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Next steps

  • Find your own institution's HPC and look up their documentation. Do they offer an introductory course similar to this one so you can learn how their setup works?
  • Request an account and see what similarities and differences it has from the system we used in the course.
  • Find a UK, European or global HPC that you can access. What is their process for getting an account? Do they offer a limited free service for learning or testing your application?
  • For a piece of software you use in your research, look at documentation and see if it can be run in parallel.

Transferring files

One of the easiest and quickest ways to transfer files is using scp (secure copy). Running scp <source> <target> on your local machine (i.e., laptop or desktop) allows you to copy files from a source on your local machine to a target destination on the HPC storage, or from the HPC back to your local machine. This is suitable for files up to 500GB.

It is strongly recommended that you use an ~/.ssh/config file as outlined on the Accessing CREATE page.

For MacOS/Linux, the config file should look like this, with <your k-number> replaced by your real k-number:

Host create
    Hostname hpc.create.kcl.ac.uk
    User <your k-number>
    PubkeyAuthentication yes
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

For Windows the config file should look like this, again with <your k-number> replaced by your real k-number:

Host create
    Hostname hpc.create.kcl.ac.uk
    MACs hmac-sha2-512
    User <your k-number>
    PubkeyAuthentication yes
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Using the config file in this format means that to copy a file called hello_world.sh from your local machine to your home directory on CREATE would be as simple as running the following command from your local machine in the same directory the file was in:

Linux and MacOS:

scp hello_world.sh create:/users/k1234567/hello_world.sh

Windows:

scp -o MACs=hmac-sha2-512 hello_world.sh create:/users/k1234567/hello_world.sh

To copy a file called hello_er.out from the your personal scratch space in /scratch/users/ to the current working directory on your local machine, you would run the following command on your local machine:

Linux and MacOS:

scp create:/scratch/users/k1234567/hello_er.out ./hello_er.out

Windows:

scp -o MACs=hmac-sha2-512 create:/scratch/users/k1234567/hello_er.out ./hello_er.out

Tip

For other ways to transfer files to CREATE HPC, see the instructions here.

Getting help

If you're not sure how to do something on the HPC, first check the docs as many common tasks are already covered here. If you don't find the answer to your question there, you can ask a question on the e-Research support forum or search to see if someone else has already asked it. If you're still stuck, you can submit a ticket requesting help by emailing support@er.kcl.ac.uk.