/compute-guide

Primary LanguageSCSS

Public Servers

The UVA CS Department provides servers for computing needs. See UVA Computing Resources for more information.

How to access servers

  1. Log in to portal.cs.virginia.edu through ssh first as a forward server. If you do not have credentials yet, contact the CS IT team to request access for your computing ID.

  2. Check available servers. Commonly used commands:

    • sinfo: Servers in the state of idle and mix are potentially available (sometimes reserved servers are not displayed correctly).
    • scontrol show reservations : Reserved servers are only available to users on the reservation list.

  3. Then you have two choices:

    • Submit a slurm script(UVA slurm information) to run a job.
    • Use the salloc command like the one below to use the server interactively. 
      salloc -p gpu -N 1 -c 10 --mem=30G -J InteractiveJob -t 0-00:30:00 --gres=gpu:2 -C a40
      This command allocates two A40 GPUs, 10 CPUs, and 30GB of RAM for a 30-minute session. If no duration is specified, the default maximum runtime is set to four days. More explanations about the arguments can be found in UVA slurm information. Once the server resources are allocated, enter the following command to access the server interactively: 
      srun --pty bash -i -l --

  4. If we have reserved a server(slurm reservations), add --reservation=rry4fg_7 in the salloc command or #SBATCH --reservation=rry4fg_7 in the sbatch script. Replace rry4fg_7 with the reservation tag provided by IT. Note that you cannot use the reserved servers without the tag, even if your ID is on the reservation user ID list.

Modules

Modules are pre-installed software packages in the Slurm system that users can access without root or sudo privileges.

To view the list of available modules, use the command module avail. To load a required module, such as nvtop, use module load nvtop.

If a needed module is not available, contact the CS IT team for assistance with installation or alternative solutions. See Software Modules for more information.

Development servers

The gpusrv[01-19] servers(GPU servers), which are low GPU memory servers, can be directly accessed via SSH for developing and debugging code.

Server Issues

If you encounter any hardware or software issues with the servers, send an email to cshelpdesk@virginia.edu.