About home directory space on IU research supercomputers

• Overview
  • Appropriate use
  • Home directory paths
  • Home directory allocations (storage quotas)
• Access your home directory space
• Navigate your home directory space(s) and manage your files
• Share access with other IU research supercomputer users
• Work with PHI
• Get help

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Overview

Home directories are backed up once a month. Additionally, daily snapshots are taken of each directory and stored in hidden .snap directories, allowing users to recover their deleted or corrupted files. Thirty days' worth of snapshots are accessible; for more, see Recover deleted or corrupt files from your home directory or Geode-Project space on the IU research supercomputers.

Appropriate use

Your home directory space is intended for low-capacity, low-performance uses, such as storing documentation, configuration files, source files, and data files needed to run batch and/or interactive jobs on IU's research supercomputers. Your home directory space is not intended for storing large data sets, nor is it capable of handling data-intensive computational I/O from parallel compute jobs; other Research Technologies systems are provided for those purposes:

• For long-term archival storage of research data and/or storage for large data sets, apply for an account on the Scholarly Data Archive (SDA).
• For data-intensive computational I/O, use the Slate, Slate-Project, or Slate-Scratch high-throughput file system.

Home directory paths

For more, see this document's Navigate your home directory space(s) and manage your files section, below.

Home directory allocations (storage quotas)

To check how much allocated home directory space you're using, log into HPC everywhere and, in the "HPC Status" pane, look under "Storage".

When you exceed your home directory data quota or file limit, the system returns a disk or file quota error to the application you are using. If you reach or exceed the data or file quota while a job is running, the job will continue to run, but it will be unable to append or create output files in your home directory. As long as your home directory remains over quota, you (and the jobs you run) will not have access to additional storage space. To bring your home directory back under quota, delete unneeded files, and archive needed files on the SDA or another storage resource (for options, see Available access to allocated and short-term storage capacity on IU's research systems).

When in support of research activities, home directory quota increases may be granted. If you need home directory disk space, and other allocated storage options do not meet your needs, email the UITS Research Storage team. Users who need even larger home directory allocations can request additional storage for a nominal annual fee.

Access your home directory space

Once your account on an IU research supercomputer is created , you can use any of the following methods to access your home directory space.

• SSH: For command-line access to your home directory space, use your preferred SSH2 client to connect to the appropriate hostname(s) below:

  System	Hostname
  Big Red 200	bigred200.uits.iu.edu
  Carbonate	carbonate.uits.iu.edu
  Quartz	quartz.uits.iu.edu

  When prompted, log in with your IU username and passphrase, and then confirm your identity with Duo two-step login.

  For enhanced security, SSH connections that have been idle for 60 minutes will be disconnected. To protect your data from misuse, remember to log off or lock your computer whenever you leave it.

• SFTP: To transfer files between your personal computer and your home directory space, use a UITS-recommended graphical or command-line SFTP client to connect to the appropriate hostname(s) listed above. Log in with your IU username and passphrase, and then confirm your identity with Duo two-step login. For more, see Use SFTP to transfer files.
• Map or mount a drive: To map or mount your home directory space as a drive on your personal Windows, macOS, or Linux workstation:
  1. Email the UITS Research Storage team to request network access for your IU username.
  2. When Research Storage notifies you that network access for your IU username is set up, follow the instructions in Map or mount a drive to your home directory space or a Geode-Project space.

Navigate your home directory space(s) and manage your files

If you have home directory space on more than one IU research supercomputer, you can navigate the file system and manage files in each space without having to make separate SSH or SFTP connections.

For example, if you have accounts on Quartz and Big Red 200, connecting via SSH to quartz.uits.iu.edu places you on the command line in your Quartz home directory. You should see the following command prompt (with username replaced by your IU username):

[username@h2 ~]$

From there, you can:

• Navigate between your home directory spaces: To move from your Quartz home directory to your Big Red 200 home directory, at the command prompt, enter:

  cd ../BigRed200

  The command prompt will change to indicate your current location in the file system (with username replaced with your IU username):

  [username@h2 BigRed200]$

  To automatically return to your Quartz home directory, at the command prompt, enter:

  cd

• List the files stored in another home directory space: From your Quartz home directory, you can list the files in your home directory; at the command prompt, enter:

  ls ../BigRed200

  You should see a simple listing of the files in your Big Red 200 home directory; for example:

  file1 file2 matlab_script

• Copy a file from another home directory space: From your Quartz home directory, to copy a file (for example, matlab_script) that is stored in your Big Red 200 home directory and save it to your Quartz home directory, at the command prompt, enter:

  cp ../BigRed200/matlab_script ~/

• Create a new subdirectory in another home directory space: From your Quartz home directory, to create a new subdirectory (for example, R_files) in your Big Red 200 home directory, at the command prompt enter:

  mkdir ../BigRed200/R_files

• Move a file to another home directory space: From your Quartz home directory, to move a file (for example, R_input.R) in your Quartz home directory to your Big Red 200 home directory, at the command prompt, enter:

  mv R_input.R ../BigRed200

  Alternatively, to move the same file to the R_files subdirectory created in the previous example, at the command prompt, enter:

  mv R_input.R ../BigRed200/R_files

Share access with other IU research supercomputer users

To set up shared access to files and subdirectories in your home directory space for other IU research supercomputer users:

1. Direct users to whom you are granting access to email the UITS Research Storage team to request network access for their IU usernames.
2. Set up Access Control Lists (ACLs) for granting individual- and/or group-level access to specific files and/or subdirectories in your home directory space; for instructions, see Share access to your home directory space or Geode-Project space with other IU research supercomputer users.

Work with PHI

Get help

For help learning how to use command-line Unix/Linux, see Unix basics.

Geode, the service that hosts IU research supercomputer home directories, is operated by the Research Storage team within the Research Technologies division of UITS. If you have questions about your home directory space, or need help, email the UITS Research Storage team.