Connecting to Interactive HPC Resources at MSI
Interactive sessions provide direct access to software modules hosted by MSI. They also provide direct access to all of your group’s data on our MSI-wide network file system. Interactive sessions can be used to prototype workflows, compile code, and analyze/visualize data. When prototypes are ready to run at scale on our HPC systems, use interactive sessions to connect and submit batch jobs on the HPC resources.
Note: To access MSI systems you will need to be either located on a UMN campus and connected to the 'eduroam' network, or connected to the UMN VPN from an off-campus location.
Types of Interactive HPC
Interactive Session Using SSH
Once connected to MSI's HPC cluster via SSH, you can start an interactive session in the command line interface with srun:
srun -N 1 -n 1 -t 4:00:00 -p interactive --tmp 20gb --pty bash
This example connects a user interactively to one core of one HPC node, with a time limit of 4 hours, using a Bash shell. Here, you can use the command line to run software interactively.
Open OnDemand
Open OnDemand provides interactive access to MSI’s compute cluster through your web browser. With Open OnDemand you will be able to access your files stored on MSI systems, view your current jobs on the MSI clusters, use a command line interface in your browser, or start an interactive desktop session with configurable memory and compute resources. Additionally, OnDemand allows you to launch the graphical user interface for some commonly used applications such as Jupyter Notebooks, RStudio, Abaqus, COMSOL Multiphysics, and MATLAB.
Most users feel more comfortable interacting with GUIs over shell prompts. Interactive Desktops via Open OnDemand gives users the look and feel of a personal Linux laptop/workstation, but also includes all tools, modules, and data one would access via the command line.
CITRIX
Certain MSI applications are not compatible with the Linux-based operating system used on our HPC cluster, and need to be run in a Windows environment instead. Citrix connects a user to a graphical Windows environment where they can access these specialized Windows applications for modeling and data analysis. Connect to a Citrix Windows Virtual Machine.