Content:
- What to do when your project is approved
- How to use your project resources
- How the PI can manage the project resources
- What happens when the budget is exhausted
- For more information
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Last revision: April 2024 (MG)What 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.
Remember: your 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
Log into the HPC platform using ssh with your personal username:
- Galielo 100
ssh <username>@login.g100.cineca.it
- Leonardo Booster/Leonardo DCGP
ssh <username>@login.leonardo.cineca.it
First of all you have to verify if you have one or more active projects (accounts). This can be done with the "saldo" command:
- Leonardo Booster/Galielo 100
$ saldo -b
- Leonardo DCGP
$ saldo -b --dcgp
---------------------------------------------------------------- account start end total localCluster total totConsumed% Consumed/h Consumed/h ---------------------------------------------------------------- IscrB_xx ... ... ... ... ... ... EuHPC_yy ... ... ... ... ... ...
For example in this case you understand you are allowed to participate to 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). WARNING: if the "saldo -b" command returns the following result:
> saldo -b username not existing
this means you are not allowed to use any account.
One possible reason is that you or your PI have not completed your personal profile on the UserDB Portal, or this was been done only recently (remember, the changes will take effect only the day after having closed the web procedure!).
Interactive activities (and data movement with the "archive" queue) are free of charge and will not decrease the budget of your accounts.
Batch jobs can be submitted 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 the batch scheduler:
Slurm (LEONARDO, GALILEO100):
#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.
How the PI can manage the project resources
The PI can use the saldo commands 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 and the total user resources (and lists all the collaborators for your account if you add the "-a" flag)
- "saldo -r" shows the daily usage of your account and gives you a measure of which collaborator used your budget
For example:
> saldo -b
> saldo -ba IscrB_prj
erossi01 malberon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
account start end total localCluster totConsumed totConsumed
(local h) consumed(local h) (local h) %
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IscrB_prj 20130623 20131030 100000 30000 50000 50.0
> saldo -r
> saldo -r -y 2013 -a project1
----------Resources used from 201301 to 201312----------
date username account localCluster num.jobs
Consumed/h
----------------------------------------------------------------
20130609 malberon project1 3:00:04 3
20130609 erossi00 project1 0:08:00 1
20130609 erossi00 project1 0:00:52 2
....
-----------Total from 201301 to 201312-------------------
username account localCluster num.jobs
Consumed/h
erossi00 project1 0:11:11 6
malberon project1 0:04:08 46
....
--------------------------------------------------------------
Total 12:20:37 125
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 "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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