General information

For general users

For PIs and project managers

General information

Q. How can I start a project on the Blue Gene system?
A. At present, you should in the first instance send a query to the EPCC helpdesk. Someone from the Blue Gene team will then contact you to discuss your proposed project.

Q. How can I start a project on one of the other systems?
A. Access to QCDOC is reserved for particular projects. Please contact the appropriate project managers for information.

Q. How are projects organised?
A. Once a project has been approved by the EPCC project team, or by the project management of the system in question, we set up the project on the system and in the Admin Service database. Each project has a designated Principal Investigator (), who is in charge of that project. They decide who can get access to the service as part of the project, and how the project’s resources are used.

Administration of the project is mostly done through the EPCC Admin Service website. Any user of the services can use the Admin website, but PIs have special privileges to enable them to administer their projects. Some PIs prefer not to do the day-to-day adminstration themselves; instead, they can designate project managers, who will have most of the PI’s privileges.

Some projects, especially large ones, prefer to work as a number of sub-projects. In our terminology, these are called project groups. The PI or project manager can create project groups, decide their memberships and allocate resources for their exclusive use. A user can belong to more than one project group.

Q. How are resources organised?
A. Some of the systems will have time accounting: that is, the use of time on the systems will be controlled through the Admin Service.

On systems with time accounting, time is measured in allocation units (). An AU is a measure of computational work, and roughly corresponds to a 1 gigaflops processor running for 1 hour, as measured by the LINPACK benchmark (this is the same definition as an AU on HPCx). Projects are allocated a certain number of AUs when they are created.

We allocate disk space. We take into account the space requested in the project’s grant application, the amount of time they have asked for and how much space we have available. More space is allocated if needed, and if it’s available. Disk space is allocated in two classes: homespace, which is backed up, and workspace, which is not. At present, use of disk space is not controlled through the Admin Service.

Each project has a code, such as . Within the project there may be a number of project groups. In fact, there are always at least two:

  • The general group, which has the same code as the project itself. Every member of the project is a member of this group, so its resources it are available to them all.
  • The project group, which has a name of form . It has no members, so no one can use its resources. It can be used to hold resources which the PI wishes to hold in reserve for later use.

The other project groups have codes of the form , and their memberships are decided by the PI or project manager. PIs and project managers can move resources between these project groups.

On systems with time accounting, each project group has a with the same name as the project group. Budgets are used to store time, measured in AUs. When you run a job, you must specify which budget you are using. The time you use is then taken from that budget.

Q. How are accounts organised?
A. There are two kinds of account: accounts on the Admin website, and accounts on the service machines. Most users will have one of each, although PIs may choose to have only an account on the Admin website.

If you belong to more than one project, you may like to have a separate account on your service machine for each of them. Alternatively, you can use the same account. If you do this, you will log in to your directory in the homespace of the first project you joined, and you will have to move to the project you wish to work in. Of course, if your projects are using different service machines, you will need an account on each.

You can use your website account to apply to join other projects and create service machine accounts, to change passwords, to keep your personal details up to date, and so on. If your service machine using time accounting, you can check your use of time. PIs and project managers can do many other things.

No matter how many service machine accounts you have, you should have only one website account.

For general users

Q. How can I get an account?
A. First thing: you must belong to a project which is already in the Admin Service database. You will need to know:

  • Your project code
  • The project password

The Principal Investigator (PI) of your project, or its project manager, will supply these to you.

It’s explained here that you will need two accounts: one on the Admin website, and one on your service machine itself. However, you can register for both of them at once. Once you have your project code and the project password, this is what to do.

  • Go to the New User Signup Form
  • Fill in your personal details. You can come back later and change them if you wish
  • Enter the project code and the project password
  • In “Machine Name” box, select the service machine you will be using.
  • Enter the username you would prefer to use on the service machine
  • Click “Submit”

Next you will be asked to accept the Terms and Conditions of Access, by clicking the appropriate button. When you do this, you will be sent an acknowledgment by email, which will include your password for the Admin website - you should change this as soon as possible (see below).

Now you have to wait for your PI or project manager to accept your request to register. When this has happened, the systems team are prompted to create your account on the service machine. Once this has been done, you will be sent an email. You can then pick up your password for the service machine from the Admin website (see below).

Q. How can I login to the Admin website?
A. Go to https://www2.epcc.ed.ac.uk/safadmin/index.jsp. Then:

  • Enter your email address
  • Enter your password for the Admin website
  • Click “Login”

Note that you must use the same email address that you used when you signed up.

