Migration of FAU HPC accounts from IdM portal to HPC portal

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2024-03-04

In February and March 2024, many HPC acocunts from FAU’s basic Tier3 HPC service (those accounts usually start with 4 characters, followed by 3 digits, and an “h” at the end unless they are already very old) have been migrated from the IdM portal to the HPC portal (https://portal.hpc.fau.de/). Both portals are completely decoupled.

General documentation on the HPC portal can be found at https://doc.nhr.fau.de/hpc-portal/.

All affected users have been informed in detail in advance. The email subject was “Migration of … HPC accounts to new HPC portal / SSH keys become mandatory [Ticket#2024…]” – it’s copied below for easier reference.

  1. Once the migration is effective (Feb 29, March 11, March 15, end of March – depending on the group), the HPC accounts do not have any password anymore. The use of SSH keys is mandatory.
  2. Once the migration is effective, users also get an email from the IdM portal telling that some services expired. As mentioned in our “Migration” email, this message is expected but can be ignored. Once the migration is started, the IdM portal does not have any valid information about the expiration date of HPC accounts.
  3. To check the real expiration date of your HPC account, login to the HPC portal and check there! Prolongations of HPC accounts are handled decentrally – contact your local project manager which can be seen in the HPC portal!
  4. SSH public keys have to be uploaded to the HPC portal. It will take about 2 hours until all HPC systems received the SSH public keys.
  5. In case of SSH connection problems, check the trouble shooting guide at https://doc.nhr.fau.de/access/ssh-command-line/#troubleshooting. If you do not succeed, include the output of 
    ssh -vvv <your usual SSH options and arguments>
  6. If you get stuck on the dialog server (cshpc or csnhr), check the FAQ https://doc.nhr.fau.de/faq/#i-managed-to-log-in-to-t40–with-an-ssh-key–but-get-asked-for-a-password—permission-denied-when-continuing-to-a-cluster-frontend
  7. To get into ClusterCockpit or Jupyterhub, you now also have to go through the HPC portal.

 

Accounts for lectures are not going to be migrated. If they initially were created in the IdM portal, they will stay there until the accounts expire in the coming weeks.

 

 

Subject: Migration of HPC accounts to new HPC portal / SSH keys become mandatory [Ticket#2024…]

 

Valued user of the HPC services at FAU,

we recently started the migration process of your existing HPC account from the IdM portal (and paper-based HPC application forms) to a new, purely online HPC portal.

The HPC portal can be reached at https://portal.hpc.fau.de. Login with Single Sign-On (SSO) using your IdM credentials.

When you login, you should see your existing HPC account.

In the future (i.e. end of February/March 11th/March 15th/end of March), access to the HPC systems will be by SSH keys only as the new HPC portal does not know any password. Please generate one (or more) SSH key pair with passphrase and upload the SSH PublicKey to the HPC portal. Accepted SSH key types are RSA with a length of at least 4096 bits, ECDSA with a length of 512, and ED25519. It will always take up to two hours for all HPC systems to know you updated SSH PublicKeys. If you are not yet familiar with SSH keys, check our documentation (https://hpc.fau.de/systems-services/documentation-instructions/ssh-secure-shell-access-to-hpc-systems/) and FAQs (https://doc.nhr.fau.de/faq/#ssh). For Windows users, we recommend to use the OpenSSH built into the Windows (Power)Shell or MobaXterm instead of Putty.

In the coming days you’ll also receive an email from the IdM portal telling you that your HPC service (in the IdM portal) is going to expire. You can ignore that automatic message. It is correct that the HPC service will expire in the IdM portal. However, starting from now on, the HPC portal will be the only source for account validity. Thus, the expiration date shown in the HPC portal is the relevant one!

The IdM portal and the new HPC portal are completely decoupled. Thus, the HPC portal will not know when your contract is extended or when you are leaving the University. To update the validity of your HPC account, you no longer need to fill in a paper form. Just contact your PI or the manager (can be found in the HPC portal!) of your project. If a colleague of yours or a student of yours need a new HPC account, they also have to contact the PI or project manager instead of RRZE.

In the HPC portal you can see your usage of the different HPC systems. Keep in mind that your PI and project managers will also be able to see these usage statistics.

If you used ClusterCockpit to monitor the performance of your jobs, you have to use the Single Sign-On link from within the HPC portal instead of login with username and password directly on the ClusterCockpit website.

The same is true if you used the Jupyterhub services. With the Single Sign-On link to Jupyterhub from within the HPC portal you’ll reach a renewed Jupyterhub instance with updated software and hardware.

Your RRZE & NHR@FAU

Category: Allgemein, HPC, Systems