Access

All HPCC access requires a registered account. To request activation of your HPC Account, see Getting An Account

NEW for 2015: All access from networks not on Penn’s campus requires an active VPN connection. Please see our VPN page for details on installation and operation of the client

SSH

NOTE: Replace ‘hpcc’ below with ‘hpcc-real’ or ‘hpcc-ppi’ for those users who use those servers.

Most HPCC access is done through the standard Unix command line and SSH for commands and SSH-FTP (SSH File Transfer)/SMB (Windows File Sharing) for file transfers (see our Storage Page for file management details). MacOS  and Linux operating systems have these built in. If you are using Windows, you will need to use a SSH v2 client for command access (we recommend the free product MobaXterm). You may wish to consult with your Academic Distributed Representative to determine what SSH client that your department supports.

Your username and password are your Wharton domain credentials.

Security: Login Node Public Keys

The first time you login, you may receive a message similar to “Host key not found from list of known hosts. Are you sure you want to continue connecting?”. Below are the public keys that may be offered to you, and can be trusted:

Fingerprint	BITS	Type
MD5: d2:64:68:ae:3b:0e:95:18:5b:29:c6:a8:61:2f:9e:10 SHA256: nBq4P88AqBV8CizB2mguzdD09EF5EXOW6dvdcgURdKM	256	ECDSA
MD5: 43:9c:3c:34:a4:b5:b4:c0:15:bd:fe:3b:40:21:1f:f1 SHA256: uED0Vz187JeqHsLI51lpIV+HtM9vXG++8zFIYNMRH/s	2048	RSA

If you are presented with something OTHER than one of these keys, PLEASE do not continue connecting, and CONTACT research-computing@wharton.upenn.edu as soon as possible so that we can investigate what’s going on. Under no circumstances enter your username and password if you haven’t received one of the fingerprints listed above.

Key Changes

If you see an error something like “WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!”, verify that the new ‘fingerprint’ being presented is one listed above (most important!), and then you can remove the ‘offending key’ with:

ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/known_hosts -R hpcc.wharton.upenn.edu

Then you should be free to try again.

For those using MobaXterm or SecureCRT, the MobaXterm and SecureCRT pages have additional helpful default settings to make life easier

To login on from Windows or using an SSH client:

• Set the host to: hpcc.wharton.upenn.edu (Real Estate Department: hpcc-real.wharton.upenn.edu, PWBM: hpcc-ppi.wharton.upenn.edu)
• If there’s an option for protocol type: SSH v2
• Connect using your Wharton username and password

To login on from MacOS/Linux/Unix:

• Open a Terminal window (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app on MacOS)
• Type this command and hit enter: ssh username@hpcc.wharton.upenn.edu (Real Estate Department: hpcc-real.wharton.upenn.edu, PWBM: hpcc-ppi.wharton.upenn.edu)
• When it prompts for a password: your Wharton password

FastX

Looking for a graphical environment? Give our FastX program a try! Let us know if you run into any confusion with the documentation, or problems with the service.
NEW! we now offer clickable menu items for some of the most popular programming tools. These are in the Applications > Programming menu at the top left of the HPCC Desktop, and include:

• Atom
• Emacs
• Mathematica
• MATLAB
• MySQL Workbench
• RStudio
• SAS
• Stata
• StatTransfer

Connecting to FastX

From off campus, you must use the Wharton VPN. See our VPN page for details on installation and operation of Wharton’s VPN client.

FastX via the Desktop Client (recommended!)

Download and install the FastX client from the StarNet website: https://www.starnet.com/fastx/current-client, and use these settings (web (https) or ssh):

ssh connection settings

web connection settings

Watch the following video for an example:

FastX via a Web Browser

• Open a web browser and go to: https://hpcc-desktop.wharton.upenn.edu/
• Log in with your Wharton credentials (or download the Desktop Client! Still not documented, though)
• Start a new session:
  • click the ‘+’
  • select (click) the ‘HPCC Desktop’ icon: 
  • click the blue ‘Start’ bar
  • you may have to ‘allow’ access from hpcc-desktop to your pop-up blocker
• That will open a graphical desktop in your browser! You can then:
  • open a terminal window (right-click desktop and choose ‘Open in Terminal’, or click the Terminal icon on the top menubar)
  • do the ‘normal’ qrsh -now no -pe openmp 2 matlab or qrsh -now no xstata-se
  • even if you close your browser, the work will continue to run*

  * WARNING – remember all interactive (qlogin or qrsh sessions) are limited to 12 hours! Open sessions will be cancelled at that time

  HPCC Desktop Quick Video

  A brief video showcasing Wharton’s HPCC Desktop system to access GUI (interactive) programs in the HPCC.
  

  SSH X Forwarding

  NOTE: we recommend using FastX (above) instead of X!
  The HPCC supports X window forwarding through SSH for graphical interactive sessions, but you must have client software to support it. Check the individual software pages (Mathematica, Matlab, Stata, etc.) for how to start a graphical interactive session once connected to the cluster.

  On Windows

  • MobaXterm (recommended)

  or:

  • Xming – install Xming and Xming-fonts (no longer recommended, support will end in 2018) 
  • SecureCRT

  On MacOS/Linux/Unix

  • For Mac, ensure X11 is installed (/Applications/Utilities/X11.app)
    • Available on the OS installation disk for 10.4 Tiger, 10.5 Leopard, and 10.6 Snow Leopard
    • Installed by default on 10.7 Lion
    • NOT AVAILABLE on the OS disk for 10.8 Mountain Lion. Get XQuartz from The Quartz Project.
  • Follow the normal Mac/Linux SSH instruction above, using ssh -Y username@hpcc.wharton.upenn.edu to connect