Q. How can I pick up my password for the service machine?
A. Wait till you receive the email with your details. Then:

  • Login to the Admin website.
  • Under the heading “Your user accounts” you will see your account on your service machine listed. Click “View”
  • This will display details of this account. In the section labelled “Password”, enter your password to the Admin website and click “View” again, and you will see your password to the service machine.

This password have have been generated randomly by software. It may well be hard to remember and include a selection of “l”, “1″, “O” and “0″ characters. For this reason it’s best to copy-and-paste it across when you log in to the service machine. Once you have logged in, you can change your password to something more memorable. Note that when you change your password on the service machine in this way, this is not reflected on the website.

Q. I’ve forgotten the password to my account on the service machine. How can I change it using the Admin website?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Under the heading “Your user accounts” you will see your account on the service machine listed. Click “View”
  • This will display details of this service machine account. In the section labelled “New Password”, click “New”.

Now the systems team will change your password. When this has been done, you will be informed by email; this means that you can come back to the Admin website and pick up your new password.

Q. How can I change my password for the Admin website?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Scroll down the page to the section headed “Your details”
  • Click “Change password”
  • Fill in the boxes and click “Change”

Q. I’ve forgotten my password to the Admin website. What can I do?
A. Go to https://www2.epcc.ed.ac.uk/safadmin/index.jsp. Then:

  • Enter your email address
  • Click “Email”
  • The website will mail your new password to your email address

The website will only mail to email addresses it already knows. But email is not a secure medium, so if you change your password this way, you should immediately change it again from inside the website.

Of course, anyone could go the Admin website, type your email address and request a new password by clicking “Email”. If that happens you will receive an email message out of the blue saying that your password has been changed. In this case you should certainly change your password again.

Q. I’m already a user in one project. Now I need to join another project as well. How can I do this?
A. There are two ways to do this: open a new account on the appropriate service machine to use for the new project; or, use your existing account for both projects. (You can only do the second of these if both projects are using the same service machine.)

To open a new account for the new project:

  • Login to the Admin website
  • Click on “New Account Request”
  • Select the project you wish to join
  • Select the correct service machine
  • Type in the username you would like
  • Click “Submit”

The PI or project manager of the new project will be asked to approve your request to join their project. After that, the systems team will be asked to create the account, and when this has been done, you will be sent an email. You can then come back to the Admin website and pick up the password of your new account.

To use your old account for the new project:

  • Login to the Admin website
  • Click on “Join Project Request”
  • Select the project you wish to join
  • Select which existing account you wish to use - you may have more than one
  • Click “Submit”

The PI or project manager of the new project will be asked whether they wish to accept you. After that, the systems team will be asked to make the changes needed to join you to the new project, and when this has been done, you will be sent an email.

Note that if you use this second technique, you will now have a directory in each of the projects. When you log in, your current directory will be in your original project, so if you want to work on the second project, you must cd to your directory there. If you create a file or a directory, it will belong to the project of the directory it’s created in, and will be charged against that project’s quota. It’s your responsibility to make sure that files are charged to the right projects.

[For those who are interested: each project has its own Unix group—in fact, more than one, if it’s using project group quotas. Every directory in the file system has the “sticky bit” set, so that group ownership is inherited. Clearly it wouldn’t be hard to subvert this system, but that would be against the Terms and Conditions.]

Q. How can I change my personal details on the Admin website?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • In the panel headed “Your details”, click “Update”
  • Make the changes you wish
  • Click “Commit Update”

Don’t forget the last step, or nothing will happen. Note that your postal address does not automatically include the name of your department and institution; if you want these in your postal address, you must type them again.

Q. How can I change my email address on the Admin website?
A. At present, the only way to do this is to request the change by contacting the helpdesk. We would normally only do this in response to an email request which comes from the existing email address, and we would ask for a confirmation from the same address.

Q. How can I be removed from the email mailing list?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • In the panel headed “Your details”, click “Update”
  • Find the “Opt out of user emails” button and click it
  • Click “Commit Update”

Don’t forget the last step, or nothing will happen.

Q. How can I register a Globus certificate for a service machine account?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Find the panel headed “Your user accounts”
  • Click the “View” button next to the account which you wish to have the Globus certificate
  • In the “Globus certificates” panel, click “Add”
  • Insert your certificate number in the box and click “Submit”

Q. How can I see how much time is available to me?
A. This facility is only available on service machines which use time accounting. Login to the Admin website and move down to the panel headed “You are a member of the following project groups”. Here you can see how much time is left in each project group’s budget.

