This is a quick guide to getting started with the new cluster. Any further information or insights can be found in the extended help sections.

To access the cluster, two things are required: that you have an Unibo account (of the type name.surname00@unibo.it) and that this account has been authorised for access by the OPH responsible person of your research sector. See acessing the cluster for the contact details of the OPH responsible persons.

Once authorised, could access the cluster via an ssh protocol. The required password is that one of your university e-mail. From the Linux terminal, type the following instruction:

• if you are a student: ssh name.surname00@studio.unibo.it@137.204.50.177
• if you are a staff member: ssh name.surname00@137.204.50.177

Once logged-in, you will be landed on the Frontend, the workspace shared by all users that is utilised to submit jobs and access datasets stored in memory.

The first time you access the cluster, you must set up your working environment. Here are a few tips to help you manage your account and data correctly. In particular, attention must be paid to the correct use of data storage areas, see Storage types. The OPH cluster currently has two main memory spaces with two different functions:

At the first connection to the cluster, the system automatically generates a folder for you in the /home partition. This is a limited memory area and should not be used to store massive amounts of data. Typically, software codes and intensive-use documents or scripts that does not take up much space is saved on this.

You can manage the data in this folder directly from the Frontend and to your liking, as long as you limit the storage space used and the number of files saved.

This is the main archive area, that must be used for large datasets and archives. This storage area is accessible from the Frontend but you need to create your personal folder manually. To facilitate access to the data in /scratch, it is recommended to use a symbolic link to a personal data folder. To do this:

Create your own folder in /scratch within the general folder of your research sector (see under research sector names here). For example, if you work in the astro sector, type:

mkdir -p /scratch/atmos/name.surname00

Then create the symbolic link in the folder accessible from the Frontend:

ln -s /scratch/atmos/name.surname00 run

in this way, when you access the Frontend, you will immediately find a folder named run from which you can access the data saved in /scratch (note that run is not a folder but a symbolic link). In any case, if you need to work with some big files (e.g. a large dataset) use symlinks from /home to the files in /scratch to get access.

Please pay attention to this policy: if the stable number of files saved in /scratch shall not exceed a few thousand per user. Otherwise, the system becomes incredibly slow and unstable. Periodic checks on the number of files of each user are carried out automatically.