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Please read it carefully and if any doubt arises don't hesitate to contact our support mail (see below in Getting help).
Requesting an account
Altamira users include researchers at the University of Cantabria, researchers who get execution time at the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES), and other researchers. The assignment of an account and execution time requires a request form, contact us in case of doubt or for urgent requests.
System Overview
Altamira includes 158 main compute nodes and 2 1 login server.
Main compute nodes have two Intel Sandybridge E5-2670 processors, each one with 8 cores operating at 2.6 GHz and a cache of 20MB, 64 GB of RAM memory (i.e. 4 GB/core) and 500 GB local disk.
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- /gpfs/users/res → /home: users home: This filesystem has the home directories of all the users, when you log into Altamira you start in your home directory by default. Every user will have their own home directory to store the executables, own developed sources and their personal data. Quotas are in effect that limit the amount of data that can be saved here, a default quota will be enforced to all users.
- /gpfs/res_projects: In addition to the home directory, there is a directory in /gpfs/res_projects for each group of users of Altamira. All the users of the same project will share their common /gpfs/res_projects space and it is responsibility of each project manager to determine and coordinate the better use of this space, and how it is distributed or shared between their users. If a project needs more disk space in this filesystem or in any other of the GPFS filesystems, the project manager has to make a request for this extra space needed, specifying the space needed and the reasons why it is needed (see Getting Help section to know how contact us).
- /gpfs/res_scratch: Each Altamira user will have a directory over /gpfs/res_scratch, you must use this space to store temporary files of your jobs during its execution. By default, files may reside for up to 7 days without modification in this filesystem, any older file might be removed. A quota per group will be enforced depending on the space assigned.
- /gpfs/res_apps: Over this filesystem will reside the applications and libraries that have already been installed on Altamira. Take a look at the directories or go to Software section to know the applications available for general use. To use an application, you must load the module as is detailed below in the Software section. Before installing any application that is needed by your project, first check if this application is already installed on the system. If some application that you need is not on the system, you will have to ask our user support team to install it. Check Getting Help Section how to contact with us. If it is a general application with no restrictions in his use, this will be installed over a public directory, that is over /gpfs/res_apps so all users on Altamira could make use of it. If the application needs some type of license and his use must be restricted, a private directory over /gpfs/res_apps will be created, so only the required users of Altamira could make use of this application. All applications on /gpfs/res_apps will be installed, controlled and supervised by the user support team. This doesn't mean that the users could not help in this task, both can work together to get the best result. The user support can provide his wide experience in compiling and optimizing applications in the Altamira cluster and the users can provide his knowledge of the application to be installed. All that general applications that have been modified in some way from its normal behavior by the project users' for their own study, and may not be suitable for general use, must be installed over /gpfs/res_projects or /gpfs/res_home depending on the usage scope of the application, but not over /gpfs/res_apps.
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Batch System
The job scheduling system running at Altamira is SLURM. Current version of Slurm in Altamira is 20.11.7.
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Slurm has partitions to allocate jobs. In altamira, a group of nodes with same features are assigned to a partition. This following table resumes the main partitions and the principal properties of each of them. By default, compute is configured if --patition partition option is not defined in the job. Set it to res if you are coming from a RES project or use the testing partition for test jobs before submitting to the production partition (compute). Test jobs in the testing queue has a limit of 8 cpus and 3 hours of time as you can see below at qos.
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Once you have a username and its associated password you can get into Altamira system, connecting to one of the the 2 login nodes the only one login endpoint available at login1.ifca.esin the case of the first login or login2.ifca.es for the second one (see Login node to know more information about the login nodes). The password provided is temporal, you must change this initial password after connecting to IPA. Also use a strong password (do not use a word or phrase from a dictionary and do not use a word that can be obviously tied to your person).
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