Locations & Resources

Login Node

The login node ( easley.auburn.edu ) is your sole interface to the Easley Cluster and is accessed remotely over the network using ssh. It is where you can issue commands, submit jobs, see results and manage files.

Although it is acceptable to run short, non-intensive programs on the login node during testing, the login node is not intended to be used for computationally intensive work. Running intense computations on the login node affects the performance and availability of the cluster for all users, and is, therefore, not allowed. Any processes that violate this policy will be killed automatically. You can check the impact of your running processes, or the processes of other users with:

top

Please notify hpcadmin@auburn.edu if you see any activity that affects your ability to access or effectively work on the cluster.

Compute Nodes

Your research software runs on the compute nodes and there are a number of different types on the Easley cluster. Some are special purpose, but most are general purpose in that they are suited to a variety of workloads.

Types of compute nodes:

Category	Count	Processor	Speed	Cores	Memory	Partition
Standard	126	Intel Xeon Gold 6248R	3.00GHz	48	192 GB	general
Bigmem2	21	Intel Xeon Gold 6248R	3.00GHz	48	384 GB	bigmem2
Bigmem4	9	Intel Xeon Gold 6248R	3.00GHz	48	768 GB	bigmem4
AMD	11	AMD EPYC 7662	2.00GHz	128	256 GB	amd
2xGPU	9	Intel Xeon Gold 6248R/Tesla T4	3.00GHz	48	384 GB	gpu2
4xGPU+	2	Intel Xeon Gold 6248R/Tesla T4	3.00GHz	48	768 GB	gpu4
Nova 20	61	Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3	2.60GHz	20	128 GB	nova
Nova 28	47	Intel Xeon E5-2680 v4	2.60GHz	28	128 GB	nova
Nova fastfat	12	Intel Xeon E5-2667 v3	3.20GHz	16	256 GB	nova_ff
Nova GPU	2	Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3/Tesla K80	2.60GHz	28	128 GB	nova_gpu
Nova Super	1	Intel Xeon E7-4809 v3	2.00GHz	64	1 TB	nova_super

Recommendation

If you don’t know which partition to use, use the general or nova partition as they are best suited for general workloads.

Note

Although your jobs run on compute nodes in the cluster, your primary interface with them is through the scheduler. The scheduler assigns your job to the appropriate compute nodes based on what you indicate in your job submission and the resources which are available to you.

File Storage

Users are provided a high performance GPFS file system which is used for home directories, the scratch directory and the tools directory.

Home Directory

Each user has their own directory, called a home directory, in /home/<userid>. Your home directory is the primary location for your datasets, output, and custom software and is limited to 2TB.

Home directories are backed up (snapshots) daily and kept for 90 days. However, it is the user’s responsibility to transfer their data from their home directory back to their computer for permanent storage.

Scratch Directory

All users have access to a large, temporary, work-in-progress directory called the scratch directory in /scratch.

Use this directory to store very large datasets for a short period of time and to run your jobs. Although you can submit jobs to run from your home directory, scratch is better option as it is much larger at 2 PB. Files in this location are purged after 30 days of inactivity (access time) and are not backed up.

How to Use Scratch for your Data

Create a directory for your job in scratch. Copy your input data to this directory in scratch. Run your job that uses the files in that directory. Within a week, make sure and copy any needed results back to your home directory. Delete your directory in scratch. Create a new directory in scratch for every job you run.

Warning! Scratch Directory

Do not use scratch as long term storage.

Any data left on scratch is automatically purged after 30 days of inactivity, based on the last access time of the file. Each time the data is accessed, the time window is renewed, so as long as you are using your data it will remain available. There is no backup of scratch. Once a file is deleted, it cannot be recovered. Thus any data files left on /scratch must be transferred elsewhere within a few days if they need to be kept.

Tools Directory

Each user has access to a directory for installed software called the tools directory located in /tools. Many popular software packages, compilers, and libraries are installed here.

File Storage Summary

Name	Directory	Purpose	Quota	Retention	Backup
Home	/home/userid	Small datasets, output and custom software	2 TB	long	Y
Scratch	/scratch	Large datasets and output	20 TB	short	N
Tools	/tools	Software packages, compilers and libraries	NA	long	Y

Data Transfer

To transfer files to your home directory from your local machine:

scp –r <source filename> <userid>@easley.auburn.edu:~/<target_filename>

To transfer files to your local machine from your home directory:

scp –r <userid>@easley.auburn.edu:~/<source_filename> <target_filename>