridftp or kerberized ftp client to retrieve home directory files, etc. if you haven't already done so. For information on installing gridftp/kerberos clients, please see Encryption Software.

Users' UniTree accounts are active for a period of 4 months in read-only mode after your last NCSA production machine account is deleted. This means that you can retrieve already existing files from UniTree, but cannot save any new files. You need to use a gridftp or a kerberized ftp client to access UniTree.

Project Renewals and Extensions

If you have an existing Startup or Research allocation, you can have the expiration dates extended. This is requesting that the expiration date be moved. It is not a request for more service units. To request an extension, submit the Extension Request Form available at the Partnerships Online Proposal System (POPS) page. Please make the request at least two weeks prior to the project deactivation date. Your request will be reviewed prior to deactivation, and you will be contacted via electronic mail with the extension decision.