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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | How do I get an HPC account? | Fill out this form and submit it to Computer Centre. |
| 2 | How do I acknowledge the Param Vikram-1000? |
Param Vikram-1000 is dedicated to the research community in PRL. The continued exposure of PRL is dependent upon its demonstrable value, part of which may include published work involved in the use of our systems. Publications resulting from work done on Param Vikram-1000 should include a credit similar to: "The computations were performed on the Param Vikram-1000 High Performance Computing Cluster of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL)."PRL requests that a copy of any publication (preprint or reprint) resulting from research done on Param Vikram-1000 HPC system should be uploaded under Recent Publications through your login. Kindly do not forget to select "Yes" under caption - Acknowledge HPC (Param Vikram-1000). |
| 3 | How to use mathematica on Param Vikram-1000 cluster? | Kindly login to Visualization Node and run the command - mathematica. |
| 4 | How to use Matlab on Param Vikram-1000 cluster? | Kindly login to Visualization Node and run the command - matlab. |
| 5 | How to use IDL on Param Vikram-1000 cluster? | Kindly login to Visualization Node and run the command - idl or idlde. |
| 6 | How to use Geant4 on Param Vikram-1000 cluster? | Kindly go through the Readme. . |
| 7 | How do I know what resources like Cores, RAM are available on compute nodes ? |
Run prlhpc-stat at the command prompt.
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| 8 | Can I access the Param Vikram-1000 cluster from outside PRL LAN? | Access of Param Vikram-1000 is currently restricted to PRL LAN only. However, you can opt for an VPN account and establish secure tunnel to PRL, then connect to Param Vikram-1000. To know more, kindly contact CNIT division. |
| 9 | What is the default disk quota available to me? | Currently, there is a disk quota size of 2.5 TB default for all hpcusers. However, based on need and request, it can be increased accordingly. |
| 10 | Is the cluster storage backed up? |
We take daily incremental backups and full backup of your data stored in HPC. The data is backed up to a LTO 9 robotic tape library. Depending on data size and number of tapes available, your data backup is stored for at-least 2 months, with-in which you may request for a retrieval. Please note that backup process starts at mid-night every day. If you lose your file(s) with-in few hours and recently created, we may not be able to retrieve it. |
| 11 | What is the best way to transfer a large amount of data onto a cluster? | Use rsync to copy data to the master node. |
| 12 | How do I choose which version of software I use? |
To select a specific version of a piece of software you can use the module command. This allow you to choose between different installed versions of software.
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| 13 | How do I request the installation or upgrade of a piece of software? | If you wish to have a new piece of software installed or software that is already installed upgraded please send an email to the [email protected] from your PRL email account with details of what software change you require and the cluster that you would like it changed on. |
| 14 | Can I install software myself on the HPC? | If you wish, you can also install software in your cluster home drive for yourself . |
| 15 | How do I figure out what the resource requirements of my job are? | The best way to determine what the resource requirements of your job is to run it for the first time whilst being generous with the resource requirements and then refine the requirements based on what the job actually used. |
| 16 | Why is my job stuck in the queue whilst other jobs run? | The queues are set up to be first-in-first-out. The scheduler runs jobs and whose resource requirements can be currently satisfied. Otherwise the job is queued until resources are available. |
| 17 | What happens if my job uses more memory than I requested? | If your job uses more memory than you requested then it may cause issues on the active node. For example the extra memory you use becomes unavailable to another job that thinks that it is there to use so active memory will be swapped to the local disk and the node will slow to a crawl. To avoid this any job that uses more memory than requested will be terminated by the scheduler. |
| 18 | How long can my jobs run? | Kindly refer HPC Queues section for detail. |
| 19 | How to check my disk quota? | Kindly run the command - lfs quota -u [username] /home/[username]. For Example: lfs quota -h -u ccuser /home/ccuser |
| 20 | How to use Comsol software on Param Vikram-1000 HPC? | Kindly add the module - module add comsol/6.0 in your .bashrc. To run your job using comsol, kindly accordingly write a batch script and submit the job. |
| 21 | How to check my completed/failed job status during specific date on Param Vikram-1000 HPC? | Kindly use the command on master node - sacct -S [Start Time - mm/dd/yy]; -E [End Time - mm/dd/yy] -X -u [username] --format=jobid,user,state%9,CPUTime,NodeList,Start,End,Partition. For Example: sacct -S 07/01/23 -E 08/31/23 -X -u ccuser --format=jobid,user,state%9,CPUTime,NodeList,Start,End,Partition |
| 22 | How to check the Memory and CPU Utilization and Efficiency of my specific job on Param Vikram-1000 HPC? | Kindly use the command on master node - seff [jobid] |
| 23 | How to generate brief job completion summary at the end of the job completion on Param Vikram-1000 HPC? | Kindly use the command in your job submission script at the end of main execution command - scontrol -dd show job $SLURM_JOB_ID > job-output-$SLURM_JOB_ID.out |
| 24 | How check my own Param Vikram-1000 HPC usage during specific time frame? | Kindly use the command - jobstatus [ start date] [end date] . For example: jobstatus 01/11/2023 30/11/2023. |