Getting Started

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Welcome to the School of Computational Sciences (SCS) Computing Web site. This page is designed to give a brief introduction to the computing resources available at SCS. For more detailed documentation please visit the links in the left menu. The SCS also manages FSU's Shared multidisciplinary HPC. Please click on the following URL for more information on FSU's shared HPC: http://www.hpc.fsu.edu/.

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Table of Contents

Getting an Account

An SCS account is required to connect to most of the computing resources available at the SCS. To get an SCS account you must be an SCS faculty member, SCS student, SCS affiliated faculty, or be sponsored by an SCS faculty or staff member.

• See RequestAccount for more information

Getting help

The SCS technical support group (TSG) provides help between 9 AM and 5 PM (EST) Monday through Friday. If you need help with something, please send a message to ops@scs.fsu.edu. Everyone in the TSG checks this list. To check the status of a request go to https://otrs.scs.fsu.edu/otrs/customer.pl (your SCS username and password is required to access this web site).

Our graduate students also read the ops email list and are available to help with technical issues during their designated office hours. See the GA Office Hours page for a list of office student office hours.

Logging into Systems

Most of the SCS compute resources can be accessed from pamd.scs.fsu.edu. For example:

pamd% ssh phoenix.scs.fsu.edu

If you are connected to the SCS network or the SCS Virtual Private Network (see VpnSetup) you can connect directly to SCS compute resources without first going through pamd.scs.fsu.edu.

Log in access to owner-based systems is restricted to the owners of the resource and to the members of their group.

Use the qlogin command to connect to our application servers?. For example:

pamd% qlogin -l tecplot

The qlogin command is available on SCS desktop workstations (e.g. hostname = dskscs***.scs.fsu.edu) or from pamd.scs.fsu.edu.

Resources Overview

• To view a facilities overview for grants see ScsResources
• SCS Technology Integration Plan: SCS_IT_Plan_08.pdf

• FSU's Shared Multidisciplinary HPC The SCS manages FSU's Shared Multidisciplinary HPC. The system is composed of a mix of general access and owner-based systems and is available to everyone in the FSU research community. For more information on this system, please click on the following URL: http://www.hpc.fsu.edu/.
• General Access Clusters The SCS supports two general access clusters; Phoenix? and Tempest. Parallel and serial jobs can be run on these clusters using either the SGE or the Condor queuing systems, respectively.
• General Application Server A general access application server is available to run interactive jobs such as Matlab, Maple, etc. To access the application server simply type qlogin from pamd.scs.fsu.edu or any SCS managed desktop system.
• Scientific Visualization Lab The SCS maintains a general access Scientific Visualization Lab equipped with specialized hardware and software to support scientific visualization.
• Bioinformatics Server The FSU HPC with biological databases and specialized software is managed by the SCS for the FSU biosciences community. Bioinformatics resources are also available on all SCS systems that mount /usr/common. See ScSBioinformatics for further explanations and options.
• Desktop systems The SCS supports over 40 desktop machines, which are available for computing through the Condor queuing system.
• Classroom The SCS computer classroom is on the first floor of Dirac Science Library. The room is equipped with 20 Intel-based workstations running LINUX and Microsoft Windows XP (under VMware). The classroom is used primarily for classes taught by SCS faculty. Other uses of the classroom may be allowed, subject to availability.
• Owner-based Clusters The SCS supports eight clusters owned by SCS faculty. Direct access to these clusters is restricted, however idle cycles on these machines can be accessed by using the Condor queuing system.
• Hosting non-SCS systems The SCS hosts computer clusters from non-SCS units throughout the University according to the following guidelines: NonSCSSytems. Again, direct access to these clusters is restricted, however idle cycles on these machines can be accessed by using the Condor queuing system.

File System Basics

The SCS supports a common shared distributed file sytem. The primary SCS File server is known as fs.scs.fsu.edu which is actually a pair of SunFire? v480 servers in a primary/backup server pair.

Whenever you log into a desktop or pamd you will be placed in your SCS home directory. Clusters typically log you into a local home directory with a link only on the headnode to 'fshome'(which is your SCS home directory). The exception to this is the waterfall and the gp clusters, which directly mount your home directory.

Global scratch space is available at /panfs/panasas1/scratch and /fs/scratch. Please note that scratch space is just that, scratch.

Your SCS home directory is the only filesystem which is backed up. Further information on backups can be found at:

Backups, https://www.scs.fsu.edu/twiki/bin/view/TechHelp/BackUps

The file system is mounted on cluster head nodes, SCS maintained desktop systems, and classroom workstations. If you are connected to the SCS network, you can manually mount the shared filesytem using samba.

1. From a Mac:
   1. select "Go" from the Finder menu
   2. select "Connect to server"
   3. Enter smb://fs.scs.fsu.edu/homes in the "Server Address:" text box and click "Connect"
   4. User your SCS username and password to mount the file system

1. From a Windows machine:
   1. see MapDrive