Axon is a Beowulf style cluster where a scheduler, in this case Slurm, is used to submit compute tasks, called jobs, to one or more nodes in the cluster. Jobs are submitted to the cluster via the login node (axon.rc.zi.columbia.edu) as show in the example below.
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SSH (Secure Shell), a secure protocol to used primarily to connect to Linux servers, is the way to connect Axon to submit jobs. Connecting via SSH is typically done from the command line interface such as Command Prompt in Windows or Terminal on the Mac and running the command ssh as shown below. Windows users: SSH was only added to Windows 10 recently, so if you're somehow using an older version of Windows 10 a third party program such as Putty or MobaXterm is required to connect.
Connecting from inside the Columbia network or on VPN
| Code Block |
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| language | bash |
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| theme | FadeToGrey |
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| title | To login to the cluster ssh into the login node (replace uni123 with your uni) |
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➤ ssh aa3301@axon.rc.zi.columbia.edu
aa3301@axon.rc.zi.columbia.edu's password:
Last login: Fri Dec 27 15:35:33 2019 from adm.rc.zi.columbia.edu
[aa3301@axon ~]$ |
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The login node is only accessible from wired connections inside the Columbia Morningside campus, secure wifi or the CUIT VPN at this time. While the login node is not currently accessible from the Internet, it is accessible from most parts of the Columbia so you can ssh from another host which is available on the Internet such as other HPC login nodes or Cunix
Connecting from outside the Columbia network
The Axon login node is available anywhere outside by connecting via ssh to mbb-nat-vlan415.net.columbia.edu on port 55, as shown in the command below.
| Code Block |
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| language | bash |
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| theme | Midnight |
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| firstline | Connecting to Axon from outside Columbia |
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> ssh -p 55 aa3301@mbb-nat-vlan415.net.columbia.edu
aa3301@mbb-nat-vlan415.net.columbia.edu's password:
Last login: Thu Apr 2 17:01:47 2020 from adm.rc.zi.columbia.edu
Welcome to the Axon GPU Cluster!
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While this command can be a lot to type using the ssh config file you can abbreviate the command to make it easier to connect to. By adding the following lines to the file ~/.ssh/config (create it if it doesn't exist) you can connect using the shorter name.
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| language | bash |
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| title | Sample .ssh config to connect to axon remotely |
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Host axon-remote
HostName mbb-nat-vlan415.net.columbia.edu
User aa3301
# change above to your uni
Port 55 |
Once you have the file in place you can run the abbreviated ssh command as shown below.
| Code Block |
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| language | bash |
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| theme | Midnight |
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| title | Connecting using the ~/.ssh/config example above |
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> ssh axon-remote
aa3301@mbb-nat-vlan415.net.columbia.edu's password:
Last login: Thu Apr 2 17:53:41 2020 from vpn-10-192-140-203.dyn.columbia.edu
Welcome to the Axon GPU Cluster!
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