The budget values displayed are updated every morning. For this reason, these values may not be completely up-to-date. If there is a lot of activity in your project, the numbers shown could be significantly different from from the current ones.

Q. How can I review the use I have made of the service, or the activity of the service as a whole?
A. This facility is only available on service machines which use time accounting. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • At the bottom of the page, click “Go to the Report Generator”
  • In the “Reporting Period” section, select the start and end dates of the period you want to look at
  • Select either “Service information” or “Your Usage Information”
  • If you selected “Service Information”, click the information you want under “Generate?”
  • If you selected “Your Usage Information”, select the account you wish to look at (if you have more than one), and the information you want
  • At the bottom, select the format you want: you can have HTML, PDF or CSV (comma-separated values—useful for input to Excel, etc)
  • Click “Generate Report”

For PIs and project managers

Q. I have received an email saying that my project has been set up. What should I do next?
A. Here are some of the things you should consider doing; not all of them will be needed for every project.

Q. How can I get an account on the service machine for myself?
A. If you are not going to work on the machine yourself, you do not need to do this. You can administer your project through the Admin website alone. But if you want a service machine account:

  • Login to the Admin website.
  • Click the “Request New Account” button. This will display the Request New Account page.
  • Fill in your project code and your preferred login name, and click on “Submit”

You will get an acknowledgment screen, from which you can return to your main page. Now (as PI) you have to accept your own request for an account - see the next question.

Q. How can I get my users registered?
A. In order to get an account, a potential user needs to know two things: your project code, and your project password. These are included in the email which the system sends to you, as PI, when your project is set up. The project password is not the same as your personal password to the website; it is used only by new users when getting their accounts.

  • Give the users the project code and project password, in as secure a way as you are comfortable with.

  • Each user should follow the procedure to get an account on HPCx shown above. You could, for example, send them the URL of this webpage
  • Now you have to accept (or reject) each user’s request. Login to the Admin website.
  • When there are requests outstanding, you will see a list of New Project Signup Requests at the top of the page, each with a Process button
  • Click the button next to a user
  • You will see the user’s details, and at the bottom of the page buttons to accept or reject them

If you now accept the user, they will get an account. This is the last chance to stop someone who shouldn’t be there! Take a few seconds to check the user’s details, especially their email address, to make sure that they are who they say they are. Please check their nationality as well: it’s your responsibility to make sure this is right.

When you accept a user, the systems team is automatically requested to create the account on the service machine. When this has been done, the user is emailed; allow a working day for this. The user can then go to the website and pick up their password on the service machine.

Q. How can I know when someone has registered, so that I can go and approve their registration? I don’t want to have to check my Admin website account every day.
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Go down to the “You manage the following projects” panel.
  • Click on the “Administer” button next to the project you want to affect.
  • Click the “Update” button
  • Enter your email address in the “New Account Signup Notification List” box.
  • Click “Commit Update”.

Don’t forget the last step, or nothing will happen.

Q. How can I change the project password?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Find the panel headed “You manage the following projects”
  • Click on the “Administer” button next to the project whose password you want to change. This will display a page with a variety of options for managing your project.
  • Click “Update”
  • The basic details of your project will be displayed. Change the password in the password box.
  • Click “Commit Update”

Don’t forget the last step, or nothing will happen.

Q. How can I designate a user as a project manager?
A. A project manager can do everything in a project that a PI can do, except designate another project manager. You can designate as many project managers as you wish.

  • Make sure the user has an account in your project.

  • Login to the Admin website.
  • Find the panel headed “You manage the following projects”
  • Click on the “Administer” button for the project you wish to appoint a project manager for. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click “Administer Users”
  • A list of all your users will be displayed. Tick the box next to the user in question, then go to the bottom and click “Make Manager”

Q. How can I set up project groups within my project?
A. Project groups can be used to administer time within your project (if your service machine uses time accounting). See the discussions about the ways that projects and resources are organised.

  • Login to the Admin website.
  • Find the panel headed “You manage the following projects”
  • Click on the “Administer” button for the project in question. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing theproject.
  • Click “Project Group Administration”
  • This will take you to the screen for creating new project groups. Fill in a suffix to your project code in the box: for example, if your project code is t01, you might chose t01-a. Project group names cannot be more than eight characters in total.
  • Click “Create new group”

To add users to the new project group, see the next question. A user can belong to more than one project group.

