Setup

Essential Software

Terminal

To connect to Artemis HPC, and follow this lesson, you will need a ‘terminal emulator with SSH (secure shell). SSH provides encrypted communication between the your computer and a remote server, in this case Artemis. The SSH client will be invoked by the command ‘ssh’.

If you are a Windows users please have one of either apps below installed:

  1. Putty (recommended)

  2. MobaXterm

  3. WSL and Ubuntu (advanced)

If you are a Mac user we will be using the Terminal which comes pre-installed on your device.

VPN

For all users, if you are not on campus install and/or have your Cisco Anyconnect VPN up and running.

Credentials to Access Artemis

You would normally use your unikey and unikey password to access Artemis. For the course you will be using training credentials. which will give access to the Training project:

Username: ict_hpctrain<N>, with N from 1-20 (replace with your assigned number)

Password: to be provided.

Mac Logon to Artemis

Use the Terminal App. Found in your Applications folder, or hit Command-Space and type terminal. Then in the terminal enter:

ssh <unikey>@hpc.sydney.edu.au

Windows Logon to Artemis

  1. Open Putty.

  2. Fill in the connection details:

    Host Name: hpc.sydney.edu.au

    Port: 22

    Connection type: SSH

  3. Name this session “Artemis” and click ‘Save’

Working on Artemis with Graphical Applications

X11 FORWARDING

X11 forwarding allows you to run graphical applications on a remote server and have their Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) displayed on your local machine. This is particularly useful when you are working on a remote server or computer and need to run graphical applications, such as graphical text editors, web browsers, or any other GUI-based tools.

To use X11 forwarding you need to install additional tools and tweak the way you connect. Recommendtions are as follows.

Mac Users

You will need to install and start Xquartz. Then log in to Artemis by providing the extra -X flag. That is:

ssh -X <unikey>@hpc.sydney.edu.au

Windows Users

You will need to install and start Xming. Then in PuTTY, you can enable X11 forwarding in a new or saved SSH sessions by selecting Enable X11 forwarding in the PuTTY Configuration window (Connection > SSH > X11).

Alternatively, MobaXterm offers a rich experience as a full-featured X-server and terminal emulator for SSH connections, the free version is more than adequate.

NOMACHINE

An alternative to X11 forwarding is to use our graphical login nodes via the NoMachine App. These special are graphics-enabled login servers which host NoMachine, a kind of remote desktop service.

Our experience is that no-machine is preferrable when using visualisation software that rely on computation done on the HPC.

To use the graphical login nodes:

Download and install the NoMachine Enterprise Client for your operating system. Please don’t download the client from NoMachine directly, as their current version may not work with Artemis.

If you’re using MacOS, you need to install XQuartz.

Download the glogin.nxs session configuration file to your computer.

To connect:

Double-click or run the glogin.nxs shortcut you downloaded (it will open NoMachine Client). A NoMachine window should start, asking for a username and password. Replace YOUR_UNIKEY with your UniKey, then enter your UniKey password in the password field, then click OK. A short while later, an Artemis terminal window should open.