Early Release: Open OnDemand is in early/beta release, currenly only available to CU users, if you encounter any errors, please report them to rc-help@colorado.edu.

Open OnDemand (Browser Based HPC Portal)

CURC Open OnDemand is a browser based, integrated, single access point for all of your high performance computing (HPC) resources at CU Research Computing. CURC Open OnDemand provides a graphical interface to view, edit, download, and upload files, manage and create job templates for CURC’s clusters, and access CURC interactive applications (Virtual Desktops, Matlab, and JupyterNotebooks), all via a web browser and with minimal knowledge of Linux and scheduler commands required.

Getting started with CURC Open OnDemand

To connect to CURC Open OnDemand, visit https://ondemand.rc.colorado.edu. The first page of CURC Open OnDemand will bring you to a login prompt. Use your CU Research Computing credentials and Duo 2-factor authentication to login. If you need a CU Research Computing account please visit our account request page to get started.

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Notes on logging out:

  • You must completely quit your browser in order for “logout” to occur. If after reopening your browser you are still logged in, please clear your cookies. If you are on a Chromebook or Chromebox, you will need to reboot your device in order to “quit the browser” and thus “logout”.
  • Tip: Using a “private browsing mode” window while using OnDemand is a great way to handle “auto-logout”, as closing your browser window will remove all associated cookies and session information.

Features

When you have successfully logged into CU Open OnDemand you will see the landing page with the following features broken into tabs along the top of the page: Files, Jobs, Clusters (shell access), Interactive Apps, and My Interactive Sessions.

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We’ll step through these features one at a time.

Files

The File menu allows you to view and operate on files in different file spaces: your home directory, projects directory, scratch spaces, and (if you own one or are part of a group with one) access to PetaLibary allocations.

Selecting one of the file spaces will open a separate browser window which will allow you to navigate the space in a graphical setting similar to a file browser on a personal computer. From here you can download, upload, create, delete, and open files.

NOTE: Please use Globus to transfer files to/from /scratch/summit or /rc_scratch or if you have more than 1 GB of data to transfer. OnDemand is not designed to handle large file transfers.

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For additional documentation visit OSC’s File Transfer and Management help page.

Jobs

Jobs can be monitored, created, edited and scheduled with the job management tools under the Jobs menu.

  • Active Jobs: Under the “Active Jobs” tab you can view active jobs. You can choose to view your jobs (or all jobs) as well as choose from specific clusters (Alpine, Core, Summit, or All Clusters). From this menu you can cancel your own jobs.

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  • Job Composer: Create and edit job scripts and schedule jobs under this menu.
See OSC’s Job Management help page for detailed use of the job composer feature.

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Clusters (Shell Access)

The Clusters menu provides shell access to login nodes on CURC clusters. The shell terminal is similar to many other tools that provide terminal access.

Currently both Summit and Alpine shells log you into a basic login node, you can load in either Alpine, Summit, or Blanca slurm instances from here: module load slurm/<cluster> with either summit, alpine, or blanca.
  • Alpine: The Alpine tab will launch a terminal that RC users can use to manually access an RC Login node. After the tab opens, type your CURC password and accept the Duo push to your phone to complete login to the terminal.
  • Summit: The Summit tab will launch a terminal that RC users can use to manually access an RC Login node. After the tab opens, type your CURC password and accept the Duo push to your phone to complete login to the terminal.

Interactive Applications Menu

The Interactive Applications menu contains options to launch certain applications that have graphical user interfaces (GUIs), for interactive use on CURC clusters. Current supported applications include a remote desktop atop the core cluster, MATLAB, and JupyterHub .

Core Desktop (Remote Desktop)

  1. When starting a Remote Desktop session you may customize the resources allocated to the session and other characteristics of the dispatched Slurm job. The default will open a Remote Desktop with 1 node (2 cores) for 1 hour (no need to specify account). ../_images/core_launch.png
  2. Click “launch” to submit the Remote Destop job to the queue. The wait time depends on the number of other users presently on the resource. Requesting smaller, shorter jobs may faciliate shorter wait times.
  3. When your Remote Desktop is ready you can click the “Launch Core Desktop” button. In most cases the default compression and image quality will suffice but if you do have problems with image quality you can adjust these settings as necessary.
  1. With the Remote Desktop session running and open, you should be able to run standard Linux desktop applications that have a graphical user interface (GUI). Instructions to use graphical software can be found at the RC EnginFrame page.

Notes:

  • You can copy/paste into/out of the VNC desktop using the clipboard in the “hidden” tab on the left-hand-side of the virtual desktop. ../_images/copypasta.png
  • Closing the window will not terminate the job, you can use the “My Interactive Sessions” tab to view all open interactive sessions and terminate them.

MATLAB

  1. When starting an interactive MatLab job you may customize the resources allocated to the session and other characteristics of the dispatched Slurm job including the Matlab version. In most cases the defaults will be adequate (i.e, no need to specify an account). ../_images/matlab_launch.png
  2. Click “launch” to submit the MATLAB job to the queue. The wait time depends on the number of cores, nodes, and time requested.
  3. When your Matlab session is ready you can click the “Launch MATLAB on Core- CURC” In most cases the default compression and image quality will suffice but if you do have problems with image quality of the Remote Desktop you can adjust as necessary. An interactive Matlab session will be started in a new window.

Notes:

  • Matlab can also be opened in the Core Remote Desktop, once you’ve opened a Remote Desktop session instructions can be found at the RC EnginFrame page. Some users find running Matlab in the Core Remote Desktop option provides an enhanced experience.
  • Closing the window will not terminate the job, you can use the “My Interactive Sessions” tab to view all open interactive sessions and terminate them.

Jupyter Notebook

  1. When starting an interactive JupyterHub job you may customize the resources allocated to the session and other characteristics of the dispatched Slurm job. In most cases the defaults will be adequate (i.e, no need to specify an account or partition).
NOTE: Jobs are currently limited to 1 core per node requested.
  1. Click “launch” to submit the JupyterNotebook job to the queue. The wait time depends on the number of nodes and cores as well as time requested. ../_images/jupyter_launch.png
  2. Once your Jupyter Notebook session is ready you can click the “Launch Jupyter Notebook” In most cases the default compression and image quality will suffice but if you do have problems with image quality of the Remote Desktop you can adjust as necessary. An interactive Jupyter Notebook session will be started in a new window.
  3. For more information on running Jupyter Notebooks check out RC’s page on Jupyter.

Notes:

  • Closing the window will not terminate the job, you can use the “My Interactive Sessions” tab to view all open interactive sessions and terminate them.
  • Users can also run Jupyter Notebooks in the CURC Jupyterhub at https://jupyter.rc.colorado.edu.

My Interactive Sessions

The My Interactive Sessions menu will let you view and manage all of your current open Interactive applications. From this window you can view the node/core count, status, as well as time remaining for current sessions.

Closing the window an interactive application is opened in will not terminate the session, you will need to click the “Delete” button for the individual session. ../_images/my_interactive_sessions.png

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