Q. How can I add users to an existing project group?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Find the panel headed “You manage the following projects”
  • Click on the “Administer” button for the project you are working on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click on “Administer Users”
  • Select the users by clicking the boxes next to their names
  • Move to the bottom of the display and select a project group
  • Click “Add to group”

A user can belong to more than one project group.

Q. How can I remove a user from a project group?
A. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Find the panel headed “You manage the following projects”
  • Click on the “Administer” button for the project you are working on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click on “Administer Users”
  • You will see a grey button marked with “X” for every project group that a user belongs to. Click this button, and the user will be removed from that project group.

Q. How can I administer time within my project?
A. This facility is only available on service machines which use time accounting. Time is measured in allocation units (AUs), and is held in . Every project group has its own budget. There are always at least two project groups in your project:

  • The general group, which has the same code as the project itself. Every member of the project is a member of this group, so the time in its budget is available to them all.
  • The project group, which has a name of form . It has no members, so no one can use the time in its budget. This budget can be used to hold time which the PI or project manager wishes to hold in reserve for later use.

Initially, all your time is in the general group’s budget. If you are happy with all your users using the same budget, you can leave things as they are.

If you wish to divide the time up between groups, you can create a project group for each group. In this case you will probably want to move all the time out the general group, since this can be used by everyone.

You may wish to give time just to a single user. This is a special case of a project group: one with only one member.

The reserve budget is provided so that if you wish you can control the use of time by your project members: you can keep most of the time in your reserve budget, and move it to the other budgets as required. We recommend that you should do this, even if you don’t need to create other project groups.

Q. How can I move time between budgets?
A. This facility is only available on service machines which use time accounting. Login to the Admin website, and then:

  • Click the “Administer” button next to the project you are working on.
  • Click “Manage Project Resources”
  • Click “Manage Group Time Allocations”
  • Click the “Move From” and “Move To” buttons of the project groups you want to change
  • Enter the number of AUs you wish to move in the box
  • Click the “Submit Budget Allocation Changes” button.

Don’t forget the last step, or nothing will happen.

Q. How can I allocate time to a single user?
A. This facility is only available on service machines which use time accounting. As all the time in a project group is shared by all its members, the only way to reserve some time for a single user is to create a project group for that user alone.

Remember that time in the general group’s budget is accessible to all, so you will probably want to move all of the project’s time away from there.

Q. How can I see the current state of my project’s time budgets?
A. This facility is only available on service machines which use time accounting. Login to the Admin website. Then:

  • Click the “Administer” button next to the project you are working on.
  • Under “Project groups” you can see the current state of each project group’s budgets. If it uses disk or tape quotas, you will see these, together with how much of is in use.

If a project group’s use of a quota is getting close to the maximum, it is highlighted in pink.

The budget values displayed are updated every morning, and the values shown for disk and tape use are updated four times a day. For this reason, these values may not all be completely up-to-date. If there is a lot of activity in your project, the numbers shown could be significantly different from the current ones.

Q. How can I track what my project’s users and project groups are doing?
A. This facility is only available on service machines which use time accounting. It can be done using the Report Generator.

  • Click “Go to Report Generator”
  • Select the start and end dates of the period you are interested in
  • Select “Project Information”. (Only PIs and project managers see this section)
  • Select the information you need.
  • Choose a report format: HTML, PDF or CSV (comma-separated values—good for input to Excel, etc)
  • Click “Generate Report”

Q. My project needs more disk space or time. How can I get it?
A. Contact the helpdesk. We will always receive such requests sympathetically, although some of the service machines only have restricted amounts of disk space.

Q. How can I delete a project group?
A. You can only delete a project group if it has no resources or members. You must remove all its members and all its time.

  • Go down to the “You manage the following projects” panel.
  • Click on the “Administer” button next to the project.
  • Click on “Project Group Administration”
  • Select the project group you want to delete. You will only be able to select the groups which have no time, space or members.
  • Click “Delete Group”

Deleting a group involves removing its various directories. A human has to do this, so there will be a short delay.

Q. Can I temporarily stop a user from using any time in my project?
A. Yes, although you can only do this on service machines which use time accounting. It is called a user. A user who has been deactivated cannot use any of your budgets. This means that they can’t do any work, in effect, so we recommend that you use this facility with care.

  • Login to the Admin website
  • Click the “Administer” button next to the project you are working on.
  • Click “Administer Users”
  • Select the user or users you wish to deactivate
  • Click “Deactivate”

To reactivate the users, do the same, but click “Activate” instead.

Q. How can I remove a user from my project?
A. This cannot be done through the website. Instead, you should contact the helpdesk.

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