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.
The login node (axon.rc.zi.columbia.edu) is not for computation only preparation!
The login node is for preparation of compute jobs, please don't run any cpu intensive tasks on the login node. Compute intensive preparation can be done via Slurm interactive jobs on the compute nodes.
Connecting via SSH
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 a third party program such as Putty or MobaXterm is required to connect.
Connecting from inside the Columbia network or on VPN
➤ 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 ~]$
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.
Error rendering macro 'code': Invalid value specified for parameter 'firstline'> 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! ...
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.
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.
> 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! ...