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Last revision: April 2024What to do when your project is approved
Initially, the proposer, now referred to as the "Principal Investigator" (PI), must access the https://userdb.hpc.cineca.it/ website to complete their profile and gain HPC access. This step is a one-time requirement, but it's advisable to periodically check your status by logging into your UserDB profile and navigating to the "HPC access" section.
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Your UserDB portal username corresponds to your email address, and if needed, you can reset your password using a specific link (https://userdb.hpc.cineca.it/user/password). |
Subsequently, an automated process will extend your project (referred to as "account") to the designated HPC platform, generating usernames/passwords, along with a computing-time budget assigned to your project. This process occurs twice daily, at 7 am and 2 pm. Usernames generated by this process are typically derived from names/surnames. Each user will receive a personalized notification regarding their username/password creation via email from HPCuser@cineca.it.
In particular, you'll receive two emails: one containing the username and another with a link to configure two-factor authentication (2FA) necessary for accessing our clusters. Detailed instructions on configuring 2FA are available on the "How to activate the 2FA and configure the OTP" page. Additionally, you'll need to install a smallstep client ("How to install the smallstep client") on your personal PC to obtain a temporary certificate required for login. During 2FA setup, you'll also be prompted to set a password. Our password policy can be found on the dedicated page.
It is recommended to read the "getting started" guide page where all the aforementioned steps are covered.
Within the UserDB portal, the PI can designate project collaborators. Note that all collaborators must have prior registration on UserDB. To add collaborators, the PI should access their portal profile, select the "my project" link, choose the relevant project, and add collaborators as necessary. At this point, they will receive individual usernames for HPC systems and access to the project's budget.
How to use your project resources
1. Log into the HPC platform using "ssh" with your personal username:
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$ ssh <username>@login.g100.cineca.it |
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$ ssh <username>@login.leonardo.cineca.it |
2. Verify if you have one or more active projects (accounts). This can be done with the "saldo" command:
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$ saldo -b |
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$ saldo -b --dcgp |
An example of the output of "saldo" could be:
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account start end total localCluster totConsumed totConsumed monthTotal monthConsumed
(local h) Consumed(local h) (local h) % (local h) (local h)
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IscrB_xx ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
EuHPC_yy ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... |
In this case you can see that you are associated with two different accounts: IscrB_xx (Iscra type B project) and EuHPC_yy, (EuroHPC), each granted with a certain amount of compute-time (reported in the "total" column).
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If the "saldo -b" command returns the following result:
this means you are associated with any account. |
One possible reason is that the association with the new account is quite recent, and the procedure of syncronization described above are still not tool place. Another possibility is that you have account only on Leonardo DCGP, but you did not use the "–dcgp" flag.
4. Interactive activities
Interactive activities (on login nodes or under the serial partition) and data movement (with the datamover service) are free of charge and will not decrease the budget of your accounts.
5. Submit Jobs
Batch jobs can be submitted to the SLURM scheduler only if you have an active account (see below). In the batch job script, you select the account to charge by specifying a keyword the batch scheduler:
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#SBATCH -A <account> |
with <account> being one of the accounts (projects) you are authorized to use. If this entry is not included in the batch submission script, the resource manager will reject the request (questo non è corretto, viene preso il default).
How the PI can manage the project resources
The PI can use the "saldo"command in order to monitor the resource usage of his/her project.
- The command without options shows an help page.
- "saldo -b" shows the total budget of all the accounts you are associated with (and lists all the collaborators for your account if you add the "-a" flag)
- "saldo -r" shows the daily usage of all your accounts and gives you a measure of which collaborator used your budget
In both cases, you can use the flag "-a" to focus on a specific account and show, not only the information about the budget, but also the list of project's collaborators.
For example:
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$ saldo -ba IscrB_example
PI: <username_pi>
COLLABORATORS: <username_collaborator_1>,<username_collaborator_2>
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account start end total localCluster totConsumed totConsumed monthTotal monthConsumed
(local h) Consumed(local h) (local h) % (local h) (local h)
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IscrB_example 20240101 20250101 100000 50000 50000 50 0 0 |
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$ saldo -ra IscrB_example -y 2024
------------------Resources used from 202401 to 202412------------------
date username account localCluster num.jobs
Consumed/h
------------------------------------------------------------------------
20240101 userXXXX IscrB_example 65:36:06 1
20240102 userXXXX IscrB_example 63:17:58 1
20240103 userZZZZ IscrB_example 3:54:24 3
20240103 userYYYY IscrB_example 48:14:24 1
...
20240408 userYYYY IscrB_example 6:14:43 14
20240408 userZZZZ IscrB_example 0:01:24 5
20240408 userXXXX IscrB_example 231:00:00 3
---------------------Total from 202401 to 202412------------------------
username account localCluster num.jobs
Consumed/h
userXXXX IscrB_example 641:51:05 175
userYYYY IscrB_example 61:28:04 25
userZZZZ IscrB_example 86:51:28 36
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Total 790:10:37 236
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What happens when the budget is exhausted
Whenever an account is running out of budget (in CPU hours), or when its expiring date has been reached, the account becomes unactive and is shut down. This meaning that all the usernames referring to that account won't be able to submit batch jobs (but they will still be able to do so, if they are authorized for other projects account).
Nevertheless, the usernames will still be able to access the HPC platforms in order to perform some lightweight post-processing (e.g. using interactive sessions) and/or to retrieve their data (e.g. using interactive sessions or the archive class). Usernames will be kept alive for a year after their last (most recent) account has been shut down. $WORK area related to your project will be canceled 6 months after the expiring date of the account.
For more information
For more information see the "New accounting policy" document, describing how changed the policy for accounting and billing in Cineca; our the our "HPC UserGuide" is a very useful document for hints on using HPC resources
- The mail addr iscra@cineca.it is available for questions related to project submission and help on administrative and organisation procedures.
- The mail addr superc@cineca.it refers to our HPC user support and is available for questions related to using the HPC machines.
- The mailing list HPC-NEWS is for posting news, information, scheduled downs, software updates, any problems ..., about our HPC computing resources. It is advisable for HPC users to be included in that list! Follow the link to register.
- The portal hpc.cineca.it contains documentation, up-to-date status of HPC machines, ...
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